by George Case
Jimmy Page, as Zeppelin’s instigator and final authority, had a different connection to the others. Pressed by interviewer Charles Young in 1988 as to whether he thought Bonham was an alcoholic, Page could only stammer, “I wasn’t close enough to him to know that.” During the band’s early period of steady touring and recording he shared with Plant, Jones, and Bonham the camaraderie of establishing Led Zeppelin’s name and fortune in the face of resentful press and a daunting workload, but fame, power, and especially drug abuse would isolate him as the 1970s wore on. He and Plant grew tight during their 1970 visits to Bron-yr-Aur cottage, where they began to seriously write songs together, and they both formed an exclusive empathy as the two most visible performers of the act, onstage and off. “The more you get into the bloke, although he seems to be quite shy, he’s not, really,” Plant told a reporter at the time. “He’s got a lot of good ideas for songwriting and he’s proved to be a really nice guy.” But by the end of Zeppelin, Plant conceded that “the relationship deteriorated,” and into the 2000s he characterized their dynamic as “like [that of] Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon…. Page is a very clever, talented guy who has a particular slant on music, and I was always his sidekick who had a different slant on music.”
For John Paul Jones, his exclusion from the Page-Plant reunions of the 1990s strained ties that were already distant. “It was a great shame, particularly after all we’d been through together,” he said to Dave Lewis. Plant’s offhand press conference joke that Jones was “parking the car,” when asked about the absence of Led Zeppelin’s third survivor from the No Quarter album and tour, caused a rift that took some time to heal. “It’s just so banal, and I imagine that he’s feasted with acrimony for years on the fact that I said that, but I did apologize to him,” the vocalist said in 2005. “So I think we carry all this stuff and really, we should just get together and count all our blessings and say, ‘Hey, I loved you a long time ago. What’s going on now?’” Today the three remaining members seem to have the same mixture of affection and exasperation for one another as any middle-aged former college roommates, sports teammates, soldiers, or coworkers. Considering the emotional extremities of what they have lived through together—adulation and exhilaration; celebration and addiction; triumph and disaster; rural England and metropolitan America; love, birth, and death; sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll—their continued rapport should be valued by them and appreciated by their fans.
I Don’t Care What the Neighbors Say: Where Led Zeppelin Lived
Inclined to return to the bosoms of home and family while between concert travels, each Led Zeppelin player resided well apart from the others. Their abodes were suited to their situations as newly rich men with young families, who could afford luxurious, even extravagant, properties that would have otherwise been well beyond the means of struggling musicians. The suburban estates, city addresses, or country seats of the four from 1968 to 1980 were:
Jimmy Page
• Pangbourne Boathouse (4 Shooters Hill, Pangbourne, Berkshire)
• Plumpton Place (Ditchling Road, Lewes, East Sussex)
• Tower House (29 Melbury Road, Kensington, London)
• Mill House (Mill Lane, Clewer, Berkshire)
Robert Plant
• Jennings Farm (Blakeshall, Wolverley, Kidderminster, Worcestershire)
• Cwm Einion Sheep Farm (near Artists Valley, Wales)
John Paul Jones
• The Straw Hat (Private residence, Chorleywood, Hertfordshire)
• Farm (Crowborough, Sussex)
John Bonham
• Butterfield Court (Dudley, Worcestershire)
• Old Hyde Farm (Cutnall Green, Worcestershire)
Physical Graffiti: Led Zeppelin’s Parents, Spouses, Siblings, and Children
Unlike other British and American acts of their period, the musicians of Led Zeppelin were not tabloid celebrities whose biographies were regularly splashed across the gossip columns. In fact during the early 1970s even many fans would have been hard-pressed to name the wives or other family ties of anyone in the band. Where Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, or Elton John were subject to enormous media intrusion into their personal lives (some of which, it should be said, they invited upon themselves), Zeppelin’s personnel were almost anonymous. Only in the ensuing decades have more detailed background portraits emerged, pieced together from published interviews, books, and other anecdotal reports. Other than their involvement in one of the biggest and best rock ’n’ roll groups ever, Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham experienced upbringings and adulthoods notable mainly for their ordinary English middle- or working-class characteristics: the modest, common-sense values of people who enjoyed tea, cricket, snooker, pints of ale, Rolls-Royce cars, the Carry On comedy series, and gardening. The Seattle mud sharks, New Orleans transvestites, and Bangkok brothels were incidental.
Jimmy Page
The Dark Lord of Hard Rock was the only child born to James Patrick and Patricia (Gaffikin) Page, and was raised in Epsom, Surrey. James Senior was described by his son as an industrial personnel officer, and Patricia, Page said, did “various things,” although his birth registration listed her as a doctor’s secretary. Jimmy Page was in a long-term relationship with French model Charlotte Martin, with whom he had a daughter, Scarlet Lilith Eleida Page, born in 1971 (she was conceived at Bron-yr-Aur cottage). He was married to American Patricia Ecker in the 1980s and early 90s and his son with her, James Patrick, was born in 1988. He has three more children, Jana, Zofia, and Ashen, by a later partner, Brazilian Jimena Gomez-Paratcha.
