The musical master Robert Plant knew no one could resist: “Everybody goes back and has some more”
For a lot of people, the main selling point for Led Zeppelin songs was Robert Plant’s exciting vocals.
When Jimmy Page was putting the band together, he found that getting the right singer was one of the biggest challenges. The truth is, everyone he knew in London was busy. We’re talking about the back end of the ‘60s here, where the music industry has never been busier, so the majority of people with any kind of musical talent were busy working on something else.
Page was at a loose end, but then a friend of his mentioned a great singer in Birmingham that he should check out, and so the guitarists left the capital and went to listen to this new tip off. What he ended up hearing would change his life, the singer’s life, and the lives of rock lovers around the world from that day on.
It wasn’t just Plant’s voice that Page was so drawn to, but it was his entire look and the way he carried himself on stage. He knew that Plant was the perfect person to put his vocals on what would become pretty complex tracks, but he was also the best person to be the frontperson of this genre-defining band.
“He had a distinctive sexual quality,” said Page when reflecting on the first time that he saw Plant perform. “The way he carried himself was far more cerebral than anything I’d come across before.”
There are very few bands that make such a distinctive sound from the moment they take to the stage. Their manager, Peter Grant, said that not many acts were willing to have them as a support act in the US because Zeppelin had such a strong live sound. How could anyone ever follow a band of that magnitude?
“They didn’t want them near them,” said Grant, discussing the show when Led Zeppelin supported Iron Butterfly. “And they were right. Zeppelin did a fantastic set. The audience was still going: ‘Zeppelin! Zeppelin! Zeppelin!…’ when Iron Butterfly had started their set. Good band, not a bad band, but no match for Zeppelin. But then nobody ever was.”
Since the band split up, Robert Plant’s vocals have changed, not because he’s looking for a specific change in style, but because, with age, people’s voices loosen. Some artists can’t deal with it and cling to whatever shreds they have left; meanwhile, you have people like Plant, who simply decide to change their style to better suit their voice.
A lot of people who have been to Plant shows since this change in vocals complain when he doesn’t provide the same screeches he did with Zeppelin, but those people need to keep in mind that those songs were released decades ago. Not that Plant cares. He spoke about Bob Dylan, a real musical master, when making his point, saying that it doesn’t matter how much someone’s style changes, the crowds will still keep coming. They rock up for Dylan, so why not Plant?
“Well, what do you do about Bob Dylan then?” said Plant, concluding, “I mean, he’s the master of that, and everybody goes back and has some more of it. They say, ‘Oh, I’m never going to see him again!’ and they do because what are you going to do for 45 years saddled with the same piece of music?”
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