March, 1969. I was just a kid who was hanging around an "underground" radio station in Dallas. On this particular day, a rep from Atlantic Records walked in with a new album by a band called Led Zeppelin. I'll never forget what he said: "This band is going to be the next Cream!"
He dropped the needle on the vinyl and "Good Times, Bad Times" played. It was amazing. And those drums! I was an aspiring drummer, so John Bonham blew me away. To this day, I still can't understand how Bonzo hit the kick drum that fast.
It was about that time that I had a friend who had gotten his driver's license and a brand new lime green Dodge Super Bee with a Hurst shifter and a killer 8-track audio system. We spent the Summer of '69 in thar car blasting the Zep 1 album.
So you can understand why four of my favorite Zeppelin songs are from that album!
Why Black Dog? Besides just being a kick-ass rock song, it is also pretty complex in that the time-signature changes a couple of times. John Paul Jones came up with the riff. He is quoted as saying, "I wanted to try an electric blues with a rolling bass part. But it couldn't be too simple. I wanted it to turn back on itself. I showed it to the guys, and we fell into it. We struggled with the turn-around, until Bonham figured out that you just four-time as if there's no turn-around. That was the secret."
1. Good Times, Bad Times
2. How Many More Times
3. Dazed & Confused
4. You Shook Me
5. Black Dog