From Blues to Boom: Unpacking Led Zeppelin II's Timeless Riffs

All Things Music Plus+
Oct 22
6 min read

October 22, 1969 – Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin II is released.

# ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 5/5 (MUST-HAVE!)

# Rolling Stone (see original review below)

LISTEN/BUY

Led Zeppelin II is the second studio album by Led Zeppelin, released in the US on October 22, 1969 (October 17 in the UK). It topped the Billboard 200 Top LP's chart, knocking The Beatles' Abbey Road (1969) twice from the top spot, where it remained for seven weeks. In 1970 art director David Juniper was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of best album package for Led Zeppelin II.

Led Zeppelin II was conceived during a hectic and much-traveled period of Led Zeppelin's career when they completed four European and three American concert tours. The songs were written on tour, during periods of time in between concerts, a studio was booked and the sessions took place at several locations in the United Kingdom and North America from January to August 1969. Production was entirely credited to lead guitarist and songwriter Jimmy Page, while it also served as Led Zeppelin's first album to utilize the recording techniques of legendary engineer Eddie Kramer.

Bassist John Paul Jones recalled that

"We were touring a lot. Jimmy [Page]'s riffs were coming fast and furious. A lot of them came from onstage especially during the long improvised section of 'Dazed and Confused'. We'd remember the good stuff and dart into a studio along the way."

Some of the recording studios used by the band were not the most advanced. One studio in Vancouver, credited as "a hut", had an 8-track set up that did not even have proper headphone facilities. The group's lead singer Robert Plant later discussed the writing and recording process, stating "It was crazy really. We were writing the numbers in hotel rooms and then we'd do a rhythm track in London, add the vocal in New York, overdub the harmonica in Vancouver and then come back to finish mixing at New York."

"Thank You", "The Lemon Song" and "Moby Dick" were overdubbed during the tour, while the mixing of "Whole Lotta Love" and "Heartbreaker" was also done on tour. Page later stated "In other words, some of the material came out of rehearsing for the next tour and getting new material together."

The finished tracks reflect the raw, evolving sound of the band and their ability as live performers. The album has been noted for featuring a further development of the lyrical themes established by Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin's debut album, creating a work which would become more widely acclaimed and arguably more influential. "Whole Lotta Love" and "The Lemon Song" both feature sexual themes, as the latter contains a metaphor, which, according to one music writer, implores "unnamed ladies to squeeze his lemon 'til the juice runs down my leg.'"

As was later observed by Plant himself:

“Led Zep II was very virile. That was the album that was going to dictate whether or not we had the staying power and the capacity to stimulate. It was still blues-based but it was a much more carnal approach to the music and quite flamboyant. It was created on the run between hotel rooms and the GTOs, and that was quite something.”

Led Zeppelin II also features experimentation with other musical styles and approaches, as on the alternately soft-and-loud "What Is and What Should Never Be" and "Ramble On" (which featured Page's acoustic guitar), or the pop-influenced ballad "Thank You". With its mysterious atmospherics, "Ramble On" helped develop hard rock's association with fantasy themes, which had been partly derived from the psychedelic rock genre of two to three years before, but also from Plant's personal interest in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. This musical direction would later culminate on Led Zeppelin IV (and countless subsequent groups would later carry the influence to further extremes). Conversely, the instrumental "Moby Dick" features an extended drum solo by John Bonham, which would be extended further during Led Zeppelin concert performances sometimes for as long as half an hour.

Page's contribution to this album was significant, as his electric guitar solo on the song "Heartbreaker" was emulated by many younger rock guitarists, and exemplifies the group's intense musical attack. Led Zeppelin II is the band's first album to feature Page playing a 1959 Gibson Les Paul, the electric guitar he helped popularise. His innovative recording and drum miking effects on tracks such as "Ramble On" and "Whole Lotta Love" also demonstrated his considerable skill, resourcefulness and originality as a producer. Rolling Stone magazine later called Page's guitar riff for the latter song "one of the most exhilarating guitar riffs in rock & roll."

