Led Zep Fool in the Rain


I recently posted a thread on “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” mainly due to its iconic drum lick so thought I’d follow up with this one — another iconic drum part I really enjoyed learning. To be honest, when this song first came out I was disappointed and scratching my head cause it was so radically different from all their prior work. As I matured I realized it’s an awesome song, which is why I endeavored to eventually learn the drum part.  And it’s a shuffle for those not familiar with drum lingo but with an interesting twist with an open hi hat hit on the and of 1 that really gives it its iconic sound. I later learned that, for some reason, Led Zep never played this song live, and since I can’t find it live anywhere I’m starting to believe it and why I’m just copying the production version here. Still well worth listening to IMHO, but wondering if anyone has any insights as to why they never played this song live? Anyway…

https://youtu.be/RFBHYRpA1LY?si=PbGsNuYVi5c7dKSD

soix

@roxy54 Yeah, I didn’t really think of that but you may well be right.  Good point.

@onhwy61 beat me to it, that video never fails to make me smile. Another great example (among dozens of others) can be found in Toto's "Rosanna".

@onhwy61 Thanks for that — hadn’t seen it before. Gotta love Bernie Purdie! The Purdie shuffle was actually the first shuffle I learned and then moved on to Bonzo’s “Fool in the Rain” shuffle that’s a quite bit different.

@hifiguy42 Thanks for bringing up “Rosanna” — didn’t think of that one and definitely gonna give it another listen cause it’s been a minute.

Of course there’s a common thread here in that both Purdie and Porcaro played for Steely Dan.  Found this interesting…

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/how-steely-dan-gaucho-nearly-destroyed-jeff-porcaro/