Four Londoners turned New Yardbirds into hard-rock template
Led Zeppelin formed in London in 1968 around Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. Evolving from the Yardbirds, they won an Atlantic deal with rare artistic freedom. Eight UK number-one albums and six U.S. Billboard 200 toppers followed; five U.S. albums went Diamond.
Heavy guitar met blues and folk. Debut Led Zeppelin (1969) cracked top tens with Dazed and Confused and Communication Breakdown; Led Zeppelin II that same year brought Whole Lotta Love to number one. Page wrote most music, Plant most lyrics; Jones added keyboard-born songs later. Mid-1970s tours set attendance marks and a wild reputation.
Early critics sniffed, then commerce and later reappraisal made them Rolling Stone's heaviest band. Session ace Page had joined the Yardbirds in 1966, briefly pairing with Jeff Beck before the New Yardbirds renamed themselves.
The formula—volume, folk modalities, and Bonham's drums—still defines what listeners mean by classic hard rock.
The group rose from the Yardbirds' collapse. After a final gig at Luton on 7 July 1968, Page and bassist Chris Dreja were allowed to use the old name to honour pending Scandinavian dates. The four new members first jammed in August 1968 in a basement beneath a Gerrard Street record shop in London, starting with Train Kept A-Rollin', and first faced an audience at Gladsaxe in Denmark on 7 September. On 25 October they played Guildford's University of Surrey, their first gig billed as Led Zeppelin. In November, Grant won a $143,000 advance from Atlantic Records, then the largest such deal for a new band, and executives signed them on Dusty Springfield's word without seeing them play. In their first year they completed four American and four British tours, and some early concerts stretched beyond four hours.
Source: Led Zeppelin
