The Led Zeppelin Top 50 Countdown (#45-41) & This Week's Statistics

Hello, my friends! Led Zeppelin was quite a hit last week. Time for more.

Ginger Baker of Cream pioneered the idea of the heavy, heavy drum solo; Zeppelin's hard pounder, the semihuman John Bonham, followed suit. To understand Bonham, one has to realize that Animal, the character from the Muppet Show, was a composite of Bonham and Keith Moon of the Who. Bonzo, as he was known to his friends and fans, certainly earned the right to have one song a concert that he could turn into a ten-minute solo for his own self-gratification if he so desired, and Moby Dick was that song - though, in the studio, they at least keep that whale of a solo down to a (relatively) trim three minutes or so. Don’t sleep on that ridiculously grungy Page riff either, though - or Bonham’s underrated intro fill, sampled for the Beastie Boys’ What Comes Around. At #45, here's Bonham's drum-solo epic from Led Zeppelin II (1969), Moby Dick. This is the studio version:

The song began as a jam based around bluesman Sleepy John Estes' The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair. In concert it could stretch out as long as 30 minutes; this is the version that appeared on the live album/concert film The Song Remains the Same. Please note that the audio disappears from 1:04 to 1:11 (just 7 seconds). Other than that, it's fine.

At #44 is a groovy little acoustic-based number designed as a deliberate change of pace after the lead-off track of Led Zeppelin III (1970), The Immigrant Song. Friends marked a number of firsts for the band - their first predominantly acoustic song, first to feature heavy string arrangements, first to be vaguely Eastern-sounding in nature. The chorus is a little pat (“The greatest thing you ever could do now / Is lend a smile to someone who’s blue now”), but the sound is mesmerizing and would point the way toward’s much of the band’s musical future.

Friends would be Jimmy Page's last stab at psychedelia. Here it is:

The song was re-recorded by Page and Plant with the Bombay Symphony Orchestra in 1972, during their trip to India. This version featured tabla drums and sitars. Here it is: 

At #43 is a song from Physical Graffiti (1975), called Black Country Woman. It's an acoustic song recorded in the back garden of Stargroves manor house, in 1972 (around the same time as D'yer Mak'er). At the beginning of the track, recording engineer Eddie Kramer can be heard saying, "Shall we roll it, Jimmy? We're rolling on what, one, no, one again." followed by saying "Don't want to get this airplane on" about an airplane which is heard flying overhead, to which Robert Plant replies "Nah, leave it, yeah." Black Country refers to the area near to Birmingham, UK, in which Robert Plant and John Bonham were brought up.

A lovely song, from the burst of left-in studio chatter that begins it to Plant's "Whatsa matta withchoo, mama?" ending. That's not an easy acoustic guitar line Page is proffering, it's a deceptively simple (you try to re-create that riff on a six-string) acoustic number, marked by a crackling drum sound from Bonham and some nice harp playing, too. Yes, it's a dirty-dealing-woman song, but it doesn't come across as hateful.

Black Country Woman was played live at Led Zeppelin concerts only when it was merged into a medley with Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp on the band's concert tour of the United States in 1977. For this arrangement, John Paul Jones played an upright bass. This is it:

At #42 there's I Can't Quit You Baby, a blues standard written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Chicago blues artist Otis Rush in 1956. It was Rush's first recording and became a chart hit. Led Zeppelin recorded I Can't Quit You Baby for their 1969 debut album Led Zeppelin. Their rendition generally follows Otis Rush's 1966 Vanguard version, but with different instrumentation and dynamics. Plant’s banshee wailing is on point and the rhythm section is as locked in as ever, but really, it’s a showcase for Page, who kills every little mid-verse fill he gets - and he gets a lot of them - before out-Claptoning Clapton on the song’s proper solo(es).

Here's Otis Rush's original 1956 version:

This is Rush's 1966 version:

And this is Led Zeppelin's original studio version:

Led Zeppelin regularly performed I Can't Quit You Baby in concert from 1968 to early 1970. This is a live version from 1969:

Finally for today, at #41, we have another song from Physical Graffiti (1975), called In My Time of Dying. In My Time of Dying (also called Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed or a variation thereof) is a traditional gospel music song that has been recorded by numerous musicians. The title line, closing each stanza of the song, refers to a deathbed and was inspired by a passage in the Bible from Psalms 41:3 "The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing, thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness".

