LZ-'75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour

by Stephen Davis

Overview

A revealing insider's account of Led Zeppelin's 1975 North American tour from the bestselling author of Hammer of the Gods.

As a young music journalist in 1975, Stephen Davis got the opportunity of a lifetime: an invitation to cover the sold-out 1975 North American tour of Led Zeppelin for a national magazine. He received a backstage pass, was granted interviews with band members, and even got a prized seat on the band's luxurious tour jet, The Starship. While on duty, he chronicled the Zeppelin tour in three notebooks, but after writing his article in 1975 he misplaced them. Three decades later, he finally found the notebooks and unearthed a vivid account of the band members' extravagant, and often troubled, lives on tour.

Tied together by Davis's entertaining narrative, and including more than forty never-before-published photographs, LZ-'75 is an unprecedented and comprehensive personal portrait of the greatest (and most notoriously press-shy) rock band in history at its apex.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592406739
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/06/2011
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Stephen Davis’s many acclaimed books include the Rolling Stones history Old Gods Almost Dead as well as the New York Times bestsellers Walk This Way (with Aerosmith), Fleetwood (with Mick Fleetwood), and the Led Zeppelin history Hammer of the Gods.

Editorial Reviews

Rock journalist Davis tries to do for Led Zeppelin what Larry Kane's Ticket To Ride does for the Beatles—give fans an inside look at life on the road for a legendary band. But Davis fails to add anything new to what is already well known about these heavy metal pioneers. One of the few journalists invited to follow the band as they crisscrossed the country on their spring 1975 tour, he recounts a series of anecdotes of on- and offstage antics. Groupies, alcohol, illness, violence, and bad behavior of all sorts abound, but somehow Davis, who uses his recently discovered journal notes from the tour to piece this story together, manages to make it all seem boring. VERDICT A quarter century ago, Davis published a disappointing but best-selling biography of Led Zeppelin, Hammer of the Gods, and his latest will neither surprise nor inform anyone familiar with the band; even readers new to the group will likely not find their interest piqued. Still, people will be looking for it. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/10.]—Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia

Library Journal

Rock journalist and biographer Davis (Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N' Roses, 2008, etc.) commemorates Led Zeppelin's 1975 U.S. tour.

An extension of the author's 1985 Zeppelin chronicle, Hammer of the Gods, the appearance of this book is somewhat puzzling. The '75 American tour was neither the band's first, last, best nor most notorious. It was plagued by illness (Robert Plant), injury (to Jimmy Page's hand), lawsuits or criminal charges waiting to happen (to John Bonham, called "The Beast," but never to his face) and equipment malfunction (John Paul Jones's Mellotron, essential to the band's new centerpiece, "Kashmir"). The chief justification for the book is Davis's rediscovery of a boxful of notes and memorabilia from the tour, which he had covered forAtlantic Monthly(whose "old fart" editor in chief at the time never saw fit to actually run the piece). As odd a subject as the tour may seem, there are reasons to recommend it. In 1975, the band released Physical Graffiti, the first on their own Swan Song label. Previously considered just a band for suburban teenagers, Zeppelin was at the height of their commercial and critical success. However, the band members were beginning to be seen as overblown dinosaurs far removed from the concerns of their fans, and punk rock was bubbling up to challenge blues-influenced megabands like Zeppelin for the hearts and minds of anguished adolescents. Davis writes with enormous affection for that passing world, indulging in a little reminiscence of his own lost youth as he recalls his front-row seat for (arguably) the biggest band ever.

A somewhat ragged but intriguing time capsule, sure to appeal to Zeppelin and classic-rock fans.

Kirkus Reviews