Watch the First Episode of “History of Led Zeppelin”
Video details the 1968 recording of the band’s monumental debut album.
Led Zeppelin have released Episode 1 of “History of Led Zeppelin,” the first in a series of short stories celebrating the band’s history. You can check out the short video above.
Episode 1 details the story of the young band entering London's Olympic Studios in 1968 to record their self-titled debut album. Featuring footage of the band playing live, and soundtracked to Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” the video tells how the album was self-financed and completed in 30 hours, for the sum of just £1782 pounds.
“The group had only been together two-and-a-half weeks when we recorded it,” explains Jimmy Page.
The new series is the latest in a line of offerings celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin’s debut in 1969, and follows digital-only music collections and a 400-page photo book, among other products. Additionally, Page teamed up with Fender to recreate the 1959 Telecaster (in both “Mirror” and “Dragon” iterations) that he used to record Led Zeppelin.
“The story of the instrument is the whole journey of it,” Page said at the time of the announcement. “From Jeff [Beck] having it, to passing it on to me with such good spirit. It’s a lot of love in that gesture and the journey of it through The Yardbirds and how it was used on the first Led Zeppelin album, the journey all the way through here today. Now, it’s been restored back to its true beauty and we’ve actually been able to sort of clone it.”
For more information, head over to LedZeppelin.com.
Get The Pick Newsletter
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!
Thank you for reading 5 articles this month**
Join now for unlimited access
US pricing $3.99 per month or $39.00 per year
UK pricing £2.99 per month or £29.00 per year
Europe pricing €3.49 per month or €34.00 per year
*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription
Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.
“Gilmour says, ‘I want to play on it’ – like, he doesn’t do this’”: Body Count rip through their Comfortably Numb reimagining on the Tonight Show, as Ernie C does his best David Gilmour
“You could tell it was gonna be a good group, but people wouldn’t even book the band”: Long-awaited Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary gets its first trailer – and hints at the band’s early struggles