Muro Do Classic Rock Led Zeppelin



John Henry Bonham (31 May 1948 – 25 September 1980) was an English musician and songwriter, best known as the drummer for the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Esteemed for his speed, power, fast bass drumming, distinctive sound, and feel for the groove, he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rock drummers in history. Rock And Roll (Sunset Sound Mix) by Led Zeppelin. 4.0 out of 5 stars 1.

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Introduction to Led Zeppelin
English classic rock group Led Zeppelin are considered one of the most critically and commercially successful iconic bands of the 20thcentury, led by vocalist/songwriter Robert Plant and his henchmen – guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham (died in 1980).

One of the biggest bands during the 1970s, they are viewed by many as the pioneers of the hard rock and heavy metal music. However, the band derived a lot of diverse influences. Such one example is the folk-tinged, anthemic song “Stairway To Heaven”, esteemed by fans and hailed by critics alike as one of the greatest works in modern rock history.

The group raked in huge fortunes from their successful albums and sold-out concerts in front of legions of fans, and for this they are known to have lived in excessive indulgence. Led Zeppelin disbanded after Bonham’s untimely death in 1980, and each of the surviving members pursued solo careers. They reunited in 2007 for the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert in London, held in memory for the head of the Atlantic Records, the group’s first label. Led Zeppelin was inducted to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1995.

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From the New Yardbirds to Led Zeppelin
Considered one of the most successful and innovative rock groups of all time, Led Zeppelin is one of the earliest groups to establish the heavy metal sound, as well as the concept of AOR (album-oriented rock), refusing to release famous singles such as their trademark song “Stairway To Heaven.” The band was composed of Jimmy Page (guitars), Robert Plant (vocals), John Paul Jones (bass, keyboards) and John Bonham (drums).

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They were formed in London, England in 1966 as the New Yardbirds – a more recent update of the Yardbirds. Jimmy Page had joined in the band’s final days when they recorded their album Little Games in 1967, where he played lead guitar; it also featured John Paul Jones who played bass and conducted orchestral arrangements. During much of 1967, the New Yardbirds was fairly idle, while Page and Jones were engaged in session work.

In mid-1968, Keif Reif and James McCarthy left the band, leaving Page and bassist Chris Dreja fully authorized to use the name “Yardbirds” as well as to fulfill the commitments in playing concerts in Scandinavia. Page was looking for a replacement drummer and vocalist, and he considered Terry Reid. Reid declined, though he suggested to Page that he hire Robert Plant instead. Plant had been singing for the bands Band Of Joy and Hobbstweedle.

As soon as Plant joined the band, Dreja also quit the band to focus on photography; Jones then replaced Dreja as the band’s new bassist. Bonham, who had been a bandmate of Plant during their Band Of Joy Days, joined. The completed lineup was now called the New Yardbirds, who went on to finish the Yardbird’s Scandinavian tour in September 1968. The following month, they recorded an album in just a matter of hours, and it would be their first album under the name Led Zeppelin. The band inked a contract with Atlantic Records to released their eponymous debut album early in 1969.

First flush of success
The self-titled first album gradually climbed in the charts, eventually ending up peaking at #10 on the Billboard 200 album chart, which was more than just a great news for the upstarting band. Led Zeppelin found themselves busily touring in both the UK and US; along the way, they started to record their second album Led Zeppelin II.

International stars
Led Zeppelin II
was a huge success, even bettering Led Zeppelin by topping the Billboard 200 in the latter part of 1969. It spawned the now classic hit “Whole Lotta Love” which went to #4 on the Hot 100 that year. The album made the band into international stars, especially desired as a major concert attraction. Led Zeppelin then found themselves on seemingly endless tours.


