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Led Zeppelin: The Biography, the authorized account of the band’s history from Springsteen manager turned Beatles author Bob Spitz hits stores today.
The book’s 688 pages contain more than 50 interviews with associates from Atlantic Records and Swan Song, childhood friends, and album cover designer Aubrey Powell among others. The book reputably holds 62 pages of notes verifying sources for quotes given.
Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones notably declined to participate in interviews for the book.
The book is billed not only as “a full and honest reckoning [that] the band has long awaited,” but also as a social examination of how the 60s evolved into the 70s.
Chapter titles like “The Year of Living Dangerously,” “Flying Too Close to the Sun,” and “Their Own Private Sodom and Gomorrah” signal a focus on offstage antics.
The once glorified stories often associated with the band featuring drugs, violence, and statutory rape which were first brought to widespread attention after the release of Hammer of the Gods in 1985, are sure to reopen the conversation on the band’s outsized, if not problematic reputation.
In one section, Vanilla Fudge’s Carmine Appice gives his telling of the notorious mud shark incident in which members of the band famously molested a 17-year old groupie with a fish in the waterfront room at the Seattle Edgewater Inn while others watched.
Lori Mattix, a 14-year old groupie that Page, then 29 seduced in 1973 also gives a telling interview.
The book’s prologue describes the affirming Boston Tea Party show in 1969 and describes the reaction of a young Steven Tyler who was in the audience.
Elsewhere, LedZepNews.com reports that one of the best stories in a digital copy given by Penguin Random House features a legendary bender with John Bonham, Janis Joplin, and Andy Warhol.
Spitz’ investigative legwork confirms the Drake Hotel robbery of 1973, where the band was robbed $200,000 from their hotel safes was almost certainly infamous manager Peter Grant’s doing.
The book notably also features several errors regarding the dates and locations of the band for select live performances and recording sessions, some due to incorrect liner notes on earlier album pressings as pointed out by LedZepNews.com.
Melody Maker lynchpin Chris Charlesworth who interviewed the band in their heyday received a physical copy containing pictures that also had errors concerning dates and commented the story’s retelling is “hardly new” in his review. He ultimately praised the book for its thoroughness.
Spitz has been vocal against readers who fact check his work. When one of the editors of the Beatles fanzine Daytrippin’ sent Spitz a list of errors he had made in his bestselling biography of the Beatles, Spitz told him he needed an enema.
Led Zeppelin have been famously protective over their enormously valuable catalogue for decades, giving their signoff to very few projects for usage until the 2010s. Zeppelin’s conversion to digital fronts and visual media represents a major shift from the band’s agenda during the 2000s.
A documentary has been authorized for next year’s release which Page has publicly praised and the band recently joined TikTok, allowing usage of their music and creating a verified account. An official photographic history of the band was released in 2018 in celebration of their fiftieth anniversary.
Led Zeppelin: The Biography, the authorized account of the band’s history from Springsteen manager turned Beatles author Bob Spitz hits stores today.
The book’s 688 pages contain more than 50 interviews with associates from Atlantic Records and Swan Song, childhood friends, and album cover designer Aubrey Powell among others. The book reputably holds 62 pages of notes verifying sources for quotes given.
Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones notably declined to participate in interviews for the book.
The book is billed not only as “a full and honest reckoning [that] the band has long awaited,” but also as a social examination of how the 60s evolved into the 70s.
Chapter titles like “The Year of Living Dangerously,” “Flying Too Close to the Sun,” and “Their Own Private Sodom and Gomorrah” signal a focus on offstage antics.
The once glorified stories often associated with the band featuring drugs, violence, and statutory rape which were first brought to widespread attention after the release of Hammer of the Gods in 1985, are sure to reopen the conversation on the band’s outsized, if not problematic reputation.
In one section, Vanilla Fudge’s Carmine Appice gives his telling of the notorious mud shark incident in which members of the band famously molested a 17-year old groupie with a fish in the waterfront room at the Seattle Edgewater Inn while others watched.
Lori Mattix, a 14-year old groupie that Page, then 29 seduced in 1973 also gives a telling interview.
The book’s prologue describes the affirming Boston Tea Party show in 1969 and describes the reaction of a young Steven Tyler who was in the audience.
Elsewhere, LedZepNews.com reports that one of the best stories in a digital copy given by Penguin Random House features a legendary bender with John Bonham, Janis Joplin, and Andy Warhol.
Spitz’ investigative legwork confirms the Drake Hotel robbery of 1973, where the band was robbed $200,000 from their hotel safes was almost certainly infamous manager Peter Grant’s doing.
The book notably also features several errors regarding the dates and locations of the band for select live performances and recording sessions, some due to incorrect liner notes on earlier album pressings as pointed out by LedZepNews.com.
Melody Maker lynchpin Chris Charlesworth who interviewed the band in their heyday received a physical copy containing pictures that also had errors concerning dates and commented the story’s retelling is “hardly new” in his review. He ultimately praised the book for its thoroughness.
Spitz has been vocal against readers who fact check his work. When one of the editors of the Beatles fanzine Daytrippin’ sent Spitz a list of errors he had made in his bestselling biography of the Beatles, Spitz told him he needed an enema.
Led Zeppelin have been famously protective over their enormously valuable catalogue for decades, giving their signoff to very few projects for usage until the 2010s. Zeppelin’s conversion to digital fronts and visual media represents a major shift from the band’s agenda during the 2000s.
A documentary has been authorized for next year’s release which Page has publicly praised and the band recently joined TikTok, allowing usage of their music and creating a verified account. An official photographic history of the band was released in 2018 in celebration of their fiftieth anniversary.
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