When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin

by Mick Wall

  Jerry went away still laughing at that one. When he came back he did so with a contract in his hand. And not just any contract, but one which came with the largest single advance ever offered to an unsigned artist: a five-year deal with a $143,000 advance for the first year, plus four one-year options, making the whole caboodle worth $220,000 – there on the table right now. G nearly bit his arm off. ‘I was proud of the signing,’ Wexler wrote in his autobiography, ‘but as it turned out, I didn’t really hang out with the group. Ahmet [Ertegun] got along famously with them (and Peter Grant).’

  In fact, once he’d brokered the deal, Jerry would have little more to do with Zeppelin, and it was G’s burgeoning relationship with Ahmet that would become one of the key factors in the band’s gargantuan success over the next decade. The flamboyant, Turkish-born blues and jazz fanatic who had co-founded Atlantic Records with his brother Neshui twenty years before, Ahmet Ertegun prided himself on being one of the original record men: blessed with good ‘ears’ and an even better business sense. The son of a diplomat who travelled the world, the sort of smooth operator who spoke several languages and knew how to get along with everybody, from royalty to riffraff, Ahmet had the happy habit of never listening to what anybody else thought, unless they happened to agree with him already. Short, extrovert, bald, with a neatly trimmed goatee and a highly developed sense of humour, Ahmet was every musician’s friend; every businessman’s dream associate. A class act on every level.

  As a result, early signings to his label had included other class acts like Ray Charles and Wilson Pickett. Even in the late Sixties, as the new album-oriented rock took over, Ahmet never lost his Midas touch. He was now middle-aged, fond of finely tailored suits and expensive wine, but he always knew where to find the good shit, signing first Cream, then Yes, Zeppelin, Crosby, Stills and Nash…The list would grow longer and more impressive with each passing year. He was also good at signing the most talented executives to his label. One of the first things Wexler did after Ertegun brought him to Atlantic was to poach the then unknown Aretha Franklin from Columbia and make her a star through the not-so simple expediency of picking and producing all her biggest hits himself. Ahmet Ertegun, said Jerry Wexler, had allowed him to take someone like Aretha and ‘put her in the church’. Lately, he had been doing a similar job for England’s greatest female singer, Dusty Springfield, producing what is now recognised as her finest hour with the Dusty in Memphis album. (When Dusty mentioned she had worked with John Paul Jones as an arranger, and how highly she rated him, Wexler was doubly determined to sign Zeppelin to the label.)

  Two born hustlers from entirely different sides of the tracks, Ahmet Ertegun and Peter Grant were made for each other. Jerry Wexler just happened to be the one who helped bring them together, which is where they belonged. ‘As far as I know,’ said Jimmy Page, ‘we were the first white band on Atlantic because all the earlier white bands had been on Atco.’ In fact, the Shadows had beaten Zeppelin to that accolade by a good seven years. No matter, the fact that Zeppelin was signed to the same label as Aretha Franklin and John Coltrane said it all for Page. ‘I didn’t want to be lumped in with those [Atco-signed] people,’ he said, ‘I wanted to be associated with something classic.’ There was no doubting, either, the extraordinary nature of the deal Grant had negotiated for them. Signed to Zeppelin’s production company, Superhype, a partnership between Page and Grant formed just two weeks before the manager arrived in New York, it was a ground-breaking arrangement for the time that afforded the band unusual levels of control over their own product, including all aspects of production, artwork, choice of singles, photos, marketing procedures for both vinyl and non-vinyl products and, most unusually, the option of leasing back control over master-tapes. Anything, in fact, that might one day bear the name Led Zeppelin. Jimmy would produce all the records, G would be executive producer. All that was left for Atlantic to do was manufacture, distribute and to some extent promote the albums.