In October 1926, Reverend J. C. Burnett recorded Jesus Is Going to Make Up Your Dying Bed, but it was never issued. Blind Willie Johnson may have heard Burnett's song or otherwise learned some of his lyrics. Johnson recorded the song during his first recording session on December 3, 1927, as Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed and the second take was released as his first single in 1928. Here it is:

Versions were recorded by country blues artists like Vera Reed and gospel groups like the Soul Stirrers. The song gained greater prominence in popular music when Bob Dylan included a version (along with several others dealing with the subject of death) on his 1962 eponymous debut album. The song, closest to Josh White's version, had a slightly different name on the Dylan album, In My Time of Dyin'. Here is Dylan's version:

John Sebastian's 1971 version of the song, produced by the Doors' producer Paul A. Rothchild, under the title Well, Well, Well was also issued as a single. This is it:

Led Zeppelin's version, their longest studio track, transmogrified a gospel standard into a stadium hydra via Page's grinding slide, Jones' shape-shifting bass line, and Bonham's massive hopscotch groove. Record producer Rick Rubin has remarked on the song's structure, "The bass line in the fast grooves is so interesting and unexpected. It keeps shifting gears, over and over." This was a major statement for the band and a bid for critical respect. The length of the song could have resulted in disastrous over-noodling and interminable dragging, but Zeppelin manage to maintain interest throughout, with a variety of well-timed tempo and dynamic switches and one of Plant’s all-time masterful vocal performances (“Oh my JEEEEE-SUUUUUS!!!”). Why they undercut the whole thing at the end with a bad in-studio joke is anyone’s guess, but by then, they’ve earned the right.

In the May 2008 issue of Uncut Magazine, Page elaborated on the humorous reaction in the studio which can be heard at the end of the song: "We were just having such a wonderful time. Look, we had a framework for In My Time of Dying, OK, but then it just takes off and we're just doing what Led Zeppelin do. We're jamming. We're having a ball. We. Are. Playing."

This is the studio version:

These are the Led Zeppelin, live from Earl's Court, 1975:

Now, let's continue with last week's statistics; it was a good week for us: Just a 4% drop from the week before. Last week's Led Zeppelin story did great, but I was a bit disappointed by your reaction to Ferron. I didn't know her well before I did my research, but when I did, I realized she is a very special artist. I expected to get more visits and more comments, especially from our Canadian friends - she is a proud child of Canada, after all. In fact, my disappointment led me to change my schedule: I was planning to present another obscure musician, but I then decided to do the Oscar list, to boost my morale; and sure enough, in just a few hours, the Oscars had as many visits as Ferron did in more than two days. Eventually, it was visited twice as much. Which leads me to the question: Should I stick to famous names only? I mean, it's less work for me and more visits. On the other hand, I feel that I would be letting you down if I failed to present the full picture to the best of my ability. Also, I would be letting them down... I would appreciate any comments on the matter.

As far as visits are concerned, this week's winners were the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, Spain, South Africa, and Australia. Greece, France, and Cyprus did well enough to maintain their all-time percentage, while Russia, Germany, Italy, and the United Arab Emirates experienced small drops. The United States is at the top for the week, but their lead on the all-time list is continuously getting smaller. For the first time ever they have a percentage under 40%. It seems that the United States are fighting against themselves... and losing.

Here are this week's Top 10 countries (you may notice that we have countries from four different continents in the top 10):

1. the United States

2. the United Kingdom

3. Greece

4. Canada

5. France

6. Belgium

7. Spain

8. Cyprus

9. South Africa

10. Australia

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Angola, Argentina, Armenia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10 (Belgium has overtaken the United Arab Emirates, which now occupy the vulnerable position #10):

1. the United States = 39.8%

2. Greece = 8.8%

3. the United Kingdom = 8.7%

4. France = 7.3%

5. Russia = 4.8%

6. Germany = 3.6%

7. Cyprus = 1.36%

8. Italy = 1.25%

9. Belgium = 0.67%

10. the United Arab Emirates = 0.65%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!