Led Zeppelin “Bring It On Home”
“I’d like to maintain the dignity of the group. I’m very proud that people are so enchanted by it. And I think the way that it is now… what ever it was that people loved – is not going to be spoiled.
Led Zeppelin was bold and brave and chaotic and honest, in a very loose framework… It was honest – and it took risks and chances, which are no longer possible if you start from scratch.
I think its integrity, musically, captured all the elements of the kind of wondrous music that we’d all been exposed to… We were able to translate and kick on… It’s like we were a filter for all the good things… We filtered it and we begged, borrowed and stole. And we made something that was particularly original – by which a lot of other music has been measured.”
Robert Plant
This series of 2 x one hour documentaries was produced for Absolute Radio UK and broadcast on the 27th of Sept. and the 4th of October 2015.
They celebrate the lasting legacy of the band Led Zeppelin – while paying special tribute to the little known West Midlands roots of lead singer Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham. The two were regular performers in the thriving West Midlands music scene of the Sixties, long before they joined Jimmy Page’s ‘New Yardbirds’ – which would later conquer the world as Led Zeppelin.
One of the world’s leading rock authors and broadcaster Mick Wall, who wrote the Led Zeppelin book “When Giant’s Walked the Earth”, presents the documentary and visits key locations in the band’s West Midlands history.
The first documentary traces the bands and venues of Plant and Bonham’s early years and reveal the musical influences that helped shape the Led Zeppelin sound. It delves into the influence of manager Peter Grant, the excess of life on the road with Led Zeppelin, and the hostility of critics initial reaction to the group.
The second episode explores some of the band’s best known albums and songs – and reveals the tragedies they faced in the seventies, leading up to the death of Bonham on the 25th of September, 1980. It considers how the remaining members of the group reunited with Bonham’s son Jason on drums for a one off concert at the O2 area, London, in 2007 – and profiles the band’s Kennedy Center Award for their “contribution to American culture”, which was presented by President Obama in 2012.
“First-person accounts from people who saw their early musical ventures in local pubs, mixed with rare archive recordings of American blues players, make for a fresh understanding of a band who have been done to death.”
Jane Anderson, Radio Times
The broadcast of the documentaries marked the 35th anniversary of Led Zeppelin’s drummer John Bonham’s death – while providing local content for the launch of Absolute Radio in the West Midlands on 105.2 FM. The project was a collaboration between Absolute Radio, the Radio Dept. at Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Music Archive – whose founder Jez Collins provided an invaluable advisory role (…and memorably appears in episode 2).
Contributors:
Mick Wall, Chris Phipps, Bev Bevham (ELO, Black Sabbath and The Move’s drummer – and a close friend of Bonham), along with Roy Williams, Geoff Tristram, Johnny Doom, Claire Sturgess, Nial Doherty, Steve Palmer, Jim Simpson, and Graham Young… Plus archival interview material from Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones.
Many thanks to Paul Sylvester and Sammy James