  An utterly unique deal for its time – the Beatles had only that same year managed to get EMI to re-sign them via their own newly formed corporation, Apple, while the Stones would later borrow the outline for their own distribution deal with Atlantic for Rolling Stones Records – perhaps its most extraordinary aspect was that it was all done on a handshake, before anyone at Atlantic had even seen the band play. ‘Ahmet was the finest record man of all time,’ Grant later declared. ‘Every time we negotiated and he said, “Peter, shake on it”, you knew it was done.’ Interestingly, Grant also neglected to put into writing his management status with the band. He and Page had a contract for the co-ownership of Superhype but everything else was done on a purely verbal, non-legal level. ‘We just had a gentlemen’s agreement,’ John Paul Jones told Chris Welch. ‘[Peter Grant] got the normal management fees and royalties from records as executive producer. [It was] all pretty above board, and as a result, it was a really happy band.’

  When Grant returned to his room at the Plaza Hotel and picked up the phone to call Jimmy with the good news, he knew the real work would only begin now. But he also felt more sure of himself and what he was doing than he ever had before. As if to compound his newfound confidence, the band’s first London show as Led Zeppelin at the Marquee on 10 December was a surprise sell-out. He recalled: ‘I went out early afternoon from our office on Oxford Street to Wardour Street. And I thought, “Fuck me, what’s this queue?” There were about two hundred already lined up.’

  Three nights later they performed at the Bridge Country Club in Canterbury, which is where Jeff Beck caught sight of Led Zeppelin for the first time. ‘Things went slightly wrong,’ Beck remembered with a smile. An amp, which he later realised was actually one of his own ‘borrowed’ by Grant, blew up halfway through. What really struck him, though, was ‘the potential. It was just amazing, blew the house down; blew everybody away.’ Compared to the Jeff Beck Group, he conceded, ‘[They] had a better looking lead singer…he had golden curly locks and a bare chest, and the girls fell in love with him. They also had Bonzo on drums, creating all sorts of pandemonium.’ It was, he concluded, ‘a much better package than I had…I was blind jealous.’

  By now the first part of the Atlantic advance had been banked and once Page had been paid back the money he’d already put in for tour costs and recording, plus a healthy dollop of cash on top to reward him for his endeavours, the rest of the band were delighted to be handed big fat cheques by Grant of £3,000 each. Plant and Bonham, in particular, were ecstatic. The most the drummer had ever received for playing had been the £40-a-week Tim Rose had paid him, while Plant still considered his £25-a-week stipend from Zeppelin a godsend. Bonzo immediately raced out and bought a brand new Jaguar XK 150. Plant, who had married Maureen in November – a quickie ceremony at the local registry office, before jumping in the car and racing down to London for the band’s gig at the Roundhouse that night (he almost didn’t make it when his old jalopy broke down on the motorway) – used the money for a down payment on a large, ramshackle house in the countryside. Maureen had been heavily pregnant when they decided to get married and, partly for this reason, Plant invited several friends to move in with them in a sort of semi-commune over which he would preside – benignly, in his view, though ownership of the property was never in doubt – for the next few years. He reasoned that it would also be good for Maureen to have some company while he was away touring with the new band.

  It was clear to everyone that knew them that a whole new chapter had begun in the lives of Robert Plant and John Bonham. ‘We were both like, Christ, this is amazing!’ Plant told me in 2005. ‘Plus, we were playing great. Playing with guys who were leagues above and beyond anything we’d played with before. So we were being stretched and pulled and challenged musically. There was a lot of demand, which in the end kind of brought us together. Because we’d drive home from rehearsals from [Jimmy’s house in] Pangbourne, together in Bonzo’s mum’s Anglia van – and we started communicating as the two guys from the Black Country who h
ad a lot to take in. This was the first time we’d actually found something that was so substantial. It was musically amazing. And it was building around our own contribution, which made it even more amazing. Because we weren’t coming along to replace anybody anymore, what was the Yardbirds was Led Zeppelin the minute we started playing. So we talked about a lot and we developed an affinity which was based on us being probably naïve. We were big fishes in a small pond up in the Black Country and suddenly we were in a kind of world situation, where we were sitting on planes together not knowing which cutlery to pick up.’