“Stairway to Heaven” – Led Zeppelin’s signature song and one of the classic non-singles of all time
Their third album, Led Zeppelin III (1970) saw the maturity in the band’s sound, adding warm acoustic sounds to their usual hard rock repertoire, showing their ability to branch outside their comfort zone. This style would continue with their fourth untitled album in 1971, which was called Led Zeppelin IV. The album has been sometimes called Untitled, Zoso, Four Symbols or Runes. One of the songs on the album, “Stairway To Heaven” would become the band’s signature song. Ironically, it wasn’t released as a single because the band had already been refusing to issue a lot of singles. Nevertheless, it was the most-requested item by radio listeners, and those requests escalated by the day. The success of the non-single “Stairway To Heaven” contributed to Led Zeppelin IV’s success. It sold 37 million copies, including 23 million the US alone – so it was 23 times platinum. It also went to platinum in other countries, and even diamond status in Canada. However, they did release singles off that album: “Rock and Roll,” “Immigrant Song,” and another now-classic song, “Black Dog.”

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Best-selling albums and record-breaking tours to follow (despite off-stage troubles)
Led Zeppelin’s fifth LP Houses Of The Holy was released in March 1973 and later sold 11 million copies in the United States alone. It featured the band’s foray into funk and reggae. The success of the album instigated another major American tour, which broke their previous ticket sales numbers. Their record-breaking tours and commercial success led them to lives of excess and indulgence.

In 1974 the band decided to spend quiet time out of the limelight for a while; along the way they launched their own label Swan Song. They appeared in the public again in 1975, releasing Physical Graffiti, their first under Swan Song. It topped the Billboard 200 album chart, selling 16 million units; despite the commercial triumph, critics were less than enthusiastic about the album. In 1977, the band embarked on another record-breaking tour in America, held at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan. Guinness Book Of World Records once proclaimed the tour as the largest attendance to attend a single live performance.

However, the band encountered tragedies such as Plant’s son’s death from a stomach virus, leading to the cancellation of their future tours. This provoked speculation from fans and critics over Led Zeppelin’s future. But the band came back during the summer of 1978 with a series of European tours, as well as recording for their next album. In August 1979 Led Zeppelin had their last British performance with two big concerts at Knebworth; around the same time the band released their much-delayed eighth studio LP In Through The Out Door, which topped both the UK and US charts.

Death of drummer John Bonham, Led Zeppelin’s breakup, projects of individual members and one-off reunions
Another tragedy struck the band, however. In October 1980 their drummer John Bonham died of asphyxiation from vomiting while he was asleep. Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t die of drugs but it was believed that he had fallen asleep after an all-day drinking spree. Despite having many prospects to take Bonham’s place behind the drum set, Led Zeppelin decided that they would disband, since they couldn’t go on without him.

After the breakup, the surviving members went on with their own musical projects, including a new band formed by Plant and Page, The Honeydrippers, which had their biggest hit through their cover of a Phil Philips song “Sea Of Love.” It went to #3 on the Hot 100 in 1984. Plant and Page also worked on several other projects, including the Live Aid concert. They also officially formed a duo, simply called Page and Plant, releasing three albums to their name; they also released singles that became hits

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Since their disbandment, Led Zeppelin has held several one-off reunion shows, although they haven’t gotten back together officially yet on a regular basis. They have held one-off reunion concerts in 1985, 1988, 1995 and 2007, to date. The band also featured the late Bonham’s son Jason who played the drums in their reunion shows. They also released their ninth and final studio album Coda which was comprised of unused tracks from various sessions during the band’s halcyon days.

The band issued their latest release, Celebration Day, in 2012, as a companion album to their concert film of the same title. The album received generally positive reviews and debuted at #9 on the Billboard 200.

The legacy of the one of the world’s greatest and most bankable rock groups of all time
Led Zeppelin’s inestimable contributions have been rewarded with numerous awards and citations. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 1995 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005; several of their recordings have been chosen for the Grammy Hall of Fame. Led Zeppelin’s commercial success is demonstrated by the 111.5 million records that they’ve sold, leading them to become the best selling band in the US, only next to – you guessed it – The Beatles. Their unique, dynamic and eclectic style has won them many fans across the globe, as well as influenced several artists of the following generations.


Just as the cheery pop music of the early 1960s gave way to psychedelia and heavy metal as the decade progressed, so did interest in pop stars’ lives move beyond comparisons of their hairstyles and favorite colors to consideration of the more salacious aspects of their lives.

