Led Zeppelin II - released today in 1969 | Don’s Tunes

 

Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love

curiously perhaps not my favourite track from this album but we all bought it when it came out hey?

Led Zeppelin - Ramble On

Led Zeppelin II - the second album by Led Zeppelin, was released on 22 October 1969. Recorded quickly during Led Zeppelin's first American tours, Led Zeppelin II provided the blueprint for all the heavy metal bands that followed it. Since the group could only enter the studio for brief amounts of time, most of the songs that compose II are reworked blues and rock & roll standards that the band was performing on-stage at the time.

Jimmy Page came up with the classic Whole Lotta Love riff at his Pangbourne home in the late summer of 1968. "We felt the riff was addictive," Page told the Wall Street Journal. "Like a forbidden thing."

Some nine months later, in April 1969, it was this song that kick-started the sessions for Led Zeppelin II at Olympic Studios in Barnes. The song originally took shape around Page’s killer three-note riff with its octave E conclusion, and a descending chord structure which made use of a backwards echo, an effect that the guitarist had first used on a Mickie Most session.

Lyrically, it borrowed wholesale from Willie Dixon’s You Need Love – recorded by Muddy Waters in 1962. Dixon successfully sued Zep in 1985 for royalties. Following an out-of-court settlement, Dixon’s name was added to the songwriting credits.

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Photo by Dick Barnatt