  Mac Poole recalled bumping into Bonham around this time. ‘He said to me, “We’ve just had some money in advance from the record company”. I said, “That’s handy”, thinking he was gonna say, like, a hundred quid. But it was something ridiculous like two or three grand. I said, “What?” Bear in mind, he was living in a council flat in Dudley at the time. Three grand was like a new house in those days. I nearly fell through the floor. He said, “Yeah, our manager has got us this amazing deal.”. I think John was as amazed as I was, buying everybody drinks. He was throwing it around like it was nothing, cos it was the first time he’d ever seen any real dough. That’s what made me think, bloody hell, they’ve landed this. And as soon as he played me the original demos I knew that the band was gonna do it.’

  It was only down the road but Redditch was starting to feel like a million miles away to you now you’d got a bit of dough in your back pocket. Not that you’d ever forget where you were born: a small, shithouse of a town in the Black Country. Or when: 31 May, 1948, a Gemini, whatever the bloody hell that meant. You’d been due to arrive the day before, your mum said, but like one of those long, busy drum fills you liked to do, you’d left your entrance to the last possible moment. Always trying to get a rise out of everybody, your poor old mum had been in labour for over twenty-six hours before you let her have it. It nearly killed you, too. Later, they told her your heartbeat had suddenly stopped, by which point the drunken bastard of a doctor on duty that night had already staggered off home. Fortunately, a nurse was able to summon help in the nick of time, your mum said. The nurse told her it was ‘a miracle’ the baby had survived. You had to laugh though whenever she told that story. It tickled you to think of them all there, waiting for you to stick your head out the door, moaning and a-groaning.

  Redditch had once been famous locally for its needle-making – that and its honking Batchley cheese. But by the time you’d come along it was just another part of Brum. Or near as buggery anyway – a bus ride away. You were named after your dad, who was named after his father: John Henry Bonham. Your mum was Joan and you were their first. A carpenter by trade, your dad – Jack to his mates – ran his own building company, J.H. Bonham & Son. Joan ran the corner shop, selling everything from bread and sweets to whisky and cigarettes. Then there was your brother Michael (Mick) born when you were three. There was a sister too, Debbie, but she didn’t come along till you were fourteen and by then it was too late, you were off and running.

  As a kid, you’d all lived in a small house in Hunt End, on the outskirts of town. You and Mick were always outside playing. Sometimes you’d go to one of the building sites your dad worked on and play there too. ‘Careful, our John!’ your dad would call out. ‘You’ll bloody get yourself killed jumping off that wall!’ You didn’t care. You liked everyone looking at you. Even as a toddler you’d always been the centre of attention, always noisy, always climbing and fighting and shouting and breaking things. Always falling over and getting hurt then jumping up and doing it again. You loved hitting things harder and harder and harder. You were five when you started playing drums. Not proper drums, like, don’t be daft. Like you said, ‘I used to play on a bath-salts container with wires on the bottom, and on a round coffee tin with a loose wire attached to it to give a snare drum effect. Plus there were always my mum’s pots and pans.’

  Poor old Mum. She had her hands full with you. Then when Mick came along it was bloody havoc. Somehow she always coped, though. People did back then. Mum and Dad did anyway. Never short of a bob or two, either. Between the building business and the shop, they did all right. One of the first families in the street to own a car, one of the first to get a phone, you stuffing your pockets with sweets from the shop, you all did all right. You got a shock though when they started sending you and Mick to Wilton House, the local posh school. Parents had to pay to send their kids to Wilton and some right toffee-nosed bastards were there too. Not you and Mick but all the others. You knew Mum and Dad were only doing what they thought was best for you, but you bloody hated it there. Oh, the teachers were all right, most of them. But oh Christ, the uniform! You and Mick would look a right pair walking out the door each morning in your stripy brown, white and blue blazers and caps. Cos there was two of you it wasn’t so bad. But then you’d have to walk right past St Stephen’s, where all the other kids round where you lived went. Always the same, the bastards shouting after you: ‘Got your pyjamas on?’ Mick would look straight ahead and try to ignore them but you would get right fed up. ‘Come on, our kid,’ you’d say, ‘let’s have a bit of this!’ and you’d run over to sort them out. ‘There’d be ten of them!’ Mick would recall years later. ‘Either he couldn’t count or he’d got bad eyesight because we used to get a kicking every time.’

