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Robert Plant

I’ve been a Zeppelin fan since I was a little kid. Was obsessed with them in high school. I always thought Plant was one of the best singers in rock and roll. A lot of people still do. I never saw Zep but did see Plant in concert several times in the 80s/90s.

 

Over the decades I find that I don’t listen to Zep all that much for whatever reason.

 

This Christmas Eve morning I stayed home from church because of a nasty cold and dug out some of my old LPs. One of them was a bootleg (at the time) of Zeppelin's live BBC performances. I bought it used in 1984 for $20 which was a ton of money for me back then. (You can get this on Qobuz etc now.)

 

About 4 minutes into Whole Lotta Love the band lapses into a blues/Elvis medley of songs that is simply epic. The entire band is right on point and amazing as always but in this medley Plant really shows you his stuff. The range, the control, the timing, the soul. All there. Is he the best rock and roll singer ever? I can think of a lot of challengers to that idea but he’s certainly up around the top.

Give this song a listen. The initial part of Whole Lotta Love is not my favorite. But this medley and the ending are Zeppelin at its best.

Merry Christmas all.

n80

Showing 1 response by pgaulke60

pgaulke60
292 posts
 

I like most all of us of that age listened to them in high school.  Yes, we were pummeled by them on FM radio.

Then I got a bootleg set of their MSG shows (75 I think).  All of them and the whole shows.  I could not believe that the length of ever song, every night was within a seconds of each other.  Whole Lotta Love at over 20 minutes was within a few seconds in length each night.  Totally turned me off.  Thought they were a rock & roll band that jammed.  NOT.

I think of other rock bands of the day that jammed out.  My favorite bands had different set lists and different versions played of the songs.  Given what good musicians each of the Zep members are/were, I was just astounded that they couldn’t mix up the jams. 

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