Led Zeppelin, page 66
“The idea of ‘Communication Breakdown’”: JP, quoted in Tobler and Grundy, Guitar Greats, p. 102.
“I was caught up”: RP, quoted in Williamson, “Good Times, Bad Times,” p. 54.
William Burroughs first used: Deena Weinstein, “Just So Stories: How Heavy Metal Got Its Name—a Cautionary Tale,” Rock Music Studies 1, no. 1 (2014): 36–51, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19401159.2013.846655.
“basically a hard rock group”: JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 64.
“bastard term”: JP, quoted in Mylett, Jimmy Page, p. 22.
described as a “bone-rattling”: Lester Bangs, “Bring Your Mother to the Gas Chamber,” Creem, June 4, 1972.
“There are mistakes”: JP, quoted in Rosen, “Jimmy Page.”
“a landmark in rock ’n roll”: Johns, Sound Man, p. 116.
“Jimmy’s put this band together”: Glyn Johns interview.
“It was just amazing”: Jeff Beck, quoted in Dave Thompson, “Led Zeppelin: Pre-Flyte,” Goldmine, July 2007.
“OK, now where’s the album?”: “I was mortified when Peter Grant played me the acetate.” Jeff Beck, quoted in Vince Garbarini, “Jeff Beck,” Guitar, April 2001.
That may have been so: “Peter had told Jimmy, ‘Watch Jeff’s group, they’re really taking off over there.’ ” Jeff Beck, blind-quoted in Power, No Quarter, p. 197.
“It was a total freak accident”: JP, quoted in Thompson, “Led Zeppelin.”
“I didn’t know he’d recorded it”: JP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 58. “I hadn’t known he’d done it, and he hadn’t known we had.” JP, blind-quoted in Guitar Player. Also in Power, No Quarter, p. 195.
“a much better package”: Jeff Beck, blind-quoted in Power, No Quarter, p. 198.
“No one likes people”: Chris Charlesworth, interview with the author, May 13, 2019.
“Peter had miscalculated”: Phil Carson, interview with the author, July 2, 2019.
“The conservatism goes”: RP, quoted in Ritchie Yorke, “Ask-in with a Led Zeppelin a Week: Thinking as a Sex Symbol Can Turn You into a Bad Person—Robert Plant,” NME, April 11, 1970.
“I got a lift back afterward”: “They had gold taps in the bathroom, gorgeous wood-paneled walls. It was like walking into a different world, even though it was a council flat.” Dave Pegg, interview with the author, November 28, 2018.
On March 15, 1969: John Mendelssohn, “Led Zeppelin,” Rolling Stone, March 15, 1969.
“That album haunted Jimmy”: Chris Charlesworth interview.
“I put it on”: John Mendelssohn, interview with the author, May 6, 2019.
“It was galling”: JPJ, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, pp. 128–29.
“That’s the way”: Peter Grant, quoted in Welch, Peter Grant, p. 87.
“We just couldn’t seem”: JP, quoted in Salewicz, Jimmy Page, p. 167.
“The rock press did not”: Danny Goldberg, interview with the author, August 28, 2018.
“I suppose my early love”: JP, quoted in Marc Myers, “The Making of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love,’ ” Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2014.
“Just atrocious”: “Tony Secunda stuck us in the Madison Hotel and said, ‘You’re in the studio tomorrow. We need you to write a few songs.’ ” Kevyn Gammond, interview with the author, May 7, 2019.
“ ‘Well, what am I going to sing?’”: RP, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 142.
“He used to be at all”: Steve Marriott, quoted in Paolo Hewitt, Small Faces (London: Acid Jazz Books, 1995), p. 131.
“We did, however, take some liberties”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 89.
“developed in the studio”: RP, interview with Terry Gross, Fresh Air, WHYY-FM, August 24, 2004.
“Wherever it comes from”: RP, blind-quoted in Salewicz, Jimmy Page, p. 171.
“sounded strong enough”: JP, quoted in Myers, “Making of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love.’ ”
“I had this avant-garde”: JP, quoted in Myers, “Making of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love.’ ”
“My confidence was building”: RP, interview with Gross, Fresh Air.
“It was an oscillator”: JP, quoted in Mylett, Jimmy Page, p. 23.
