Led Zeppelin: The Oral History of the World's Greatest Rock Band

by Barney Hoskyns

Overview

The definitive oral history of the iconic, bestselling rock band Led Zeppelin

With Robert Plant on lead vocal and Jimmy Page on guitar, Led Zeppelin is one of the most iconic, legendary, and influential rock bands in musical history. Tales of their indulgence in sex, drugs, and excess have swirled for decades. In this definitive oral history of the band, Barney Hoskyns finally reveals the truth about Led Zeppelin, paring away the myths and describing what life was really like for four young men on top of the world, enjoying fame on a scale that not even the Beatles experienced as a touring live act. Through fresh new interviews with the surviving band members, close friends, their tour manager, and scores of other fascinating characters, Hoskyns provides deep insights into the personalities of the band members and chronicles the group's dramatic rise, fall, and legacy.

• Based on more than 200 interviews with everyone from Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones to road manager Richard Cole, their late manager Peter Grant, and many others central to the Zeppelin story
• Features striking photos of the band both on and offstage, many published here for the first time
• Takes a fresh look at Led Zeppelin's music, cultural significance, and legend, as well as the highs and lows of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle on the road
• Analyzes the way the band wrote, arranged, and recorded, from how they created the stupendous sound and dynamics on "Dazed and Confused" and "Whole Lotta Love" to the group's folk-suffused acoustic side embodied in songs like "Friends" and "That's the Way"
• Written by Barney Hoskyns, contributing editor at British Vogue who is the author of the bestselling book Hotel California and the co-founder of online music-journalism library Rock's Backpages

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118234907
Publisher:	Trade Paper Press
Publication date:	09/28/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	576
Sales rank:	789,546
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

BARNEY HOSKYNS cofounded and editorially directs the online music-journalism resource Rock's Backpages (www.rocksbackpages.com). He is the author of several books, including Hotel California, an acclaimed history of the Los Angeles music scene. A former U.S. correspondent for MOJO and a contributing editor at British Vogue, he currently writes for MOJO, the Guardian, and other publications.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Personae Gratae xxiii

PART 1 ALL SHOOK UP 1

1 Surbigloom Blues 5

2 The Impenetrable Brotherhood 19

3 Walking into Stourbridge 31

4 The Freakout Zone 44

5 Happenings Fifty Years’ Time Ago 60

6 Turning to Gold 74

PART 2 IN THE LIGHT 85

7 Whatever Jimmy Wants 87

8 Atlantic Crossing 105

9 Like a Freight Train on Steroids 116

10 Every Inch of My Love 133

11 In the Misty Mountains 151

12 Stairwell to Headley 173

13 Heavy Friends 189

14 Trampled under Foot 208

15 When I Look to the West 226

PART 3 TWITCHY TIMES 241

16 Out of the Maelstrom of Mediocrity 245

17 Almost Infamous 273

18 Invocation of My Demon Brother 294

19 Turning into the Storm 316

20 A Powerhouse of Madness 338

21 Roundheads and Cavaliers 349

22 Does Anyone Remember Laughter? 371

23 Polar Opposites 379

24 Dinosaurs Rule! 396

PART 4 WEARING AND TEARING 407

25 Staggering from the Blast 409

26 The Swan Song 419

27 Jimmy’ll Fix It 427

28 Dark Days for a Cocksman 440

29 Mighty Rearrangements 455

30 What Was 471

31 And What Should Never Be 480

Author Interviews 491

Other Sources 497

Acknowledgments 511

Notes 515

Index 517

Editorial Reviews

This collection of interviews explores Led Zeppelin's music, partying, mysterious aura, and business and interpersonal relationships. Starting with two sessions players (Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones) joining forces with two English country rockers (Robert Plant, Bonham) and their meteoric rise to popularity, then their drug-fueled tours and ultimate demise, Hoskyns (Hotel California) leaves no stone unturned. He does an especially great job finding people who knew the band members before they were famous and their voices paint a dynamic picture of what American blues meant to the British rock scene. Through the rest of the work, the balance of quotes comes from the band's management, roadies, and families/groupies, which means that while there are a lot of great anecdotes and stories, the focus often turns to the business and social aspects of the band's world. For those less interested in the rock and roll lifestyle and more into music, there are some nice passages about Zep's recording, production, and songwriting methods that help to bring their songs to life. While Page, Plant, and Jones spoke to Hoskyns, only Plant, who explains why he remains opposed to getting the band back together, truly opens up about his feelings, making this a fitting if just slightly incomplete history of one of rock's most enigmatic bands of all time. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

*

"An exhaustive and exemplary portrait"—Bernadette McNulty, London Daily Telegraph

"This meticulously compiled oral history… has a wonderful humour and a careful examination of the how and why of the darkness that surrounded the band and its entourage."—Hugh MacDonald, Sunday Herald (Scotland)

"An engrossing trip through the sordid '70s."—Will Hodgkinson, The Times (London)

"Barney Hoskyns's exhaustive history… never forgets that behind the caricature was an extraordinary band, lithe and limber."—Michael Hann, The Guardian (London)

"Hoskyns leaves no stone unturned." —Publishers' Weekly

"Every time I think I know everything about Led Zeppelin, a book like this comes along and reminds me that I know nothing."—Chuck Klosterman

"This is the proper book Zeppelin have always deserved."—Nick Coleman, author of The Train in the Night 

"Barney Hoskyns is rock's poet of observation, a journalist with a very valuable gift for separating the nugget from the slag. [This oral history] is a complex tale that makes sense of the senseless, weighing artistic triumph against human tragedy."—Fred Goodman, author of The Mansion on the Hill

"The saga of Led Zeppelin told by those who knew them when, this intimate oral history goes beyond scandal to reveal the all-too-humans behind this most Promethean of rock bands."—Lenny Kaye

From the Publisher