John Paul Jones later discussed Page's contributions:

“Jimmy started coming into his own as a producer around "Whole Lotta Love". The backwards echo stuff. A lot of the microphone techniques were just inspired. Everybody thinks he goes into the studio with huge walls of amps, but he doesn't. He uses a really small amp and he just mic's it up really well, so it fits into a sonic picture.”

The album's material also marked a certain honing of Plant's vocal approach, and signalled his emergence as a serious songwriter. Plant's name had previously been absent from the songwriting credits of the band's first album due to the previous contractual commitments that resulted from his earlier association with CBS Records as a solo artist. His influence on tracks such as "What Is and What Should Never Be" and "Ramble On" were pointers to the band's musical future. Plant has commented that it was only during the sessions for Led Zeppelin II that he started to feel at home as a vocalist in the studio with Led Zeppelin. In a 2008 interview for Uncut, he stated "[D]uring Led Zep I (1969) as far as I was concerned, I thought that I was going to [leave the band] anyway. I didn't feel that comfortable because there were a lot of demands on me vocally—which there were all the way through the Zeppelin thing. And I was quite nervous and didn't really get into enjoying it until II."

COVER

The album cover has been dubbed "The Brown Bomber", due to the color and theme of the cover. The group of men on the front cover is a photgraph of the Jasta Division of the German airforce with the band members faces inserted in place of those of the pilots.

The faces of band manager Peter Grant and Richard Cole were also added. The woman in the picture is Glynis Johns, the mother from "Mary Poppins". Her presence in the photo is an obvious play on the name of recording engineer Glyn Johns. The other face added was that of bluesman Blind Willie Johnson.

ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW

Hey, man, I take it all back! This is one fucking heavyweight of the album! OK — I'll concede that until you've listened to the album eight hundred times, as I have, it seems as if it's just one especially heavy song extended over the space of two whole sides. But, hey! you've got to admit that the Zeppelin has their distinctive and enchanting formula down stone-cold, man. Like you get the impression they could do it in their sleep.

And who can deny that Jimmy Page is the absolute number-one heaviest white blues guitarist between 5'4" and 5'8" in the world?? Shit, man, on this album he further demonstrates that he could absolutely fucking shut down any whitebluesman alive, and with one fucking hand tied behind his back too.

"Whole Lotta Love," which opens the album, has to be the heaviest thing I've run across (or, more accurately, that's run across me) since "Parchmant Farm" on Vincebus Eruptum. Like I listened to the break (Jimmy wrenching some simply indescribable sounds out of his axe while your stereo goes ape-shit) on some heavy Vietnamese weed and very nearly had my mind blown.

Hey, I know what you're thinking. "That's not very objective." But dig: I also listened to it on mescaline, some old Romilar, Novocain, and ground up Fusion, and it was just as mind-boggling as before. I must admit I haven't listened to it straight yet — I don't think a group this heavy is best enjoyed that way.

Anyhow . . . Robert Plant, who is rumored to sing some notes on this record that only dogs can hear, demonstrates his heaviness on "The Lemon Song." When he yells "Shake me 'til the juice runs down my leg," you can't help but flash on the fact that the lemon is a cleverly-disguised phallic metaphor. Cunning Rob, sticking all this eroticism in between the lines just like his blues-beltin' ancestors! And then (then) there's "Moby Dick," which will be for John Bonham what "Toad" has been for Baker. John demonstrates on this track that had he half a mind he could shut down Baker even without sticks, as most of his intriguing solo is done with bare hands.

The album ends with a far-out blues number called "Bring It On Home," during which Rob contributes some very convincing moaning and harp-playing, and sings "Wadge da train roll down da track." Who said that white men couldn't sing blues? I mean, like, who?

~ John Mendelsohn (December 13, 1969)