Dear Nathaniel,
Hello my love, I have finally started writing some songs for you, I want to look over them some more and then run some basic recordings to see how long the whole thing would be. If I was looking to make a little album for you I'd like it to run around 40 minutes like most good albums. I want the album to have both an electric and acoustic element with a few instrumentals and one or two covers of Led Zeppelin songs thrown in. I'll keep you updated my angel.
We continue our exploration of Led Zeppelin's studio material today with their fourth effort. This is often regarded as their finest work and it is absolutely brilliant but not my favourite. It doesn't have a single weak point straight through it and features Led Zeppelin's most popular and recognised song Stairway to Heaven. Now like any sane person I've had my period of thinking this was the pinnacle of music, let alone Led Zeppelin and I still think it's great but I much prefer quite a few Led Zeppelin songs above it.
The thing that Stairway to Heaven has though is the buildup, that tense anticipation that releases with the introduction of the drums and starts to build up again until the guitar solo. The song is a journey and an amazing one at that but I prefer Achilles Last Stand and Stairway to Heaven never translated as well live as most of their other songs. Since we haven't gotten to Stairway yet I should probably mention again that the female vocalist Sandy Denny who we heard with Fairport Convention provides vocals on The Battle of Evermore. It's incredibly interesting how intertwined the music scene was with all the big bands of the era.
We've already explored the connection that was the Yardbirds, which then extended further with the various projects the guitarists went on to do. Most big bands of the era could probably be linked in one or two steps for example Ian Stewart (one of the founding members of the Rolling Stones) plays on a song on this album and on Physical Graffiti. Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Keith Moon (of the Who) played on Jeff Beck's Beck's Bolero along with Nicky Hopkins who has contributed, as a session musician to an astounding amount of records and bands. Including the Kinks, Jefferson Airplane, Donovan and Steve Miller Band.
Of course Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were themselves prolific session musicians in the early to mid 60's. Which is one of the reasons Page hired Jones. Either way the whole scene is highly linked and I've just daydreamed away the entire second side of the album.
Goodnight my sweet angel Nathaniel.
Love from Dad.
No comments:
Post a Comment