Led Zeppelin

Led Zep consisted of: Jimmy Page (guitar), Robert Plant (lead vocals, harmonica),
John Bonham (drums), and John Paul Jones (bass guitar and keyboards).

Formed in 1968, Led Zeppelin were innovators who never lost mainstream appeal.
While the band is perhaps best known as pioneers of hard rock and heavy metal,
they also drew inspiration from many other musical genres, including blues,
rockabilly, reggae, soul, funk, jazz, Celtic, Indian, Arabic, folk, pop, Latin and country.

Over 25 years after disbanding in response to drummer John Bonham's death in 1980,
Led Zeppelin continues to be held in high regard for their artistic achievements, commercial success, and broad influence.
To date, the group is reported to have sold more than 300 million albums worldwide, including 109.5 million sales in the United States.

In 1968, while bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones still dominated the charts on both sides of the Atlantic,
newer, heavier styles of rock and roll were being played by groups like The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream.
In that same year, a new British band, Led Zeppelin, began to form their own distinctly thunderous sound,
and would play a critical role in the creation of a new musical genre, hard rock.

Shortly after their first tour, the group's eponymous first album,
Led Zeppelin was released on January 12, 1969.
Its blend of blues, folk, and eastern influences with distorted amplification
made it one of the pivotal records in the creation of heavy metal music.

Although several of Led Zeppelin's earliest songs were based on blues standards,
others such as "Good Times Bad Times" and "Communication Breakdown" had a unique and distinctively heavy sound.
Led Zeppelin also featured delicate steel-string acoustic guitar on "Black Mountain Side",
and a combination of acoustic and electric approaches on the reworked folk song "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You.

" The dark centrepiece of the album, "Dazed and Confused", contained a furious
Jimmy Page solo and a "trance-like" opening riff of descending notes.
That song and "How Many More Times" mark some of the first recordings of bow guitar
(the playing of an electric guitar with a violin bow).
This innovation would become one of Jimmy Page's many trademarks, both on stage and in the studio.
The album features Plant vocally mimicking Page's guitar effects--
another invention that would become a Led Zeppelin staple on later albums, and especially in concert.

The success of Led Zeppelin's early years would be dwarfed by a five year period
in which the band would release their most famous albums
and ascend to the very peak of musical success in the 1970s.
The band's image also changed as members began to wear elaborate,
colorful clothing and jewellery similar to other popular performers of the era such as Liberace.

If the band's popularity on stage was impressive, so too was its reputation for off-stage wildness and excess.
Led Zeppelin began travelling in a private jet airliner (nicknamed The Starship),
rented out entire sections of hotels
(most notably the Continental Hyatt House in Los Angeles, known colloquially as the "Riot House"),
and became the subject of many of rock's most famous stories of debauchery.

One escapade involved John Bonham throwing televisions out of the windows of the Riot House
during a drunken rampage and then blaming the damage on Led Zeppelin groupies.
But perhaps the most notorious story of Led Zeppelin excess was the infamous Shark episode,
which took place at the Edgewater Inn in Seattle, WA, on July 28, 1969.

Both during their active years and long afterwards,
Led Zeppelin cast a long shadow in the music industry and inspired countless
other rock bands to adopt a similar style of heavy guitar riffs,
a powerful bassline, and agressive high-pitched vocals.

Some have speculated that the "Hair Metal" movement of the 1980s
was largely an effort to recapture the type of rock and roll Led Zeppelin
had pioneered in the 60s and 70s, including clothing and hairstyles.

Among the most heavily influenced bands are some of the most succesful rock groups of the late 70s, 80s, and 90s:
Heart, Poison, Skid Row, The Darkness, The Black Crowes,
Def Leppard, Rush, Iron Maiden, Guns N' Roses, and Van Halen
(Guitarist Eddie Van Halen has cited Jimmy Page's lightning fast solo in the song Heartbreaker
as the inspiration for his two handed tapping technique).

Drummers Neil Peart and Tommy Lee have cited John Bonham as an inspiration for his playing style.
Guitarists Slash and Alex Lifeson, call Jimmy Page a major influence,
and vocalists Sebastian Bach and Axl Rose have adopted singing styles similar to Robert Plant's.

Pop-culture phenomenons, such as the usage of the terms "rock gods" and "guitar gods",
can be directly traced to Led Zeppelin's injection of mythological and spiritual themes into rock music--
one of the first steps in separating rock and roll from blues-based roots
and paving the way for heavy metal, which has become laden in such images and lyrics.
Likewise, the band's choice of elaborate wardrobe, hairstyles, and flaboyant onstage gestures
influenced generations of rock musicians to come,
and have in some quarters become the definative archetypes of what a rock band should look and act like.

Also beginning in the early 1980s,
other musical artists showed interest in experimenting with Led Zeppelin's music.
This led to the creation of many tribute bands, the recording of countless cover songs,
and, with the advent of hip hop, the usage of Led Zeppelin songs by artists like the Beastie Boys and Puff Daddy.

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