timeline

Led Zeppelin

Four London musicians who turned blues, folk and volume into the biggest band of the 1970s, made nine studio albums with no change of line-up, and stopped when their drummer died.

Origin
London, England
Years active
1968-1980
Genres
hard rock, blues rock, folk rock
Labels
Atlantic Records, Swan Song Records
Also known as
The New Yardbirds

The New Yardbirds

Jimmy Page joined the Yardbirds in 1966, first on bass and then as lead guitarist. When that band played its last gig in July 1968, Page and Chris Dreja kept the name for a run of Scandinavian dates. Terry Reid recommended a singer, Robert Plant, and Plant suggested the drummer John Bonham. John Paul Jones joined last, and the four first rehearsed together on 19 August 1968. They gave their first show as the New Yardbirds in Denmark on 7 September. After a cease-and-desist letter from Dreja about the old name, they became Led Zeppelin, the name coming from a lead balloon idiom with the "a" dropped at the suggestion of their manager Peter Grant. The first show under it was at the University of Surrey on 25 October 1968.

In November 1968 Atlantic signed them with an advance of $143,000, then the largest for a new band, and with creative control. Page paid for and produced the first record himself before the deal was done. It went from rehearsal to finished mix in roughly 36 hours.

Four albums in three years

Led Zeppelin came out in 1969 to a harsh review in Rolling Stone and a glowing one in Melody Maker. Led Zeppelin II followed in October, made in studios across Britain and North America in the gaps between tours, and became their first number one in both the US and UK. It contained Whole Lotta Love, their only US top-10 single. Led Zeppelin III in 1970 turned toward acoustic material, much of it written at a cottage in Wales with no running water or electricity.

The untitled fourth album, Led Zeppelin IV, appeared on 8 November 1971 with four symbols chosen by the band members in place of a title, an idea Atlantic opposed. It was recorded in part at Headley Grange with the Rolling Stones' mobile studio, and held Black Dog, When the Levee Breaks and Stairway to Heaven. It reached number two in the US and number one in the UK, and has sold over 37 million copies. The band did not release Stairway as a single. The debut also carried Dazed and Confused, a song with its own lineage back through the Yardbirds.

Swan Song

Houses of the Holy arrived in March 1973, and that year's North American tour set an attendance record of 56,800 at Tampa Stadium. In 1974 the band launched its own label, Swan Song. Its first release was the double album Physical Graffiti in February 1975, which reached number one on both sides of the Atlantic and included Kashmir. They sold out five nights at Earls Court that May. In August 1975 Plant was seriously injured in a car crash in Greece, and the band recorded Presence in Munich that November in 18 days.

The 1977 US tour broke the attendance record again, with 76,229 at the Pontiac Silverdome, but it was cancelled in July after the death of Plant's young son. The last US show had been at Oakland. In Through the Out Door was recorded in Stockholm and released in August 1979, and the band headlined Knebworth that month before about 104,000 people on the first night.

After Bonham

During a European tour in the summer of 1980 Bonham collapsed at Nuremberg. He died on 25 September 1980 after vomiting following heavy drinking, and a coroner ruled it accidental death. On 4 December the band announced it would not continue. Coda, a set of outtakes, followed in November 1982.

The surviving members have reunited only occasionally: at Live Aid in 1985, at Atlantic's 40th anniversary in 1988 with Jason Bonham on drums, and for one full set at the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert at London's O2 Arena on 10 December 2007, again with Jason Bonham, which became the film Celebration Day in 2012. Page and Plant also worked together in the 1990s. Estimates put the band's sales at 200 to 300 million records, with eight consecutive UK number one albums. Rolling Stone has called them the heaviest band of all time, and a documentary, Becoming Led Zeppelin, premiered in 2025.

Members

Records

Songs

The Yardbirds, Bad Company, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Sources

  1. Led Zeppelin, Wikipedia
  2. Led Zeppelin discography, Wikipedia
  3. Led Zeppelin concerts, Wikipedia
  4. Led Zeppelin on setlist.fm, setlist.fm
  5. Led Zeppelin official site, Led Zeppelin
  6. Led Zeppelin IV, Houses of the Holy, Physical Graffiti (reissue review), Pitchfork (2015-02-24)
  7. Presence, In Through the Out Door, Coda (reissue review), Pitchfork (2015-07-28)