FOUR of the BEST

It’s 50 years this year since Led Zeppelin released their immense fourth album, cementing their position in music history and inspiring the playing of a million guitar-shop visitors. The band’s Quiet One, bassist John Paul Jones, was on astounding form throughout Half a century since that high point, we revisit his bass parts and ask how it was that JPJ became the leading rock bassist of his generation...

- Joel McIver, Stuart Clayton, Dan Veall

“We were told if we had a single we’d sell 800,000 copies. We said ‘no’ and sold 800,000 albums instead”

JOHN PAUL JONES, LED ZEPPELIN

Anyone who enjoys the cranium-crushing sound of heavy metal and its slightly more refined accomplice, hard rock, owes a debt to Led Zeppelin. Alongside their contemporaries, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, Led Zep was one of the unholy trios of British rock bands responsible for the evolution of popular music into a heavier, more high-volume direction. Without these three acts, the music of a whole generation would have been more lightweight in style and significance.

Where Sabbath pioneered heavy metal with their downturned riffage, and Purple focused on streamlined power rock and classical virtuosity, Led Zeppelin’s approach was based on folk, acoustic, and world elements, and epic soundscapes just as much as the usual bludgeoning blues of the day. It was the makeup of the band which gave it its spectacular edge: Robert Plant’s voice and lyrics were ambitious and wide-ranging; guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones added their remarkable musical dexterity to a range of instrumentation, and John ‘Bonzo’ Bonham was a feral drummer. Few bands have benefited from such a perfect mix of talents, alongside that of their terrifying manager Peter Grant, although the creative tension thrown up by the intimacy of four great musicians almost destroyed the band on more than one occasion.

This month, we’re focusing on a single moment in Zeppelin’s long and chaotic career—the release of