Being released in 1969 on January 12th in the US, Led Zeppelin’s debut album made it to the Top 20 on the charts in 1969-70 with the UK albums chart being the highest at NO. 6.
The album was recorded in October of 1968 in London shortly after the band was formed. The session to record took place before the group had secured a record contract and were paid directy, taking them 36 hours and less than 2,000 Pounds to complete.
The reasoning behind the short amount of studio time to create (including mixing) the album is because of the amount charged for the studio bill. Since the band wasn’t signed to their deal with Atlantic Records, Zeppelin’s manager Peter Grant paid for the session by themselves, meaning the there was no record company money to waster on excessive studio time.
With the sessions, there were two songs that were never released on the album, “Baby Come On Home” and “Sugar Mama”. However, they were released on the 2015 reissue of the retrospective album Coda.
Since the release of the band’s debut album, it has received multiple accolades throughout the 49 years including “The 100 Best Albums of All Time” in 1993 and Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” in 2012.
Track Listing:
Side One:
- “Good Times Bad Times”
- “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”
- “You Shook Me”
- “Dazed and Confused”
Side Two:
- “Your Time Is Gonna Come”
- “Black Mountain Side”
- “Communication Breakdown”
- “I Can’t Quit You Baby”
- “How Many More Times”
Members:
- John Bonham – drums, timpani, backing vocal
- Robert Plant – lead vocal, harmonica
- Jimmy Page – electric, acoustic and pedal steel guitars, backing vocal, production
- John Paul Jones – bass, organ, backing vocal
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin_(album)
