[John Covach] It's been 45 years since Led Zeppelin

released the first two albums Led Zeppelin I was released in the first half

of 1969 Led Zeppelin II

was released in the second half of '69. In many ways Led Zeppelin's music is

defined historically by the fourth album from 1971

because it has "Stairway to Heaven" on it. "Stairway to Heaven" is one of those songs

that people have said

is probably playing on the radio every second

of every day and has been since it was released. A real

iconic song in the rock repertory. And while

Led Zeppelin very much defined the 1970s in rock-and-roll

the roots of the group's sound and many of the important influence can really be found in

the second half of the 1960s.

[music: "A Whole Lotta Love"]

So the first two albums

really do show a lot of the range of what

Led Zeppelin was. They are essentially a group that came out

of the British blues rock tradition having come out of

the Yardbirds, and so there are hardly are any songs really on the first four

Led Zeppelin albums that cannot be attributed

in the one way shape or form to a previous blues number.

[music: guitar solo]

When we think about that second

Led Zeppelin album coming out at the second half of nineteen sixty-nine

it made it number one in the American charts, but

people don't realize that the album that it was fighting with for the number one slot

was Abbey Road. Some would think of as The Beatles sort of finest

achievement recording wise, and Led Zeppelin which was really

a fantastic record coming from an entirely different kind of blues influence kind

of place. We don't typically think of Led Zeppelin as really duking it out with The Beatles,

but in fact that really was the case in the second half of 1969.

[music: baseline from beginning of "How Many More TImes]

It's especially in the live shows that you really get a sense of who Led

Zeppelin were

as musicians. In fact, the studio recordings only capture a

kind of boiled down version of what Led Zeppelin music was. They would do shows

that lasted four hours, in which songs would be stretched out

with long jams and bringing in other kind of material. And so Led Zeppelin live

was really an almost kind of Grateful Dead

kind of experience. [music: first notes of "Heartbreaker"]

Many rock historians think of Led Zeppelin as being

one of the proto heavy metal

groups. In other words, something like "Whole Lotta Love" or "Heartbreaker" really

kind of define

what heavy metal is going to become into the 1970s and especially into

the '80s when really divides itself out

from the rest of the rock mainstream. And I think that's probably right but

it's also important to

to think about the fact that when that Led Zeppelin first came out in '69

with those first two records

most critics didn't think they were very good at all.

It's amazing to read those reviews of those first records and to think that

these critics that this music was terrible

and it would never survive and it turned out to be some of the most iconic

records in the history of

rock music.