(Credit: Far Out / Alamy)
The Beatles and Led Zeppelin have lengthy been talked about in the identical breath, on condition that Led Zep knocked the Fab 4 off their perch as essentially the most thrilling band within the late Nineteen Sixties. Additionally breaking the Liverpudlian group’s file for the highest-ever live performance attendance in 1973, this immense success has meant that the 2 are inextricably related in music historical past. Nevertheless, based on Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, the bands had been vastly totally different.
Whereas the sounds of each teams is perhaps distinct, based on Bonham, Led Zeppelin had been from an period when musicians represented one thing solely distinguishable from when The Beatles had been at their pomp. Particularly, this was that, earlier than all else, listeners needed to benefit from the music as a substitute of going to exhibits in an effort to marvel on the aesthetic wonders in entrance of them.
Bonham’s extremely perceptive feedback got here when showing alongside Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant on the BBC’s present affairs programme, Nationwide, in 1970. After successful quite a few accolades at that 12 months’s Melody Maker ballot, the pair had been within the studio to speak with host Bob Wellings. The awards noticed them ship one other blow to The Beatles’ cultural standing as they gained ‘Greatest UK Group’ and ‘Greatest Worldwide Group’ with Plant additionally taking house ‘Greatest UK Singer’. Not completed there, 1969’s Led Zeppelin II was additionally voted ‘Greatest UK Album’.
Naturally, Wellings sought to attract parallels between The Beatles and Led Zeppelin however couldn’t assist patronising the 2 long-haired musicians earlier than him. Wellings mentioned that regardless of all of the totally different variations that had been performed upon The Beatles’ 1965 hit ‘Yesterday’, he might nonetheless hum the melody. Nevertheless, he posited that he couldn’t have achieved the identical for any of Led Zeppelin’s songs.
He then requested the band in the event that they thought they might be within the limelight so long as the Fab 4 and be thought of as “creative”. It was then that Bonham silenced Wellings’ assertions with some real perception. He pointed to altering listener attitudes and that they had been profitable as a result of followers had been appreciating them as musicians, not simply as a industrial drive.
Bonham mentioned: “I feel that’s why the awards have modified as a result of the youngsters are altering for a begin, and so is the music. Effectively, there’s already a single out of ‘Complete Lotta Love’ – an orchestra taking part in it – which is sort of attention-grabbing, actually. The flute performs what the lead vocal would do.”
Following this, Wellings requested if Bonham claimed that his band’s followers didn’t need to whistle or hum their songs as a result of they had been a lot “extra subtle” than his technology. Once more, he parried this notion and outlined how Led Zeppelin had been from a significantly totally different time to that of The Beatles.
He defined: “Effectively, no, not in that sense. I feel lately, let’s say the general public, let’s not simply say the youngsters, as a result of we’ve had all kinds of individuals at concert events, I feel that they’re coming to hearken to what you’re taking part in and never simply to have a look at you and see what you might be. I imply, I bear in mind, that is going again a number of years, once I first went to see The Beatles – as a result of we’ve talked about them a number of occasions – it was to have a look at them. You didn’t actually hassle with what you had been listening to, and immediately, it’s not what you might be; it’s what you’re taking part in.”
Watch the interview under.
