Zepbaby

I fail to remember a time before Led Zeppelin were in my life.

My mum, usually referred to as Moo, educated me in the ways of such music from a very young age; playing the likes of The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and The Rolling Stones around me when I was a child. One of my earliest memories is of being terrified of a VHS Mum had of The Who. Especially of Roger Daltrey and his fringed jacket. How times change.

My earliest memory of Led Zeppelin is Robert. As a child brought up around music, I was always singing (and went on to be classically trained) so my gravitation towards a singer with a monumental voice was natural. I can remember singing along with him on Stairway to Heaven, although I'm sure I didn't know the words, when I was quite young, but it was never much of a big deal. Like Satisfaction by The Stones and Pinball Wizard by The Who, it was a song I loved the vocals to. (Later on I would try to persuade my elderly singing teacher to let me sing all three of these songs, but she never allowed it.)

I must have been about 14 when the Early Days: Best Of album was released. I can remember the adverts for it on the television and when I heard that little snippet of Stairway, my old childhood friend, the deal was done. I bought it and played it to death. It was probably the first time I'd ever bought an album by an "adult" band, and certainly the first time I'd listened to something all the way through without skipping. A lot of the tracks I had flashbacks of, songs I could sort of remember from my childhood, but not completely. Tracks like Good Times Bad Times and Dazed And Confused. I didn't know them well, but I could remember parts of them. It was like some sort of recovery from amnesia.

Of course when the album reached Whole Lotta Love I leapt up! "I know this one!" I can distinctly remember how utterly bizarre it was to hear that opening riff without the ghostly electronic whisper of "Top Of The Pops" creeping into it. Every child in Britain knew that song thanks to it being used for the opening titles of everyone's favourite music chart show and I had finally discovered the band that had written it.

My love affair with Zeppelin marched on until I was rifling through my parents' vinyl collection one day and came across a little band with an equally enigmatic singer. My fickle teenage heart ran away with Queen that day and rarely looked at anyone else until my early twenties, whilst sitting on a tour bus, hundreds of miles from home. One of the boys in the band I was with had put a warn out cassette album on the bus stereo and as the opening bars of Good Times Bad Times from Led Zeppelin I reached my ears I fell in love all over again.

~Miss K

BBC Sessions

Tonight I picked up the Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions double-CD. Disc one features tracks from four sessions recorded in 1969, with some notable omissions apparently, and the second disc is an entire set from a live radio  recording, introduced by John Peel.

This is the perfect addition to an already excellent set of albums. I loved the Queen BBC sessions, despite their low-quality, bootleg feel, being as they are not official releases. It's funny how Led Zeppelin let so little of their work to be used and yet they clearly allowed the BBC to release this album. As far as I understand it, Queen have been in a constant clash with the BBC over releasing the sessions.

The first disc contains the only known recording of "The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair", which apparently hasn't even been booted at any gigs.

So far, and I've not listened to all of it yet, the highlight is the 18 minute live version of Dazed and Confused.

Mr Woo

Newbie

My background as a lover of music comes with a lot of excess baggage. My philosophy is simple and is what I've stuck to for many years: if it sounds good and I like it, it doesn't matter who the artist is. I only ever draw the line at country and western and improvised jazz.

My top five artists/bands before I got into Led Zeppelin were, in reverse order:

The White Stripes // Genesis // Pink Floyd // David Bowie // Queen

Now it's pretty much the same but the top band has been usurped by the gods of rock. The list in its current form:

Genesis // Queen // David Bowie // Pink Floyd // Led Zeppelin

To me, Led Zeppelin musically represents everything I love about every other band in my list. They incorporate every part of rock, blues and prog rock that I crave, all wrapped up into a sublime and unrivalled four-piece.

I still love Queen, still believe Freddie Mercury's voice is possibly the best ever in rock and pop, but for so long it felt as though nothing could possibly better than them. I've been proven wrong with Led Zeppelin.

It's still all new to me, I'll admit, but I can't honestly say I've taken to or enjoyed such a large proportion of a back catalogue of a band so quickly.

I can't get enough of them at the moment!

Mr Woo