Led Zeppelin by Led Zeppelin

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After changing their name from the New Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin signed a deal with Atlantic Records that afforded them considerable artistic freedom. We have also listed the titles of the Led Zeppelin books in case you would prefer to look for the one you're after by title.

But the stories Spitz unearths and reiterates about what Led Zeppelin and their entourage got away with are, even to readers jaded to bad celebrity behavior, appalling. Even the inventor of shock rock, Alice Cooper, is considered (as described in Michael Walker’s excellent “What You Want is in the Limo”) to be a nice guy.

Spitz, whose previous subjects include The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Ronald Reagan, knows he needn’t exaggerate the band’s abhorrent behavior, from drummer John Bonham’s blind-drunk sexual assaults to guitarist Jimmy Page’s petulant entitlement. No act as big as Zep wants to be remembered for the inevitable decadence associated with ALL of the music business , particularly of the 60s and 70s era. He follows Lori Mattix’s name repeatedly with “the fourteen year old,” so that even the most fervent Jimmy Page fan is hopefully forced to reckon with the guitarist’s relationship with a teen.

Sure, Spitz allows, not all of the band members or roadies preyed on teenage girls, and defecated and urinated on fans, but all were at various times either complicit or, at best, voyeurs to a nauseating level of violence and degradation. I must admit, I did really enjoy it from the point of the fact that it didn’t get bogged down with anything in particular and covered a vast range of their whole career. This 400-page book celebrates 50 years since their formation and features photos of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham on and offstage, in candid moments and in the recording studio. But when The New Yardbirds came on the stage and started playing, I was happily surprised by their energy. Throughout the last five decades there have been new fans arriving every day to witness these master musicians," says Jimmy.Many people might insist on separating the art from the artist or believe that ethics in touring culture can occasionally be situational. Every detail, from their formation via leader Jimmy Page’s Yardbirds to their last show, in Berlin, in 1980—the recordings, the live shows, the business, the debauchery, the way it all landed in the world—is explored with sophistication. Previous proposals for a Led Zeppelin film “were pretty miserable,” Page said in September, “to the point where they would want to be concentrating on anything but the music. The book mentions a 1988 Malcolm McLaren interview with Grant which took place for an unreleased documentary, raising hopes that Spitz has uncovered previously unreported comments. Often described as “heavy,” any true fan will tell you that the band’s 9 studio albums and 81 tracks thereon are actually a complex amalgam of blues, psychedelia, rock, folk, and country that reveal the influences of Led Zeppelin’s four members.

Bought this as a present for an adult Zep fan, but, despite quality binding/cover, the content was little more than a collection of photos. From LZ’s guitar-god origins through its boozy, drug-addled decline, Bob Spitz doesn’t miss a riff, solo or trashed hotel room.What some may find frustrating is the actual lack of text offered; photo captions are limited to “date and location” descriptions and even the large pictures covering two pages have no caption at all. The book’s prologue describes the band’s legendary January 26, 1969 Boston Tea Party show, explaining its significance and the impact it had on a young Steven Tyler in the audience.