“We had an empathy”: The song that made Jimmy Page love Robert Plant
For as gigantic as Led Zeppelin became, it’s insane to think that Jimmy Page was being looked at as crazy when he first put the band together.
This was bound to be the rock and roll group that would put everyone else to shame, and yet when he asked if Keith Moon would join him, the whole thing was downright laughable after coming off the hot streak with The Yardbirds. But even if some of the biggest names in music dismissed them, most people shut the hell up the minute that they heard that debut record for the first time.
I mean, for one thing, this was among the loudest blues bands that England had ever seen. Cream had set the bar for what heaviness could be for a long time, but even though Page had been one of the two people replacing Eric Clapton, he was bound to give rock and roll a kick in the ass once he had John Paul Jones and John Bonham behind him. That rhythmic section made anything sound gigantic, so a riff like ‘Communication Breakdown’ was bound to knock someone over the head the first time they heard it.
But before Robert Plant came in, there were already a few options as to who could be the lead singer. Terry Reid had all the range that Page was looking for, but when you heard Plant leap into that ‘Percy’ register, there was no debating he was the one for them. If you’re that good a singer, though, you would need to have a good knowledge of how to interpret songs instead of singing anything you want.
You have to remember that the blues language of the day involved covering a lot of tunes, and with Page’s extensive knowledge of all kinds of music, most of them were prepared for whatever weird idea came into his head. Lightning struck the minute that the band all locked in on playing ‘Train Kept A-Rollin’, but even with Plant’s massive voice, it wasn’t until Page heard ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’ that he really understood the kind of artist he was working with.
Most of Zeppelin’s first record was already structured well before the rest of the band even got there, but Page felt that Plant’s dedication to the acoustic stuff gave them a shot in the arm, saying, “We had an empathy. ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’ — I knew exactly how that was going to shape up. I set the mood with the acoustic guitar and that flamenco-like section. But Robert embraced it. He came up with an incredible, plaintive vocal. When you’re in a group, you’re trying to bring out the best of each member, in that moment. We managed to bring something good out of each other.”
Then again, that’s what all singers should be shooting for when making their classics. Anyone could have spent their days shouting their guts and tried to be the best howler that they could, but the beauty behind Plant’s voice was that he could take things down a notch and make the kind of songs that people could sing along to when he came up with the melodies to ‘Going to California’ and ‘Hey Hey What Can I Do’.
And considering that’s where things started, it’s almost poetic when Plant found himself back at more acoustic material later on in his career. Zeppelin had their time in the sun up until Bonham’s death, but instead of chase after that high one more time, Plant figured that making music with The Band of Joy again and working on his own collaborative records with Alison Krauss made a lot more sense for what he was at that point in his life.
Everyone might be gutted when both of them shoot down the chance of a Zeppelin reunion, but it’s really about being practical when looking at both of their careers. Every band thrives off of that back and forth between artists, and you can hear Plant and Page doing their best to get the most out of every song they create.
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