  So what? You didn’t care. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke, that’s what you used to say. Big lads for your age, you and Mick were always getting into scraps anyway. ‘Me and John were very much alike,’ remembered Mick. ‘Somebody would only have to look at you or say something wrong and then we wanted to fight the world.’ Sometimes you’d even fight each other, just for devilment. You’d rip a page out of Mick’s Eagle annual, so he’d stamp on your watch, little bastard! That’s when you’d get really angry and smash his poxy watch and he’d end up throwing a bloody carving knife at you! Mum would come in and see the knife sticking out the door and go absolutely raving bloody mad! She’d call your dad in and tell him to give you both what for but he was such a softy when it came to stuff like that he never used to do anything, really. Just shout at you and threaten to tan your bloody hides. He never did, though. Not really. Good old dad, a great bloke. One year he bought a caravan and every summer after that he’d take you all off to the seaside for your holidays. Then he bought a boat and he’d take you and Mick fishing on the canal. He was a bloody great bloke, your dad. Hands like shovels.

  The only part of school you really liked was sport. Mick liked football but you preferred the cricket, even after your nose was broken by a stray ball. You hadn’t even been playing that day, just standing by the boundary chatting up a bird when suddenly the ball smacked you in the face. It was a relief when you finally left Wilton for good and your mum and dad let you go to the local secondary modern, Lodge Farm County, instead. Not that you were much good at lessons there, either. When you left at fifteen, the headmaster, a right stuck-up prat if ever there was one, told your mum and dad you wouldn’t ‘even make a good dustman’.

  But then, according to your brother, you were ‘a rogue, there’s no doubt,’ who was ‘always getting the cane’. One of those sods who was ‘always into everything’ and ‘stood out like a sore thumb’. You didn’t think you were that bad, actually. Especially after you got into the drums, good and proper, like. You were good at carpentry too – probably your dad coming out in you – lending a hand to build the school greenhouse. Once the drums came in though, that was it, you were off. Nothing else mattered anymore, not really. You were ten when you talked your mum into buying you your first snare; fifteen when you talked your dad into buying you your first full-size kit; a second-hand Premier. ‘It was almost prehistoric,’ you’d remember. ‘Most of the metal had rusted.’ So bloody what? You didn’t care. ‘I felt nothing for any other instrument. Later I played a bit of acoustic guitar, but it was always drums, first and foremost. I don’t reckon with that jack-of-all-trades thing.’ Bloody right, mate…

  The re
al turning point though was seeing The Benny Goodman Story on the telly one Sunday afternoon. You couldn’t believe it, watching the drummer Gene Krupa doing ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’. You’d never seen anything like it – ever! Just brilliant! It was the first time you realised that drummers didn’t have to be stuck at the back, while the fellas at the front – the singers and the guitarists and whatnot – got all the attention; that drummers could be the stars of the show too. As you’d explain years later, chatting over a pint to Chris, the nice bloke from Melody Maker, ‘Gene Krupa was the first big band drummer to be really noticed. He came right out into the front and he played drums much louder than they had ever been played before – and much better. People hadn’t taken much notice of drums until Krupa came along.’

  With Peter Grant still holding out hope of putting together a separate deal in Britain, the first Led Zeppelin album – adorned with just the name of the band as its title, as was the fashion of the day – was scheduled for release in America on 12 January 1969. When that separate UK deal proved unrealistic, however, Grant hurriedly offered Atlantic the ‘rest of the world’ rights, which they gratefully snapped up for next-to-nothing, and the album would eventually see the light of day in Britain in March. Meanwhile in America the hype had begun in earnest, with the very first Atlantic Records press release, which was headed in capital letters: