Robert Plant by Dave Thompson

Author:Dave Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: biography
Publisher: Backbeat
Published: 2014-11-17T16:00:00+00:00

10

Let the Boogie Woogie Flow

(1969)

Led Zeppelin was a democracy. All four members decided on the group’s direction; all (at the discretion of Peter Grant, of course) decided on its ambition. But there was one place where democracy was cast aside: in the studio.

As the most experienced musicians in the band, Page and Jones naturally assumed control of the recording process; they did so without even thinking about it. Any questions that their bandmates might have asked—“How do we do this” or “How did you do that”—one or the other would know the answer. If a procedure or process needed to be explained, it would be Page or Jones who did the explaining. A decade apiece spent working in every major studio in Britain had taught both of them all they needed to know, with Page automatically assuming the role of overall producer and Jones the unquestioned authority on arrangements. “I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the band,” Page admitted. “I knew precisely what I was after, and how to get it.”

Plus, he controlled the purse strings too, with Plant and Bonham still on a weekly wage and therefore forever aware that one word from Peter Grant could see either or both of them cut adrift. And already, both had too much to lose. Zeppelin received an unprecedented $200,000 advance from Atlantic Records—unprecedented, that is, for an unknown band—and both Plant and Bonham were promptly handed £3,000 apiece, to do with what they would. They bought matching gold Jaguars. For Plant, this went some way toward compensating him for missing his own wedding reception, as Zeppelin’s gig at the London Roundhouse pulled him away from the festivities, and for missing his first Christmas as a married man too. Zeppelin were off to America.

They flew into Los Angeles and booked into the Chateau Marmont in the company of Richard Cole, a roadie whom both Grant and Page knew from the final Yardbirds tour. It was he, more than their bandmates, who would be responsible for easing the new boys, Plant and Bonham, into the rhythm of life in America, acquainting them not only with the high life with which every touring rock band of the era was to become au fait, but also with the less salubrious aspects. Why they shouldn’t consider going out to a gig in that particular part of town. Why they could visit this record store here, but should probably avoid that one there.

Growing up in England, Plant had long since grown accustomed to being harangued on the streets for having long hair, to the point where he no longer thought anything of it. It was Cole’s responsibility to inform him that Americans often let their fists do the talking if they saw something they didn’t like. Their fists or worse.

Likewise the police. The old-fashioned British Bobby was already a thing of the past at home, as rumors flew of the police’s penchant for planting drugs on hapless hippies. American cops, however, didn’t have an

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.