Who are Robert Plant's predecessors?

Dave Merrill

Dave Merrill

Axe-Master
The first Led Zeppelin album blew my mind, in a lot of ways, not the least of which was Plant's voice. I'd never heard anyone sing like that.

I heard a bit of it this morning, got me wondering, whose footsteps was HE following in? Lots of people clearly have been influenced by him, but was he really the first epic rock singer in that a-god-shouting-from-the-mountaintops vein?
 
Compare that with this version of Dazed and Confused:


The singer is cool in a 1964 kind of way, but comes across as a bit stiff and 'polite' on this. Even the drummer sounds a bit 'polite'....

Then consider this:


Donovan's studio band on this track was Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham....
 
2112 said:
In addition to the blues influence, ontemporaries such as Rod Stewart and Steve Marriott would have been a big influence. After all, the Jeff Beck Group "Truth" album is basically the blueprint LZ used for their first two albums.

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that first JBG album was life changing for this 14 year old ...Rod the mod went on to superstardom....but he never sounded better than Truth.
 
Interesting, I'd never heard the Yardbirds version of Dazed and Confused. Clearly the same song, but a) whoever spiffed up the words did good!, and b) after that singer, Plant must have blown their minds, like he did mine.

The Beck/Stewart stuff I knew and dug at the time, and you're right, I get the similarity, but it's much more a direct descendant of earlier blues tracks than Plant's sheer epic-ness was.

I get the Janis link, she's epic in an emotional sense, putting everything she had into it. Still not much god(ess) on the mountaintop going on though.

I think a big part of where Plant came from was the time. So much license to imagine, big and cosmic.


Anyway, thanks for the thoughts. That first Zep album is still so forkin amazing and cool. I know I'm old, but still.
 
Jake Holmes wrote Dazed and Confused. He opened a show for The Yardbirds when Jimmy Page was with them. The Yardbirds then did their own version of the song, and later Jimmy Page did it in Led Zeppelin. Jack Holmes won a lawsuit over not being credited as the songwriter.

 
trancegodz said:
Jake Holmes wrote Dazed and Confused. He opened a show for The Yardbirds when Jimmy Page was with them. The Yardbirds then did their own version of the song, and later Jimmy Page did it in Led Zeppelin. Jack Holmes won a lawsuit over not being credited as the songwriter.

Click to expand...

Interesting, so the Yardbirds one was also not the original....

This version reminds me of Barrett-era Pink Floyd in places....
 
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