The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience
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Today in 1968, John Paul Jones officially replaced former Yardbirds bassist Chris Dreja in Jimmy Page’s new band, to become known as Led Zeppelin a few months later. Page knew he needed a virtuoso bassist who, when needed, could quickly move to other roles (arranger, keyboards, etc.), onstage and in the studio. The page already knew Jones as a session colleague, so a rehearsal would not be so much a test of his abilities as a matter of determining if he would fit in. If I recall correctly, he fit in just fine…
After replacement, Dreja turned to another passion, photography, and quickly started a professional career. In fact, he took the photo that appeared on the back jacket of Zeppelin’s debut album.
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Jimmy Page went to Island and Olympic studios in London to remix the tapes for Zep’s upcoming fourth album. The tapes had already been mixed in April at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, but an unanticipated mismatch between the tape machines at Sunset and Olympic meant most of the tapes had to be remixed from scratch.
The only album track whose Sunset mix survived through to the released album was “When the Levee Breaks.” “Black Dog” and “Stairway” were remixed at Island, and the five remaining tracks on the album were remixed at Olympic. This, among summer tour dates and other commitments, pushed the projected April 1971 release of the album back to November 8.
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Today in 1968, with his band The Yardbirds basically disintegrating at this point, Jimmy Page told Go magazine, “The others were in the Yardbirds for four or five years. They had lost all of their enthusiasm. Keith Relf, the singer, was fed up for a long time and he was always threatening to leave the group.” Page went on to say that he and bassist Chris Dreja were keeping the Yardbirds name because “people have associated a type of sound with the name. It’s a heavy beat sound and I want to keep that.” The beat would remain, but the name would not…
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My earliest memory of Led Zeppelin, though surely not my first encounter, takes place in the summer of 1994. I had just turned twelve years old and wouldn't go to my first concert until a few months later. Having grown up listening to classic rock radio, I was already familiar with the band's music, but never had the opportunity to experience the albums as a whole. Being on vacation from school, I found myself with an abundance of free time while my parents were away at work. One day, I decided to go down to the basement and dig out the boxes that held all of my dad's old records. Inside I found a wealth of rock and roll treasures, from Aerosmith to ZZ Top. But it wasn't Black Sabbath or Talking Heads I was interested in, today all I wanted was Led Zeppelin.
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Over time, those tapes have all been lost or recorded over, replaced by newer, better versions. But as the years went by and the band's music became more ingrained in my soul with each repeated listen, the one thing I could never get back was the experience of hearing those albums for the first time. Now, at the end of a year-long quest to listen to more Led Zeppelin that I ever had before, I find that the most satisfying result is not the catalogue of reviews I've written or the deeper understanding of the band's dynamic as performers I've gained, but something much greater.
