A Book Of Led Zeppelin

LED ZEPPELIN I

- Zeppelin's debut album, Led Zeppelin I, was released on 12 January 1969 in the US and 31 March 1969 in the UK by Atlantic Records.

- It was recorded in October 1968 at Olympic Studios in London, produced by Jimmy Page and engineered by Glyn Johns (who Page had known since they were teenagers growing up in Epsom).

- It's ranked at #29 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

- The album took only 36 hours of studio time to create (including mixing! bloody hell). The recording time was so short because the material selected for the album had already been well-rehearsed on tour in Scandinavia in September 1968. As Page explained, "The band had begun developing the arrangements on the Scandinavian tour and I knew what sound I was looking for. It just came together incredibly quickly."

- The band had not yet signed their deal with Atlantic Records when they recorded the album, meaning Page had to pay for the sessions out of his own pocket. This meant there was no record label money to waste on studio time, another reason why it was recorded so quickly. In another interview, Page revealed that paying himself was also a way to ensure freedom with what they were doing: "I wanted artistic control in a vice grip, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do with these fellows. In fact, I financed and completely recorded the first album before going to Atlantic ... It wasn't your typical story where you get an advance to make an album – we arrived at Atlantic with tapes in hand ... Atlantic's reaction was very positive – I mean they signed us, didn't they?"

- Led Zeppelin archivist (that's a job?!) Dave Lewis said: "with the possible exception of the 12 hours that the Beatles took to record their first album at Abbey Road, rarely has studio time been used so economically,"

- Page: "The first album is a live album, it really is, and it's done intentionally in that way. It's got overdubs on it, but the original tracks are live." Yeah, and it sounds great.

- Page used this album to demonstrate the sound recording techniques he had learned during his session days and also included many of his own, that were unusual at the time and not widely used.

- Robert Plant participated in songwriting but was not given credit because of an unexpired contract from time he'd spent with CBS Records.

- Page: "For material, we obviously went right down to our blues roots. I still had plenty of Yardbirds riffs left over. By the time Jeff [Beck] did go, it was up to me to come up with a lot of new stuff. It was this thing where Clapton set a heavy precedent in the Yardbirds which Beck had to follow and then it was even harder for me, in a way, because the second lead guitarist had suddenly become the first. And I was under pressure to come up with my own riffs. On the first LP I was still heavily influenced by the earlier days. I think it tells a bit, too... It was obvious that somebody had to take the lead, otherwise we'd have all sat around jamming for six months. But after that, on the second LP, you can really hear the group identity coming together."

- For whatever reason, critics hated the album, giving it harsh and often unfair reviews. Rolling Stone magazine wrote that that the band "offered little that its twin, the Jeff Beck Group, didn't say as well or better three months ago ... It would seem that if they are to fill the void created by the demise of Cream, they will have to find a producer, editor and some material worthy of their collective talents." It also called Robert Plant "as foppish as Rod Stewart, but nowhere near so exciting". The journalist who wrote all that most likely regretted those words later on.

- On the subject of harsh reviews, John Paul Jones later said: "We had appalling press at the time. Nobody seemed to want to know us for one reason or another. We got to America and read the Rolling Stone review of the very first album, which was going on about us as another hyped British band. We couldn't believe it. In our naivety we thought we'd done a good album and were doing alright, and then this venom comes flying out. We couldn't understand why or what we'd done to them. After that we were very wary of the press, which became a chicken-and-egg situation. We avoided them and so they avoided us. It was only because we did a lot of shows that our reputation got around as a good live band,"