“I detuned it and pulled”: JP, quoted in Myers, “Making of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love.’ ”
Chapter Eight: The New Normal
“Never had loudness”: Mark Finch, “Led Zeppelin Lets Listeners Feel the Music,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 20, 1969.
“Rock ’n roll was meant”: Roger Mayer, interview with the author November 25, 2018.
“The plan was to capture”: JP, quoted in David Fricke, “Jimmy Page: The Rolling Stone Interview,” Rolling Stone, December 6, 2012.
“on the run between hotel rooms”: RP, quoted in Nigel Williamson, “Good Times, Bad Times,” Uncut, May 2005, p. 56.
“When we recorded that”: RP, quoted in Steve Peacock, “Robert Plant,” Sounds, June 26, 1971.
“It’s not happening”: Chris Huston, quoted in Steven Rosen, “Chris Huston, Eddie Kramer’s Co-engineer on Led Zeppelin II,” Guitar World, July 1986.
“They were thirteen”: Rodney Bingenheimer, interview with the author, January 23, 2019.
“They were mostly latch key kids”: Michael Des Barres, interview with the author, February 20, 2019.
“They all had girlfriends here”: Vanessa Gilbert, interview with the author, January 31, 2019.
“ ‘Hello, what are you doing here?’”: Peter Grant, interview with Malcolm McLaren, 1988.
“Maybe it was a sign”: Cole, Stairway to Heaven, pp. 77–78.
“Sex, in heavy metal’s discourse”: Deena Weinstein, Heavy Metal (New York: Lexington Books, 1991), p. 102.
“let loose an earthquake”: Bob Harvey, “Hot Rock Band Loud, Frenzied,” Edmonton Journal, May 10, 1969.
“ended up leaving”: Ann Wilson, quoted in Lewis and Tremaglio, Evenings with Led Zeppelin, p. 98.
“The PA was [nothing more than]”: RP, interview with Terry Gross, Fresh Air, WHYY-FM, August 24, 2004.
“an exhibition of incredible”: John Mendelssohn, “Led Zeppelin, Rose Palace, Pasadena,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1969.
He had guzzled a third: “He was so drunk, he fell off his stool twice.” Cole, Stairway to Heaven, p. 81.
“I saw Peter get very”: Bill Harry, interview with the author, May 15, 2018.
“They never knew”: Peter Grant, quoted in Lewis and Tremaglio, Evenings with Led Zeppelin, p. 113.
Along one wall: Dave Pegg, interview with the author, November 28, 2018.
“When Led Zeppelin came on”: Hugh Nolan, “Pop Proms—a Riotous Start,” Disc and Music Echo, July 5, 1969.
“You didn’t notice”: JPJ, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 51.
“I was hanging on”: RP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 51.
“a massive personal triumph”: “The Zeppelin truly deserved the acclaim.” Nick Logan, “Zeppelin and Fleetwood Take Off with a Roar,” NME, July 5, 1969.
“Jimmy was elated”: “He gave me a lift home in a black cab we hailed outside Royal Albert Hall.” Carole Brown Woods, interview with the author, November 8, 2019, and Carole Brown Woods, email to the author, November 19, 2019.
“When we did shows”: JP, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 137.
“Three English groups”: Jeff Beck, quoted in Steven Rosen, “Jeff Beck on Jimmy Page,” Guitar World, July 1986.
Bonzo was warming up: “He had been drinking all afternoon and was eager to leave.” Cole, Stairway to Heaven, p. 94.
“John was a good guy”: Carmine Appice, interview with the author, April 9, 2019.
“Bonzo’s got to get a grip”: Cole, Stairway to Heaven, p. 95.
“at the side of the stage”: JP, quoted in Henry Smith, interview with the author, October 2, 2019.
“Wake ’im up!”: Joe Wright, interview with the author, November 28, 2018.
“You get hammered”: Joe Wright interview.
Robert Plant put voice to it: “I was the golden god. . . . I was in a palm tree actually.” RP, quoted in Williamson, “Good Times, Bad Times,” p. 60.
“We recognized we were done”: Carmine Appice interview.