Robert Plant
Zeppelin’s Golden God was the first of two children born to Robert and Annie (Cain) Plant; his sister, Alison, followed nine years later. The senior Plant was a civil engineer in Halesowen, a suburb of Birmingham, while Mrs. Plant was a homemaker. In 1968 young Plant married Maureen Wilson, with whom he had three children, Carmen Jayne (1968), Karac (1972–1977), and Logan Romero (1979). Plant and Maureen divorced in the early 1980s and he has never remarried, although he has had several relationships since, including with singers Alannah Myles and Najma Akhtar, who participated in the No Quarter project. Another son, Jesse Lee, was born in 1991 to Shirley Wilson.
Robert Plant and wife Maureen in the mid-1970s.
Courtesy of Robert Rodriguez
John Paul Jones
Christened just John Baldwin, the future Jonesy was also an only child, born to musician Joe Baldwin and his wife Marjorie, née Little. He grew up in the County of Kent, southeast of London. For many years Joe had played piano and arranged scores on the British band circuit, even getting some recording gigs in the 1930s as part of an act called Baldwin and Howard. By John’s childhood Joe and Marjorie were performing as a musical comedy duo and their son sometimes accompanied them on English tours. “She was the singer,” Jones reminisced to Zeppelin expert Steve Sauer in 2001, “and she had a really incompetent accompanist or willfully difficult accompanist…. He goes to the piano, he’d pull out an alarm clock, and the audience gags. So she’d never really get through a song.” Known professionally as John Paul Jones since 1964, he married Maureen Hegarty in 1966 and three daughters followed: Tamara Nicola (1967), Jacinda Melody (1968), and Kiera Loveday (1971).
John Bonham
The eldest of three children, Bonzo was named after his father John Henry (Jack) Bonham, who was married to Joan, née Sargent. Bonham Senior was a carpenter and building contractor in Redditch, outside Birmingham, while Joan operated a neighborhood shop. The drummer had two younger siblings, Michael (Mick) and Deborah. Bonham married Pat Phillips in 1965, and had two children with her: Jason Paul (born in 1966) and Zoë Louise (born 1975).
Call Me Another Guy’s Name: Zeppelin Nicknames and Pseudonyms
Working, playing, traveling, and partying together for twelve years, the foursome naturally developed or repeated familiar terms for each other, not always of endearment. Managers and roadies also earned their own sobriquets, including Peter “G�
�� Grant, Richard “Ricardo” Cole, Joe “Jammer” Wright, Kenny “Pissquick” Pickett, and Ian “Iggy” Knight.
The most widely heard diminutives and handles given to the Zeppelin players were as follows.
Jimmy Page
“Nelson Storm”
Occasionally used in the early 1960s while a playing guitar for Neil Christian (true name Chris Tidmarsh) and the Crusaders.
“Little Jim”
From his session musician stint, distinguishing him from his older guitarist colleague “Big Jim” Sullivan.
“Pagey”
Obvious, preceding and outlasting his Zeppelin years.
“Led Wallet”
Once Page was successful in Led Zeppelin, roadies and other outsiders made cracks about his purported cheapness; he always denied the label and no one in the group used the appellation. Peter Grant, though, did once say that “if you want to bump off Jimmy Page, all you have to do is throw tuppence in front of a London bus.”
“The Old Girl”
A private joke between Grant and road manager Richard Cole, around the guitarist’s lengthy costume and hair routines while preparing for gigs.
“Hoover Nose”
Quoted by Angela Bowie and used by security goon John Bindon in 1977, when Page showed up at a cocaine party.
“S. Flavius Mercurius”
Page guested on his friend Roy Harper’s 1971 album Stormcock under this Romanesque alias.
“James MacGregor”
In at least one instance, Page registered into hotels using this name, possibly an allusion to Aleister Crowley associate S. L. MacGregor Mathers.
Robert Plant
“Percy”
Often substituted by associates and other Zeppelin members as the singer’s first name but still something of a mystery in its origins. Plant himself said, “It was something to do with my anatomy…. Maybe they wouldn’t call me that now.” Another explanation traces the nickname to English horticulturalist and broadcaster Percy Thrower, whose low-key gardening programs amused the Zeppelin generation as “watching plants grow,” which they then connected to their own budding Plant.
“Planty”
See “Pagey,” above, and “Jonesy,” below.
“The Golden God”
Never addressed this way by others but claimed by Plant himself in a much-quoted moment of vainglory (probably drug-related). His classical features and flowing blond hair made the title an apt one.
“The Wolverhampton Wanderer”
Plant used a football (soccer) alias when producing a 1978 record by Birmingham locals Dansette Damage.
John Paul Jones
“Jonesy”
Another obvious variation, and the only one regularly stuck on the bassist. The name “John Paul Jones” was itself, of course, a pseudonym of John Baldwin.
