Robert Plant explains why ‘Smokestack Lightning’ was “the basis” of rock and roll
Every generation of music fans is going to pull from what’s come before. Regardless of how many times bands say that they are going to predict the future with the music that they make, there are often a few more influences from the past that they are pulling from rather than just rattling them off the cuff. While half of Led Zeppelin’s catalogue can be chalked up to the glory years of blues and rock and roll, Robert Plant thought that the true foundation of rock was set with the song ‘Smokestack Lightning’.
Because if there’s one genre that rock and roll is built on, it’s the blues. Despite Chuck Berry getting the ball rolling in the 1950s with songs about going to sockhops and kids who wanted nothing more than to play guitar, a lot of what he was doing was about taking the foundation of old bluesmen and putting some attitude into it.
And it’s not like the blues needed to be explained to Led Zeppelin. Throughout their time together, the amount of blues cliches in their catalogue has accumulated so large that practically half of their catalogue could be considered plagiarised from someone else, from ‘The Lemon Song’ to ‘Dazed and Confused’.
Whereas most artists were sampling the American blues and packaging it as the British invasion, Plant always found something primal about listening to the Howlin’ Wolf classic. Compared to every other rock and roll song out at the time, this was the kind of guttural howl that no one else was doing, especially as he croaked out the title of the song in a voice that sounded like the boogieman from under the bed.
When speaking with Charlie Rose, Plant thought that most of the rock and rollers of his generation owe a huge debt to that song, saying, “It’s not really rock and roll, but it was the basis of so much beautiful and extravagant music. We hammed it up and tried to get it as good as we could, and as they say in England, a miss is as good as a mile, but we got there”.
But really, does Plant even need to say that this song was an influence on him? I mean, if you listen to a good half of Zeppelin’s debut record, the songs feature Plant singing in that screaming register that sounds like his throat is about to split in half most of the time, especially on the bluesier cuts like ‘How Many More Times’.
Although the blues seem to go in and out of fashion depending on what generation you’re in, ‘Smokestack Lightning’ has remained a staple for all good hard rock bands. Outside of Zeppelin’s generation, Soundgarden took the tune even further when they crafted their debut, Ultramega OK, making it much more forceful and slowing it down to the point where it sounds like a slower version of a Black Sabbath tune.
Even though Plant is old enough to remember the true birth of rock and roll, he knows that the genre goes back much further than the origin of the name. Chuck Berry may have helped popularise the genre, but rock and roll has been around in any genre willing to push the boundaries of what was considered normal on a record.
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