Favorite tales (then as now) involved drug use and sexual exploits, and, as usual, the most popular stories proved to be mixtures of truth, fiction, exaggeration, and publicity stunts. For example, the Rolling Stones, who probably spawned more legends of the “sex and drugs” variety than any other band of the rock ‘n’ roll era, spanned the spectrum: the lurid tale of Mick Jagger’s being caught in a compromising position with girlfriend Marianne Faithfull during a drug raid at Keith Richards’home was pure invention; an infamous film clip in which the band members passed a naked groupie around their tour plane was staged for the cameras; rumors of Keith Richards’ beating his heroin addiction by having his blood changed were exaggerations; and Angela Bowie’s account of catching her husband, David Bowie, in bed with Mick Jagger was true in the details but rather innocuous in its implications.

The most ubiquitous non-Stones-related tale is unquestionably the infamous “mud shark” legend, which relates how members of Led Zeppelin supposedly employed a (live) shark as a sexual device with a pliant female groupie:

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This story is tough to classify as either purely “true” or “false” because so many different versions with varying details exist, but we might safely say it’s one of many legends formed from a kernel of truth covered with several layers of exaggeration and embellishment.

The core incident took place at The Edgewater in Seattle (probably at the time of the group’s 27 July 1969 appearance at the Seattle Pop Festival), a hotel on Puget Sound from which guests could fish right out the windows of their rooms. According to Richard Cole, Led Zeppelin’s road manager, he and drummer John Bonham (aka “Bonzo”) were busily engaged in the pastime of catching sharks through an Edgewater window when they were interrupted by some persistent groupies, but what occurred next didn’t quite live up to the notorious modern version of the legend:

It wasn’t Bonzo, it was me. It wasn’t shark parts anyway: It was the nose that got put in. We caught a lot of big sharks, at least two dozen, stuck coat hangers through the gills and left ’em in the closet . . . But the true shark story was that it wasn’t even a shark. It was a red snapper and the chick happened to be a f_______ redheaded broad with a ginger p____. And that is the truth. Bonzo was in the room, but I did it. Mark Stein [of Vanilla Fudge] filmed the whole thing. And she loved it. It was like, “You’d like a bit of fucking, eh? Let’s see how your red snapper likes this red snapper!” That was it. It was the nose of the fish, and that girl must have come 20 times. But it was nothing malicious or harmful, no way! No one was ever hurt.

The basic tale incorporated a number of variations that were added to it across time:


  • The incident was variously described as involving some or all of the members of Led Zeppelin.
  • The piscatorial object involved was variously reported as a shark, a mud shark, a swordfish, a red snapper, or a generic fish.
  • In different versions the fish employed in the escapade was said to be alive, dead, or stuffed and mounted.
  • The female groupie was sometimes reported as having been tied (voluntarily or involuntarily) to the bed.
  • The extremes of the legend ranged from the band’s using an intact fish to harmlessly pleasure a groupie, to their cutting up a fish and stuffing pieces into several of the woman’s bodily orifices.

So yes, a female groupie was sexually engaged with a fish, but the fish was not a shark (and was presumably dead), it wasn’t “stuffed” inside her, the only member of Led Zeppelin present at the time (John Bonham) was merely an onlooker rather than an active participant, and the woman left the hotel unharmed.

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(We note that Richard Cole may not have been the most accurate chronicler of Led Zeppelin’s history, but since his accounts tended to run to excess it’s safe to assume the reality was no wilder than he presented it. In any case, accounts given by others connected with the incident didn’t substantially contradict Cole’s version.)

Nonetheless, tales of sexual exploits involving groupies and animals are familiar entries in the Led Zeppelin canon of rumors:

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One evening, two young girls were lounging in the bathtub of Led Zeppelin’s hotel suite. Page walked in. He giggled, “We figured you need something to keep you company.” Then he threw four live octopuses into the tub. The young ladies wound up enjoying the octopuses more than the rockers. “Oh my god,” squealed one of them, “I’ve gotta get one of these. It’s like having an eight-armed vibrator!”

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Led Zeppelin later cheered on another adventurous female fan while she made love with her pet Great Dane. The boys in the band even provided strategically placed bacon for the Great Dane’s pleasure.2

Sightings: The “Mud Shark” was immortalized in song by Frank Zappa during gigs in 1970-71.