John Bonham
“Bonzo”
The best-known Zeppelin nickname is how friends, bandmates, and most average fans identify the drummer. It was given to Bonham as a teenager in Birmingham, in reference to a long-running British cartoon character created by George Studdy. The fictional Bonzo was a loveable puppy pictured in a variety of innocent misadventures, and the similarity of his name and disposition to the young percussionist made the moniker inevitable. Bonham’s tag may also have echoed the cult Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band comedy group.
“The Big B”
Hailed as such by Robert Plant at some concerts following his “Moby Dick” drum solo.
“The Beast”
A less generous title applied to Bonham in the later 1970s, when his unpredictable and violent behavior on tour made him an intimidating figure within the band’s entourage.
Led Zeppelin
“The New Yardbirds”
The first of the group’s public appearances in September 1968 employed this or a variant in press releases and publicity handouts.
“The Nobs”
Often alleged but never confirmed, the band are said to have been billed under this name in Cophenhagen, Denmark, on February 28 1970, after an aristocrat descendant of the von Zeppelin family took offense to the quartet’s title and incendiary cover of their first album. Surviving ticket stubs for this concert are printed with “Led Zeppelin,” so the story is a dubious one.
Little Drops of Rain: The Members’ Favorite and Least Favorite Led Zeppelin Songs
The complete Zeppelin catalogue has its high and low points in the eyes and ears of its listeners—and its makers. There are no real clunkers put out against the musicians’ wishes, and most material had their unanimous approval, but they each had some tracks they preferred over others.
Jimmy Page
Page was definitely proudest of “Stairway to Heaven” and has said so many times. “To me, I thought it crystallized the essence of the band. It had everything there and showed us at our best as a band and as a unit,” he said in 1975. “We knew it was really something” upon recording it, the guitarist told Guitar World in 1991. “It was certainly a milestone along one of the many avenues of Zeppelin,” he said to Mick Wall. The one cut Page has admitted to having reservations over is “All My Love” from In Through the Out Door. “I wasn’t really very keen on ‘All My Love,’” he was quoted as saying in Guitar World. “I could just imagine people doing the wave and all of that. And I thought, ‘That’s not us.’” Elsewhere, he said the song “sort of felt like the Rod Stewart sort of songs of the time with the scarf-waving.” There’s also a story that Page was none too fond of “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just a Woman),” the only song from Led Zeppelin II the band never performed in concert.
Robert Plant
The vocalist has come out in favor of “Kashmir” as “the definitive Led Zeppelin song.” “It’s the quest, the travels and explorations that Page and I went on to far climes well off the beaten track…. That, really, to me is the Zeppelin feel.” Plant also said in the same Rolling Stone interview that Physical Graffiti, the album containing the tune, was his preferred Zeppelin collection. “It sounded very tough, but it was also restrained, exhibiting a certain amount of control, as well.” He estimated other of the best Zeppelin moments to be “In the Light” and his singing on “The Rain Song.” Though Plant has sometimes made snide remarks about “Stairway to Heaven” he does not hate it—“I was a kid, you know?”—but he too is known to have no love for “Living Loving Maid.”
John Paul Jones
Jonesy told Dave Lewis that his personal picks of the Zeppelin canon are “Kashmir,” “The Ocean,” “The Crunge,” “Over the Hills and Far Away,” “When the Levee Breaks,” and “In My Time of Dying.” He’s also praised “Stairway to Heaven,” but told Chris Welch that he “hated” “D’yer Mak’er.” “It would have been all right if [Bonham] had worked at the part—the whole point of reggae is that the drums and the bass really have to be very strict about what they play. And he wouldn’t, so it sounded dreadful.” Not a few Zeppelin fans would disagree.
John Bonham
Bonzo was enthusiastic about most of Zeppelin’s work: His driving beats reflect the physical and emotional energy he brought to every song he played on. His solo showcase “Moby Dick” was an obvious leaning, but his strong contributions to “Out On the Tiles,” “Kashmir,” and “When the Levee Breaks” ranked them high on his list as well. But John Paul Jones has noted that Bonham, who found reggae “boring,” likewise couldn’t stand “D’yer Mak’er.” Too bad for him.
Throw Me a Line: Why Robert Plant Received No Songwriting Credits on Led Zeppelin
On most Zeppelin albums, authorship of original material was divided variously among the four members of the group: Page-Plant, Page-Plant-Jones, Page-Plant-Jones-Bonham, Page-Plant-Bonham, and even Plant-Jones. On the first record, however, Plant was excluded from any composers’ credits, even though he was part of the act from the beginning and even though his improvisatory vocal style was a distinct component of Led Zeppelin’s sound. The reason usually given for this is that the young singe
r was still under contract with CBS Records, who’d released his and Listen’s soon-forgotten records of 1966 and 1967, and was therefore ineligible to be signed to Atlantic Records as a member of Led Zeppelin. Once the CBS contract expired (or, just as likely, was bought out by Peter Grant), Plant’s name could be attached to subsequent Zeppelin creations. Post-Zeppelin issues from the Led Zeppelin period do list Plant as cocomposer, as on “Traveling Riverside Blues” and “The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair,” and he now shares credit with Jimmy Page and Anne Bredon for “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.”