“It was really sickening”: RP, quoted in Ritchie Yorke, “ ‘Ask-in with a Led Zeppelin a Week: Thinking as a Sex Symbol Can Turn You into a Bad Person—Robert Plant,” NME, April 11, 1970.
“In fact, we were invited”: “We were in the room when it happened.” Robert Plant, quoted in Blake, Bring It On Home, p. 83.
“some cream-filled donuts”: Ellen Sander, Trips (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), p. 113.
“The rock business is volatile”: Sander, Trips, p. 110.
“just young guys”: “The thing people forget when they tut-tut about this stuff is what a laugh we were having.” RP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 167.
“There was a certain amount”: JP, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 150.
“It was quite insane, really”: JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, pp. 73 and 72.
“was an afterthought”: “I just fancied doing it.” JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 90.
“We recorded and overdubbed”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 87.
“to get excitement onto a piece”: JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, pp. 72–73.
“It was more like a nightclub”: Bebe Buell, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 267.
“It was the epicenter”: Michael Des Barres interview.
“It was like one big playground”: Steven Rosen, “Danny Goldberg’s Hideaway,” Guitar World, July 1986.
“How do you alleviate”: Benji Le Fevre, interview with the author, May 19, 2019.
In Stairway to Heaven: Cole, Stairway to Heaven, pp. 105–6.
“Richard invited me and Robert”: Joe Wright interview.
“I said no to Woodstock”: Peter Grant, quoted in Lewis, Led Zeppelin: From a Whisper to a Scream, p. 29.
“may have overstepped the mark”: JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p.72.
“we’ll all just have to go”: Peter Grant, quoted by Maggie Bell, interview with the author, May 8, 2019.
“Tom Waterson, the man who ran”: Maggie Bell interview.
Right up until showtime: June Harris, “America Calling,” NME, January 11, 1969.
“every musician that happened”: MM’s Chris Welch, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 154.
Some, like Melody Maker’s Chris Welch: “They were nicer to Chris Welch than to anybody else, so they got him inside from the very beginning.” Chris Charlesworth, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 132; Chris Charlesworth, interview with the author, May 13, 2019.
“Chris was considered all right”: Richard Cole, quoted in Blake, Bring It On Home, p. 106.
“Turned out they’d arranged”: Chris Welch, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 132.
he delivered a rave: Chris Welch, “Led Zeppelin at Carnegie Hall,” MM, October 25, 1969.
“It was the first time”: Chris Welch, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 154.
“tortured voice and Page’s guitar”: “Led Zeppelin II,” Time Out: London, December 6, 1969.
“[Marcus] was probably hoping”: John Mendelssohn, interview with the author, May 6, 2019.
“Led Zeppelin was very touchy”: Chris Charlesworth interview.
“Peter made it abundantly clear”: Nick Kent, quoted in Blake, Bring It On Home, p. 106.
“I don’t believe in pussyfooting”: Peter Grant, quoted in Michael Watts, “The Man Who Led Zeppelin,” MM, June 22, 1974.
“You’ll take the group off stage”: Peter Grant, quoted in Billy James, An American Band (Middlesex, UK: SAF, 2001), p. 83.
“Four men dragged me upstairs”: Mac Nelson, quoted in Blake, Bring It On Home, p. 99.
“AM radio was not”: Jerry Greenberg, interview with the author, January 10, 2019.
“Peter was not pleasant”: Phil Carson, interview with the author, July 2, 2019.
“You don’t fucking know enough”: Peter Grant, quoted in Blake, Bring It On Home, p. 85.
“call the fucking record back”: Ahmet Ertegun, quoted in Phil Carson interview; Jerry Greenberg interview.
“a marketing genius”: “Peter Grant turned out to be right.” Phil Carson interview.
“in excess of $5 million”: Financial Times, blind-quoted in Power, No Quarter, p. 215.
“the audience surrendered totally”: Björn Håkanson, “Zeppelin Triumphed,” Svenska Dagbladet, February 27, 1970.
Countess Eva von Zeppelin: “We first heard from her right around the time the New Yardbirds became Led Zeppelin.” Carole Brown Woods, email to the author, April 7, 2020.
“I had to run and hide”: JP, blind-quoted in Power, No Quarter, p. 215.
“she wasn’t going to have”: RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 89.
