Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin is the debut that four musicians built themselves, before any record contract, out of the collapse of the Yardbirds. Fresh from a Scandinavian tour billed as the New Yardbirds, Jimmy Page (guitar), Robert Plant (vocals), John Paul Jones (bass and keyboards) and John Bonham (drums) entered London's Olympic Studios in September and October 1968. It took only about 36 hours of studio time, and the £1,782 bill was paid out of pocket by Page and manager Peter Grant. Page produced; his old friend Glyn Johns engineered and mixed. From the sharp opening of “Good Times Bad Times” through the heavy descent of “Dazed and Confused,” the rush of “Communication Breakdown” and the improvised reach of “How Many More Times,” blues language becomes explosive collective expression rather than a form. Viram Jasani adds tabla to “Black Mountain Side,” letting acoustic space and enormous volume share one record. Page ran the Telecaster given to him by Jeff Beck through a Supro amp, using the sound of the room itself to build depth. Rolling Stone's John Mendelsohn panned it; the album still reached number 10 in the US and number 6 in the UK. A defining starting point that showed from the outset how far hard rock could expand.