Before Led Zeppelin Various Artists

Led Zeppelin were undoubtedly the biggest band of the 1970's. The thundering drums, the mix of delicate acoustic guitar mastery and crashing chords, the esoteric lyrics which were meaningless unless you had read Lord of the Rings, and the album cover with naked children climbing up The Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. The band themselves were equally arcane: A guitarist who allegedly worshipped the devil and carried out black magic rituals in his mansion on the shores of Loch Ness. A bass player who was tempted to chuck it all in and become the choir master of Winchester Cathedral. A drummer who liked to violate groupies with dead sharks, and a singer who was convinced that middle earth was somewhere in the west midlands. The four musicians and the band they formed that rose from the ashes of The Yardbirds, produced - as we have seen - an amazing melange of sounds, but nothing comes from nothing, unless you are going to talk about the big bang at the beginning of the universe. So where did the music of this wonderful band come from? This record collects together a whole bunch of music that influenced these four peerless musicians and the records they made during the decade beginning in 1969.