“We had a couple”: Phil Carson, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 91.
Chapter Nine: Into the Distant Past
“I don’t think we can”: JPJ, quoted in Caroline Boucher, “Zeppelin Shoots at the Gasbags,” Disc, December 12, 1970.
“It never came off”: Henry Smith, interview with the author, October 2, 2019.
“We were driven off the road”: RP, quoted in Nigel Williamson, “Good Times, Bad Times,” Uncut, March 2003, p. 58.
Two cops in a bathroom: “They didn’t know I was there in a stall and were trying to come up with a way to plant shit on Led Zeppelin.” Williamson, “Good Times, Bad Times.”
And in Memphis, with a coliseum: “He actually held Peter at gunpoint, and then pointed the gun at Robert.” Terry Manning, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 176.
“You see so much”: RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 99.
“It’s just like being back”: JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 96.
“You’d go into a venue”: Henry Smith interview.
“living like an animal”: JPJ, quoted in Phil Sutcliffe, “Getting It Together at Bron-yr-Aur: The Story of Led Zeppelin,” Mojo, April 2000.
“baronial life”: “It’s like the New Renaissance of Berkshire, I suppose.” JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 151.
“fed up with humanity”: RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 155.
Jimmy already had two numbers: “I had already written ‘Immigrant Song’ and came up with ‘Friends’ a day or two before we got together at Robert’s house in the West Midlands . . . and I had ‘Tangerine’ from a number of years beforehand—before Led Zeppelin.” JP, blind-quoted but attributed to an article in The Guardian in 2004 in Salewicz, Jimmy Page, p. 204.
“a work in progress”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 116.
“We’d been working solidly”: JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 92.
“It would do me a lot”: JP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 53.
“It was a fantastic place”: RP, quoted in Williamson, “Good Times, Bad Times,” p. 56.
There was no road: “You have to drive across the fields and mountains to get to it.” RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 93.
“Oh, we’re here”: JP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 53.
“to create a pastoral side”: RP, quoted in Williamson, “Good Times, Bad Times,” p. 56.
“When I first heard that LP”: JP, quoted in Rob Mackie, “Jimmy Page,” Sounds, April 21, 1973.
“country-soul feeling”: Robert Christgau, “In Memory of the Dave Clark Five,” Village Voice, December 11, 1969.
a New Zealander, Clive Coulson: “Sandy MacGregor was a real gypsy. I never knew his real name. It sure wasn’t Sandy MacGregor.” Henry Smith, interview with the author, October 25, 2019.
“We collected wood”: “We had candles, and I think there were gaslights.” Clive Coulson, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 155.
“The original plan was to just go”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 112.
“So, there we were”: RP, blind-quoted in Salewicz, Jimmy Page, p. 205.
“It was a tiring walk”: JP, blind-quoted in Power, No Quarter, p. 221.
“I went out on a balcony”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 115. Elsewhere he has said it occurred at Bron-Yr-Aur.
“Bron-yr-Aur gave Jimmy and me”: RP, quoted in Barney Hoskyns, “Mountain Man: RP Goes Back to His Welsh Roots,” Tracks, Fall 2003.
“When we conceived”: RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, pp. 94–96.
“What would it take”: Glyn Johns, interview with the author, May 18, 2018.
“We’ll be recording”: JB, quoted, unsourced. Lewis, Led Zeppelin: From a Whisper to a Scream, p. 38 .
“We were into Joni Mitchell”: JPJ, quoted in Popoff, Led Zeppelin p. 77.
“As soon as I got”: Andy Johns, quoted in Popoff, Led Zeppelin p. 77.
“It didn’t come off”: “We had attempted to record it before.” JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 118.
“blues with a rock ’n roll”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 120.
“It was meant to push”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 119.
“lived every line”: Richard Digby Smith, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 193.
“I don’t know where”: RP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 63.
“Let’s try the outro”: “I remember Pagey pushing him.” JP, quoted by Richard Digby Smith in Phil Sutcliffe, “Getting It Together at Bron-yr-Aur,” Mojo, April 2000.
“to calm it down”: RP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 65.
“a lot of insecurity and nerves”: “Gradually, bit by bit, I’m finding myself now.” RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 96.
“The places that the String Band”: RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 61.
