Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy

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Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy

Led Zeppelin is arguably one of the best rock n’ roll bands of all time. They were collectively some of the best musicians ever to play rock n’ roll music, and were also great lyricists. Robert Plant (the lead vocalist) was quoted as saying that for some of the songs that he wrote, he felt that someone pushed the pen for him. Whether some mysterious force was moving his hand or not, one things for sure, Led Zeppelin wrote some timeless masterpieces of music.

They were formed from the ashes of British blues-rockers the Yardbirds. Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelins official founder) started off as the bassist for the Yardbirds, but eventually moved on to play electric guitar for the band. In 1968 the Yardbirds broke up leaving Jimmy Page the rights to the band. Jimmy went out looking to start a new group and found charismatic vocalist Robert Plant, Roberts close friend and explosive drummer John Bonham, and already famous bass guitar player John Paul Jones. The group hit it off and did a few shows in England before renaming the band Led Zeppelin.

Somewhat a mysterious band, Led Zeppelin rarely did interviews and did not talk much to the press. For these reasons much of the press did not like them. However, their fans loved them. Led Zeppelin established a strong fan base by means of intense touring from the start of the group’s formation. With this intense touring came a lot of temptation. Led Zeppelin indulged in heavy drug and alcohol abuse as well as a lot of sex with groupies, especially American groupies. Their regimen of intense partying would eventually cause the band problems and inevitably lead to the bands undoing with the death of drummer John Bonham. I feel that Led Zeppelin could have been much more. To many Led Zeppelin fans that might sound crazy, but I truly feel that they had much more to offer the world than they ever got to give. The reason I say this is because they really didn’t have a long career and within a 5 or 6 years of forming the band they started having misfortune and tragedy such as the death of Robert Plants son, Roberts car accident (which interfered with his touring and ability to perform for a few years), John Bonham’s excessive alcohol use, and Jimmy Pages’ heroin addiction that obviously interfered with their touring and songwriting.

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