Becoming Led Zeppelin - Review by Phil Large
This film from documentary makers Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty was given a limited cinema-only release in January but is now more widely available on demand on the Sky Documentaries channel. It traces the formation and early career of the rock behemoths up to the release of their second album in 1969, whilst providing a fascinating insight into the backgrounds and early lives of the four members by way of rare in-depth interviews with the notoriously reticent quartet. Even more surprisingly, the late John Bonham gets to speak for himself, thanks to the discovery of a previously unheard interview the drummer gave to Australian radio before his untimely death in 1980.
The big question, of course, is this: is this film of interest only to Zep Heads like myself? I would argue that it has a wider appeal, mainly because a large part of it concentrates on the band members' early lives and how they came to meet and form one of the most successful rock bands of all time.
Why should this be of interest to non-Zeppelin fans? Well firstly, the effect of post war Britain’s deprivations on the creative arts is an interesting piece of social history. Secondly, and I suppose this depends on your point of view, I’m always interested to learn how great bands came together, regardless of whether or not I like their music, and Becoming Led Zeppelin traces the gestation of this great band in previously unknown detail.
Many rock groups are formed when the members meet as teenagers or even schoolchildren, the Beatles being probably the best known example. The members of Led Zeppelin, however, were recruited by guitarist Jimmy Page to fit the specific template he had in mind for how he wanted a group to look and sound like.
By 1968, Page had spent several years as a much sought after session musician, gaining a reputation as a virtuoso guitarist able to turn his hand to anything from the latest Kinks single to the theme from the Bond movie Goldfinger. He had been persuaded by Jeff Beck to give up session work in favour of joining the Yardbirds, but when the group acrimoniously split up, he decided he preferred the group lifestyle and so resolved to start his own instead of going back to session work.
With a contacts book full of London’s best musicians, this should have been straightforward, but the first person he approached turned him down. Page had decided he wanted a stand-alone vocalist, rather than a guitarist who sang, and offered the job to Terry Reid. Reid, who passed away recently, spent a lifetime in music being revered by his fellow musicians but largely ignored by the record buying public. Indeed, he is now best remembered, not for any of his songs, but for his reaction to Page’s offer. Having just signed a contract with Mickie Most, Reid turned Page down but suggested he take a look at an unknown singer based in the midlands named Robert Plant.
Page duly ventured north to check out Reid’s recommendation, who was the singer in a group improbably named ‘Obs Tweedle. Impressed with the singer if not his band name, Page offered Plant the job. Upon hearing that a drummer was also needed, Plant suggested the Tweedle's explosive sticksman, John Bonham, and Page’s vision was almost complete.
The final piece of the jigsaw was bass player John Paul Jones, one of Page’s fellow London session alumni, who was persuaded by his wife to call Page and offer his services.
Although Jimmy Page began recruiting the members of his new group with a clear idea of what he wanted, the final result owed more to luck than to an organised recruitment process. Had Terry Reid accepted the job offer, Led Zeppelin would have sounded very different, Robert Plant and John Bonham may well have remained in obscurity, and the enormous success and influence the group subsequently enjoyed may never have happened.
It’s this kind of sliding doors scenario that I find so fascinating in the stories of how rock bands were formed, as well as the unwavering determination of the individual musicians to make it. Robert Plant, for example, heard Little Richard and resolved to become a singer, ignoring his parents' pleas to train as an accountant and enduring periods of homelessness along the way.
Such deprivations are commonplace amongst successful rock stars, as indeed is the wilful rejection of well-intentioned parental advice. Plant’s story is very similar to that of Bruce Springsteen and all four Beatles, all of whom endured a bread-line existence and caused parental despair and frustration before hitting the big time. Whilst the resolve and single-mindedness of these rock legends is to be admired, there must be plenty of people now living in abject poverty because they rejected opportunities for education and employment in favour of chasing their dreams. Few of us have the talent of a Bruce Springsteen or Robert Plant, but as this film illustrates, Lady Luck has a great deal to do with it as well.
Once the story of Led Zeppelin's formation has been told, I have to admit that the rest of the film probably holds little interest for anyone who isn’t a fan of the band. For those of us who are, however, it’s a treasure trove of undiscovered concert footage and stories of how Zep relentlessly toured America in the early days to become the world’s biggest and best live act.
From the vantage point of 57 years on, it’s easy to forget that in 1968 there was no other group like Led Zeppelin. There’s some terrific footage of their first show when, still billed as the New Yardbirds, they fulfilled the old group’s contractual obligation to appear on a Danish TV show. The baffled looks of the audience of Danish teenagers are a treat to behold, as they struggle to process the explosive performance of Communication Breakdown, which sounded nothing like the latest Yardbirds single they were expecting. Much of this concert footage is previously unseen, and for those of us whose only previous experience of seeing Led Zeppelin live is The Song Remains the Same – a film of a much later tour – it’s a rare treat.
Page was adamant that his band would be defined by their live shows and albums, and steadfastly rejected the record company’s increasingly desperate pleas to get him to release a single. The film ends with the release of Led Zeppelin II, whose opening track, Whole Lotta Love, was felt by Atlantic Records to be ideal single material. Page scuppered any such notions by creating the famous avant garde middle section, whose weird noises and orgasmic wailing ensured it wasn’t the least bit radio friendly.
Whilst allowing Page to relate this story, I felt the directors missed a trick by not asking him what he made of the supreme irony of the track he prevented from being a single being used as the theme for Top of the Pops!
As anyone with even a passing interest in the Led Zeppelin story will know, the band’s career after the second album encompassed a further six multi-million selling albums, legendary live performances, some of rock’s most famous and enduring songs, plus an unusual amount of tragedy, with the heartbreaking early deaths of both Bonham and Plant’s infant son.
It’s a familiar story, but not one that the group themselves have told before, so one hopes that MacMahon and McGourty did not just turn off their recording equipment when this film concludes, but persuaded Page, Plant and Jones to keep on talking. Hearing how Led Zep reached the top is fascinating; hearing the band describe how they stayed there would be equally so. Here’s hoping for a sequel.