N°107 LED ZEPPELIN - WHOLE LOTTA LOVE

Off course the jump from Dave Grohl to Josh Homme works through Them Crooked Vultures but then the next jump ties in also with the same band since John Paul Jones always has been one of the Led Zeppelin faces.

The aircraft started in 1968 and was founded by the rockstar Jimmy Page, remaining from the band Yardbirds. He added Robert Plant on vocals, John Bonham on drums and off course John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards.

Since the Yardbirds split up and Jimmy Page had to fullfill some performances in with that band he needed to find urgently a few new bandmembers to play these Scandinavian gigs. At these shows they performed under the bandname The New Yardbirds, later revised to Led Zeppelin. They liked working together for that short period of time and decided to bring a new  album under the Led Zeppelin name. Released early 1969 this album contained some hard blues and many acoustic songs. Later that year they’d already have a follow up under the name Led Zeppelin II. Also the albums Led Zeppelin III and Led Zeppelin IV followed with a year in between of them. After this fourth album the’d get more creative with naming their LP’s. 

 

Everyone knowns Led Zeppelin’s masterpiece Stairway To Heaven, covered by any, but still best in its original sounds, bu what many don’t know is that this song never has been released as a single. Stairway To Heaven never made the charts at that time although you’ll find it in many of all time music charts nowadays. You’ll find it on The Runes Album, a nickname for the fourth Led Zeppelin album.

In between 1971 and 1980 they’d bring five more albums with names as Presence and In Through The Out Door but when drummer John Bonham dies in 1980 Led Zeppelin seizes to exist leaving behind a twelve year legacy of good music. The only studio album released after the break up is Coda (1982) containing forgotten songs or earlier recordings.

Once in a while Led Zeppelin comes back to the surface and the three remaining Zeppelonians perform on different occasions with different drummers. In 1988 was a special one since Jason Bonham, John’s son joined them on drums. Earlier they played also with Phil Collins at the 1985 Live aid. Led Zeppelin will never go on tour again but once in a while, when you’re lucky you can see them perform on special occasions.

This concludes this trilogy of bands. Sorry I didn’t include Queens of The Stone Age yet; which I could have done in between Foo Fighters and Them Crooked Vultures since Dave Grohl played for them for a short period of time; but I’m working a bit ahead from time to time and I needed them in the link later on. I have a no re- appearing within 100 songs rule, remember?

They’ve taken into the rock and roll hall of fame in 1995 and got a Grammy lifetime achievement award ten years after and they also have a few famous cover bands. There are these ladies covering them in the band Lez Zeppelin and they also have a reggae coverband named Dread Zeppelin. In Belgium, my home country the tribute band is called Letz Zeppelin. All cool names for covering the real stuff.

Finally I’d like to conclude with the symbols for each of the 4 musicians. You’ll always find them in this order and are in respective order for Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and Robert Plant. Did you know that the creative producer of the series Charmed based himself on Robert Plant’s symbol for the three witches? He’s a fan. All the symbols have their own meaning and have some king of magical origin:

The Zoso symbol (Robert Plant): A symbol taken from the book Saturn from 1851 which was a reprint of the 1521 book Dragon Rouge et Poulet Noir (red dragon and black chicken).  It is also a sign for the planet Saturn. 

The non interlaced triquetra overlaying the circle (John Paul Jones) is from The Book Of Signs from 1930. This symbolizes confidence and competence. 

The three intersecting circles (John Bonham) is also from The Book Of Signs. It’s a plain symbol for family values representing man, woman and child. It is also assumed the threefold represents Egyptian gods Osiris, Isis and Horus. Respectively the God of the underworld or death, Goddess of love and fertility and their son the Falcon God or known as God of the Heavens. 

And the Feither in the circle can be found in the 1933 Feather Symbol Of Truth. The feather used to be the symbol for the Egyptian goddess of justice and fairness named Ma’at.