onhwy61---I hadn’t seen the video before, and was struck by how much better all the original versions are (except the Joan Baez, of course ;-). I first learned of LZ1 from a high school/now college friend (non-musician) who had heard it in the school library, and was raving about it to me. I had my doubts, as Page had already ruined one of my favorite bands in 65-67, The Yardbirds. Following first Clapton then Beck in the group, his guitar playing was.....what’s the word? Oh yeah---lame. I went to the library and listened for myself, and couldn’t believe how bad the album was. Laughably bad.
There were some great guitarists playing locally in my hometown of San Jose, one of them being Robben Ford, who had just moved down from very Northern California with his brothers. Every guitarist in San Jose had seen the bar raised significantly with Robben’s arrival. Ford ended up in San Francisco playing with Charlie Musselwhite before moving down to L.A., where he went on to play with everyone from George Harrison to Miles Davis (!).
Along come these pasty white boys (British, even) pretending to play "da Blues". Listening in horror to that album, I was filled with shame, embarrassed to be white. Sonny Boy Williamson, sitting with The Hawks (The Band) in 1965 and making plans to go on the road, had just returned from a tour of England, where he had been provided a band comprised of local musicians, some of them later quite famous and successful. His comment about them to The Hawks: "Those English boys.....they want to play the Blues in the worst way. And that’s just how they play it".
Led Zeppelin---the most over-rated and undeservedly successful band in the history of music.
