The album Robert Plant “felt so proud” of owning
Every music fan sees their record collection as historical documents that help tell the story of who they are, and while many musicians eventually start telling their own story over two sides of vinyl, Robert Plant did have a handful of records that would never get old to him.
But when looking at the record collections of any member of Led Zeppelin, you weren’t always going to get the same thing. Part of what made them one of the greatest bands in history was seeing the diversity of material that they all had to work with. Jimmy Page may have brought in some Eastern influences based on what he was listening to, but it wasn’t out of the question for John Bonham to be listening to the best soul music he could find and throw it into one of their tunes.
However, if there was a common language amongst everyone in the early days, it had to be the blues. Sure, Page had left The Yardbirds because he wanted to dream bigger, but you can’t possibly listen to anything from the band’s debut and not believe they were channelling their favourite moves from people like Muddy Waters or Howlin’ Wolf. On the other hand, Plant’s record collection ran a little bit deeper than that.
There were models for whom he wanted to sound like, but Plant always felt that he needed to relate to the person behind everything. He could feel Janis Joplin’s pain when she sang and he could relate to the heartache that BB King sang about, but when he listened to Robert Johnson, he knew he was listening to a man who had made his fair share of mistakes throughout his career.
While Johnson’s tale is practically music folklore, Plant knew exactly what he was getting at when listening to tunes like ‘Travelling Riverside Blues’. There was still that darkness that came with every urban legend connected to him, but there was also something slightly seductive about the ‘squeeze my lemon’, which probably appealed to Plant a little too much when he shoehorned it into ‘The Lemon Song’.
But if anything, the lead singer felt that it was his job to help carry on that music, noting, “In its original context, that Robert Johnson album, Travelin’ Riverside Blues [sic]—I was playing the album the other night and I felt so proud of owning it. I really would like to think that someone who heard that and then saw some clever critic writing about Plant living off the far superior Robert Johnson, or whatever they have to say to keep their jobs, would go and listen to Robert Johnson as a result.”
It’s not like Plant was the first to carry on the tradition. ‘Crossroads’ had already been etched into history over again thanks to Cream’s version, and while The Rolling Stones had many great blues covers under their belt, they felt most at home when playing Johnson’s licks, even when they turned ‘Love in Vain’ into a slower ballad on Let It Bleed.
Say what you will about Zeppelin taking a few too many liberties playing cover songs, but the blues was never about having the most original ideas in the world. Yes, they did overstep their bounds and may have needed to pay their fair share of royalties now and again, but as long as the blues still had some space on the radio, that was all they needed.
