Led Back To The Blues

When The Levee Breaks

This goes way back to the 1929 song of that name by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, which was a traditional country blues about the 1927 flooding of the Mississippi: a disaster for the delta region.

Whole Lotta Love

It’s no secret that Led Zeppelin’s song was inspired by Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love”, recorded with Muddy Waters in 1962. Here we fed the Zep version back into the Dixon version, looking for a Chicago feel.

In My Time of Dying

No one knows where this one started – maybe Louisiana. Blind Willie Johnson recorded a version in 1927. Bob Dylan made it famous; Led Zeppelin took it into the stratosphere. The Be Good Tanyas helped us to see how to do this: their version is totally righteous. By the way, that “Jesus gonna make up my dying bed” was a trope of Black American preachers – you see it in James Baldwin’s novel “Go Tell It On The Mountain”.

Darlene

An outtake from “In Through The Out Door”, which landed on “Coda” – though in our view it would have easily earned a place on ITTOD. It just ached to be taken back to a rock’n’roll feel.

Nobody’s Fault But Mine

This one goes back to Blind Willie Johnson in 1927. Nina Simone did a stunning version that we borrowed from for the intro here, but then it hits a more Chicago blues piano groove.

In The Evening

A friend asked if this Zep original could be cycled back to the blues. It seemed like a tall order. But what was needed was a touch of Howlin’ Wolf.

Hey Hey What Can I Do

Famously, this never made it onto any Zep album, but was released on the 1972 compilation “The New Age of Atlantic”. The original has a country blues feel, but we figured it could have a gospel makeover – the kind of thing the young Elvis might have listened to.

Custard Pie

This one uses an old and probably saucy blues trope. It goes back to Blind Boy Fuller’s 1939 “I Want Some of Your Pie”, which kind of became Brownie McGhee’s “Custard Pie Blues” (1947). We wanted this version to have a Freddie King feel at his funkiest. There was a little lyrical borrowing from Bukka White’s “Shake ‘Em On Down” in the Zeppelin version too.

Dazed and Confused

This began in the Yardbirds era, based on a 1967 song of the same name by American singer-songwriter Jake Holmes (check it out – a fabulous slice of psychedelia). But what if it had started life in a 1960s jazz & blues club? Maybe something like this.

Gallows Pole

This one seems to go back to the 19th century: it first crops up as “The Maid Freed From the Gallows” in West Virginia at the start of the 20th, so we figured this needed an Appalachian feel. There have been many fine versions. Leadbelly did an extraordinary, frenetic version in 1939, and there’s a great one from Odetta in the 1960s. The amazing version by Willie Watson partly inspired this one. There’s a kind of Ry Cooder vibe to it too.

We’re Gonna Groove

This was originally written by Ben E. King under the title “Groovin’”, and boy was it good. It felt like the Zeppelin version begged to be Bo Diddlefied, but we put in a lot of horns to keep faith with the original too.

I’m Gonna Crawl

It seems that Robert Plant wanted this one to sound like 60s soul, maybe in the manner of Wilson Pickett. So why not take it a bit further in that direction?

Rock and Roll

We imagined this as if it was based on a slow blues. Of course, the original does begin with a steal: Bonham’s drum intro comes from Little Richard’s “Keep A-Knockin’”.