Sonic Boom: The Impact of Led Zeppelin. Volume 1 - Break & Enter. Frank Reddon
Andrew Loog Spector waiting in the wings to swoop down and “salvage” his band’s sound at the last moment. Unlike The Beatles prior to their first recording session, Page had spent many years in a studio environment and as such didn’t need a George Martin in tow to make his music manifest. That’s why Led Zeppelin’s superior state-of-the-art sound and pristine production values immediately stood out in stark contrast against the vastly inferior subsonics that Leigh Stephens and Mark Farner had to endure.
Of course, having all those New Yardbirds-honed songs make it onto the first album didn’t hurt matters either—even if some of Page’s “original” compositions did prove to be of questionable provenance. Besides, it sure was fun to watch the song writing credits change with each new label pressing as a succession of ageing plaintiffs came forth to successfully seek retroactive song writing recognition. Or, as he was memorably memorialized on The Simpsons: “There’s Jimmy Page, one of the greatest thieves of American black music to ever walk the Earth.”
But why quibble over a small thing like that when it’s the world’s greatest rock’n’roll guitarist we’re arguably talking about? After all, what makes Page great isn’t his technical ability so much as it’s the robust riffs he preternaturally comes up with—and especially how he mentally conceptualizes them. Two examples which immediately come to mind are his solo on Walter’s Walk off Coda and the ending of Feeling Hot off the Coverdale Page album.
Despite being one of the most moronic rock songs ever written, Page manages to salvage Feeling Hot in the very last minute by coming up with not one, not two, but three different meaty high octane riffs that anyone else would take and milk three entire songs out of. Instead, Page just casually tosses them off into the ether as if they were nothing before moving on to the next song.
Then there’s the extraordinary Zen-like solo during the middle of Walter’s Walk in which Page selects a few notes and then proceeds to weave them into four distinct configurations, each of which is a cohesive part of an organically intertwined whole. Add that kind of advanced thinking to Plant’s creative caterwauling, Bonham’s brutal bludgeoning and Jones’ dexterous double duty and it’s no wonder that Led Zeppelin struck fast, struck deep, and still remains lodged in our collective musical psyche.
Technical proficiency coupled with quality song writing will always make a good first impression, but authentic heart and soul will always be much harder to come by—and always impossible to fake if you want that initial impression to last a long time. That’s why we still enjoy listening to Led Zeppelin some four decades after the fact: because every time we hear them, we’re all 14 year olds who intuitively get it for what it is and for what it will always be.
JEFFREY MORGAN has been the Canadian Editor of CREEM: America’s Only Rock’n’roll Magazine since 1975. He is also the author of the definitive authorized biography of Alice Cooper, The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper, which is published by Sam and Jack Warner. His award-winning newspaper column, Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout, appears weekly in Metro Times Detroit. He resides in Toronto where he oversees the international humanitarian tax-deductible charity organization he founded, Rock Critics Without Borders. Contact address: [email protected]
LOUI MALONE
SHARES MEMORIES OF TIME SPENT WITH THE YARDBIRDS AND LED ZEPPELIN – IN CONCERT AND OUT
Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, grabbing a bite in a quiet moment off stage.
Courtesy: Howard Mylett Collection, used with permission. Enzepplopedia Publishing, Inc.
Loui Malone was right there, at the height of the 1960s San Francisco music scene. As well as enjoying those heady times, she was in a documentary that was selected to be viewed at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969. A picture of her walking with friends on San Francisco’s famous “Hippie Hill” hangs in Cleveland, Ohio’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, freezing forever that moment in time.
As if all of this weren’t enough excitement in her life at the time, Loui Malone also got to see and meet The Yardbirds in Ruidoso, New Mexico on September 7, 1966. In this interview, Malone recounts that fascinating experience and piece of popular music history. She also saw Led Zeppelin on the band’s First U.S. and Canadian Tour when the group debuted at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, California, on one of the nights between January 9 and 12, 1969.
REDDON:
Hi, Loui! After emailing back and forth, it’s great to speak to you. Thanks very much for permitting me to interview you. I’ve really been looking forward to this for quite some time.
MALONE: Hi, Frank! Nice to talk to you. I’m glad you’re so interested in my recollections. That was an amazing piece of my life. It’s gratifying someone else has some interest in this very special era gone by.
REDDON:
My interest is more than a passing one, I guarantee you that. Let’s start by having you talk about your experience with The Yardbirds in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like a rather remote place to see them.
MALONE: No, that’s right. Although Ruidoso is very beautiful, it’s not a place where you might expect to see a group like The Yardbirds. Ruidoso is two hundred miles south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, which most people are familiar with. It’s also sixty miles west of Roswell. Ruidoso actually means “noisy waters”. It’s a tourist town - a skiing town in winter and a nice summer spot for recreation and historical points of interest and natural beauty. It has many amenities for enjoyment there, year round. A racetrack called Ruidoso Downs is quite an attraction because of its quarterhorse racing.
Ruidoso brought in a few bands but not many because it’s a relatively isolated place. I do recall that another British band, Paul Revere and The Raiders, came through but not a great many artists toured through Ruidoso.
REDDON:
I’m familiar with Roswell because of all the UFO sightings associated with it, right?
MALONE: That’s right. Roswell is the UFO place! I was a big Yardbirds fan about 1965-66. They were always my favourite and I couldn’t believe they were coming to Ruidoso. My friends had a local band called The Bossmen. They were to be the warm-up band when The Yardbirds were scheduled to play here at the Ruidoso Convention Center. It was probably in 1966 or 1967. The night before The Yardbirds were to perform, the hot water heater/boiler or whatever, blew up! The damage was extensive enough to cancel the concert. They needed to find another place to hold the concert and in a big, BIG hurry!
The Bossmen were actually in charge of a place in Ruidoso that served as a local haunt for a night club/music venue. It was called “The Hut”. It was owned by some buddies of theirs in Roswell, but The Bossmen were running The Hut for them. So, between my friends in The Bossmen, some others and the promoters of The Yardbirds, they decided to play at The Hut. Ironically, it was right across from the Ruidoso Police Station!
REDDON: Yup, I get the picture!
MALONE: Yeah, it was quite amusing. The Bossmen played at The Hut regularly. It was a very popular place for the kids in town to hang out for music and a fun night out. The Hut wasn’t a big place, by any means. It had high wooden roof rafters and wooden floors; yet it had an innate charm that translated into a cozy atmosphere you might find at a smaller music club. I think it was originally a roller rink, the way it was built. The best way to picture it is like an old gymnasium. A bunch of us set about cleaning The Hut up, to get it ready for where The Yardbirds were now going to play all of a sudden, the very next night.
We worked like crazy people all night and managed to get it ready, with next to no notice. It’s a fond memory and we all had a good time doing it. We knew it was going to be an amazing concert in a most unlikely place, so that kept us cleaning like mad as well. We couldn’t believe this was going to