Quote: “About Led Zeppelin..”
To properly appreciate Led Zeppelin, I believe it’s helpful to know a little about the background of the individuals in the group.
Singer Robert Plant had been involved in a Birmingham area blues group that featured Jon Bonham on drums. A number of well-known heavy rock groups including Black Sabbath, came from that region.
Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones had been very active as extremely successful recording session players in London, playing on a breath-taking number of recordings, from a very wide array of artists, in lots of different styles and genres.
In an earlier post, the complexities of overdubbing drums to a recorded track were described and I mentioned a favourite drummer friend, who featured on most of my own productions.
His name was Bobby Graham and Jimmy Page, like me would at times, stay overnight at Bobby’s place in Edmonton, (where Clem Cattini also hailed from) so were pretty friendly and got on well together, as you can imagine.
Bob and Jim were part of a very successful, elite recording session group of rhythm section players, (rather similar to the American wrecking crew). Jimmy Page, Big Jim Sullivan, Bobbie Graham, John Paul Jones, Brian Odgers, Arthur Greenslade, (as well as Vic Flick, Clem Cattini, Nicky Hopkins and others like Herbie Flowers as the line-up could vary session to session), who between them played on a massive number of hit recordings, in a wide variety of musical styles.
Sometimes big Jim might be used, sometimes little Jim got the job, Little Jim had a fantastic feel for blues, rock, standards and pop playing, but didn’t sight read. Big Jim could sight read (that’s a whole other story) and excelled at standard’s, pop, country and rock and roll styles.
If a producer hired them both, dependant on the musical genre, and whether sight reading was required, they would swap around who played lead and who played rhythm, for the best result for the specific music.
So, producers found using the combination of both players provided for a top performance, for the majority of recordings that were needed to be made, as an album would feature a variety of styles.
The thing about Jimmy was that once he had heard the music he had to play on, he knew what he was going to do, and that would be locked in his head.
He was superbly creative in delivering exactly what the specific music required.
That innovative quality of creativity is inherent to all top line session musicians, but Jim had it in absolute bucket loads. Which I think is why he was always so against sight reading and still is to this day. It would have cramped his creativity.
Producers like Shel Talmy, would often hire backup session players, like Little Jim, or Bobby if the group being recorded insisted on playing on their record, and so Jimmy Page was there for a Pete Townsend recording of the Who, just in case. (But wasn’t needed).
You would be amazed at the huge number of different top artists they created hit recordings for!
After so many years of this, Jimmy Page got tired of playing musak and wallpaper or elevator music.
I think things came to a head for him when a huge number of musicians were in the studio for a series called “Gonks Go Beat”.
He really wasn’t interested in making that type of music, any more by that point. After the session, Bob asked him “How did you find it Jim? It looked like you were playing up a storm.”
“I turned my amp off” Jim replied, knowing with such a lot of musicians it wouldn’t make much difference as there were three guitarists on that session. To me it’s an indication he was now determined to move in a new direction altogether.
With Jim on guitar and John on bass, to form a group they needed a singer and a drummer. Jim had a couple of drummers already in mind. But Robert knew Jon Bonham, and after hearing him, Jim felt he had that heavy sound that was an important part of the direction in which he was moving. If you will forgive a cliché “the rest is history”.
Although these busy session players, were often doing three or more sessions every day.
Sometimes they would have an hour or so free and listen to the playback of their recordings in the control room.
During such occasions Jim or Bob would watch, what and how producers and engineers did things in the studio, as they mixed the sound. Discretely, quite separately, they would ask a question here and there, and over time grasped enough to finally acquire the confidence to launch out into a producing roles for the first time.
So, Jimmy Page formed Led Zeppelin and went into producing.
Bobby Graham joined French band leader, club and restaurant owner Eddie Barclays record label Barclay Records as a producer in Paris.
Quincy Jones was the labels musical director and George Massenburg was the labels engineer. Whilst Stephan Grappelli, Sacha Distell and Jimi Hendrix (a guitar player) were amongst those featured on the label.
Tony Meehan drummer of the Shadows, also went into producing and recorded hits for Jet Harris. Tony was voted “Best Drummer in the U.K.” by readers of the New Musical Express following their hit Diamonds, with its drum solo!
Actually, Bobby Graham played on the track with a new, stainless steel, Premier snare. Then, he was used to everyone else getting the fame, for he played drums on the Dave Clark Five’s hits, like “Bits and Pieces” and “Glad All Over” and that knocked The Beatles off Number 1 in relative anonymity!
Before Ringo came along and seeking a new drummer, Brian Epstein offered Bob the seat with The Beatles, but he turned it down as The Beatles weren’t well known nationally at the time. Got his leg pulled a lot about that!
Here’s a few links, the drummers on "Gonks Go Beat" are Ronnie Verrell, Bobby Graham and Ginger Baker, Alan White, etc. et al.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CycDqx2-qc0
Some of Bob’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5efZ5DJBwc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My5YMXGbq_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EipdAjhImrc
Vinark posted a comment earlier and I’m not sure if it was simply a statement, or that he wanted a response to it? Either way I’m happy!
In any case, there are a number of reasons I bought my RME rig in preference to that of other manufacturers.
Transparent Mic Pre’s. Rock Solid Drivers, Perceptual Zero Latency and Unparalleled Customer Support!
But Zero Latency is one of RME's major benefits, and whatever the extra cost over lesser products.
That alone, is worth the price, to music makers!