Led Zeppelin : the biography / Bob Spitz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Spitz, Bob, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Led Zeppelin (Musical group).

Rock musicians--England--Biography.

Rock musicians.

England.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

673 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Penguin Press, 2021.

Summary:

No one before or since has lived the rock star dream quite like Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. Spitz separates the myth from the reality, starting with the opening notes of their first album as the band announced itself as a collision of grand artistic ambition and brute primal force, of English folk music and hard-driving African-American blues. Taken together, Led Zeppelin's discography has spent an almost incomprehensible ten-plus years on the album charts; the band is notoriously guarded. Spitz brings the band's artistic journey to full and vivid life. He shows that not all the legends are true, but what is true is astonishing, and sometimes disturbing. -- adapted from jacket

"From the author of the definitive New York Times bestselling history of the Beatles comes the authoritative account of the group Jack Black and many others call the greatest rock band of all time, arguably the most successful, and certainly one of the most notorious. Rock stars. Whatever those words mean to you, chances are, they owe a debt to Led Zeppelin. No one before or since has lived the dream quite like Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. In Led Zeppelin, Bob Spitz takes their full measure, for good and sometimes for ill, separating the myth from the reality with the connoisseurship and storytelling flair that are his trademarks. From the opening notes of their first album, the band announced itself as something different, a collision of grand artistic ambition and brute primal force, of delicate English folk music and hard-driving African-American blues. That record sold over 10 million copies, and it was the merest beginning; Led Zeppelin's albums have sold over 300 million certified copies worldwide, and the dust has never settled. Taken together, Led Zeppelin's discography has spent an almost incomprehensible ten-plus years on the album charts. The band is notoriously guarded, and previous books shine more heat than light. But Bob Spitz's authority is undeniable and irresistible. His feel for the atmosphere, the context--the music, the business, the recording studios, the touring life, the radio stations, the fans, the whole ecosystem of popular music--is unparalleled. His account of the melding of Page and Jones, the virtuosic London sophisticates, with Plant and Bonham, the wild men from the Midlands, into a band out of the ashes of the Yardbirds, in a scene dominated by the Beatles and the Stones but changing fast, is in itself a revelation. Spitz takes the music seriously, and brings the band's artistic journey to full and vivid life. The music is only part of the legend, however: Led Zeppelin is also the story of how the 60's became the 70's, of how playing in clubs became playing in stadiums and flying your own jet, of how innocence became decadence. Led Zeppelin may not have invented the groupie, and they weren't the first rock band to let loose on the road, but they took it to an entirely new level, as with everything else. Not all the legends are true, but in Bob Spitz's careful accounting, what is true is astonishing, and sometimes disturbing. Led Zeppelin gave no quarter, and neither has Bob Spitz. Led Zeppelin is the full and honest reckoning the band has long awaited, and richly deserves"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. A Case of the Blues

2. Getting Down to Business

3. Reinventing the Wheel

4. Front

5. The Black Country

6. Don't Tread on Me

7. Breaking Through the Sound Barrier

8. The New Normal

9. Into the Distant Past

10. Invoking and Being Invocative

11. Just Boys Having Fun

12. A Law unto Themselves

13. The Land of Mondo Bizarro

14. Led Zeppelin Was Otherwise Engaged

15. Flying Too Close to the Sun

16. Home Away from Home

17. The Year of Living Dangerously

18. The Other Side of the Spectrum

19. Their Own Private Sodom and Gomorrah

20. A Transition Period

21. Swan Song

22. Coda.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [645]-649) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Spitz, Bob, Led Zeppelin

ISBN:

9780399562426

0399562427

9780593492246

0593492242

OCLC:

1226900226