This day in 1968 – Led Zeppelin (recording under the name “The Yardbirds”) started recording their debut album at Olympic Studios, Barnes, London, England. The album took only about 36 hours of studio time to complete at a cost of around £1,782, with most of the tracks being recorded ‘live’ in the studio with very few overdubs.
The album was recorded in September and October 1968 at Olympic Studios, London, shortly after the band’s formation. It contains a mix of original material worked out in the first rehearsals, and remakes and rearrangements of contemporary blues and folk songs. The sessions took place before the group had secured a recording contract and were paid for directly. It was self-produced by Jimmy Page, the group’s founder, leader, and guitarist.
He was joined on the album by band members Robert Plant (lead vocals, harmonica), John Paul Jones (bass, keyboards), and John Bonham (drums). Percussionist Viram Jasani appears as a guest on one track. The album was mixed by Page’s childhood friend Glyn Johns, and the iconic album cover showing the Hindenburg disaster was designed by George Hardie.
The album showed the group’s fusion of blues and rock, and their take on the emerging hard rock sound was immediately commercially successful in both the UK and US, reaching the top-10 on album charts in both countries, as well as several others. Many of the songs were longer and not well suited to be released as singles for radio airplay, and Page was reluctant to release “singles”, so only one single was released, “Good Times Bad Times”. However, due to exposure on album-oriented rock radio stations, and growth in popularity of the band, many of the album’s songs have become classic rock radio staples.
Ironically some major media did not rate the album very favorably when it was first released, causing it to go over in the press like a bit of a “lead balloon”, as Keith Moon had suggested the band might had he joined. Rolling Stone vilified it, calling Page’s production “limited” and Plant’s singing “foppish”, but now list it as #29 on their 500 best albums of all time.
Source: Wikipedia
