Led to Zeppelin

Spoonful | Cream



Cream was a Britsh rock band formed in 1966 of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker.
A power trio of guitar, bass and drums respectively.

When Eric Clapton left The Yardbirds in 1965, he was looking for an outlet to play the blues.
Pure blues. He kicked around with John Mayall and the short lived "Powerhouse" with Steve Winwood.
Drummer Ginger Baker, was playing the English blues circuit in a band called The Graham Bond Organisation, .

Eric Clapton
"I had always liked Ginger, he had come to see me play with the Bluesbreakers.
After the gig he drove me back to London in his Rover.
I was very impressed with his car and driving.
He was telling me that he wanted to start a band, and I had been thinking about it too."

Clapton agreed to a band with Ginger on one condition, that Jack Bruce play bass.
What Eric didn't know, was the already volatile relationship between Baker and Bruce.
Jack was in GBO with Ginger, and were known to sabotage each other nightly.
Big fights. So it goes, one time, Ginger thew a drumstick and hit Jack in the back.
Jack turned around and threw his bass guitar at Ginger. But a new band was agreed.

Cream made their public debut in July of 1966, at the Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival
The didn't have any original material and did reworkings of old blues numbers.

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Led to Zeppelin

As early as 1966. Cream was the successful formula for what Led Zeppelin was to become.
Drums in front of the mix, a free-floating bass, and a kick ass guitar. Ancient blues, done modern.
Led Zeppelin was also a power trio with forward drums, reworked old blues numbers, and added a singer.

The first Cream record was "Fresh Cream", on it, was the 1960, Willie Dixon song, "Spoonful."
Although the mighty Zeppelin never did that one, there are a few other Dixon/Wolf covers, they did do.
In 1968 Cream had evolved "Spoonful" into a 16 min+ free form jam on an album called, "Wheels of Fire."
I have no doubt Jimmy Page would've paid very close attention to this recording and release.

He most certainly couldn't better it.



Spoonful | Howlin' Wolf

I Ain't Superstitious | Jeff Beck (1968)



Jeff Beck left the Yardbirds in late 1966, due to personal differences with the band.
He decided on a solo career, with a group of his own choosing.
The following year, he developed The Jeff Beck Group, featuring Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood.

In August 1968, he released the album "Truth". using various British musicians,
along with Page, Nicky Hopkins, Keith Moon, John Paul Jones, and others.

What he does on "Truth" is light years ahead of it's time. August 1968.
Gone is the tinny electric sound from the mid 60's, these guitars are full and fat throughout,
Two Willie Dixon numbers, "You Shook Me", covered again a few months later on the first LZ album.

The other one, "I Ain't Superstitious", might be expected on that same lp.

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Led to Zeppelin

In 1967-1968 the guitar expression pedal became very popular thanks to Eric Claption, Jimi Hendrx, and Jeff Beck
The "Wah-Wah" pedal, because of the crying sound the guitar can make when applied, was
first invented at the Warwick Electronic / Thomas Organ Co. in late 1966, by Barry Plunkett.
Some famous first songs were, Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses", or, Jimi's "Burning the Midnight Lamp", and "Voodoo Chile."

Beck's use of the pedal gives this a more slinky walk. Drums are pushed up in the mix. Rod's vocals don't try to fake it.
Heavy blues based rock developed by Cream, spearheaded the second British invasion on America.
With power trios playing the blues all around him, it was obvious to Jimmy Page, that was the basis for his new band.



I Ain't Superstitious | Howlin' Wolf

Whole Lotta Love | Led Zeppelin II (1969)



Once ready to record the second album, the band had tour commitments through UK, US and Canada,
Jimmy Page began a process of recording and mastering a studio album while on the road.
From Jan - Aug 1969 the lp was written, recorded, mixed and mastered at various studios in three countries.
Recording engineer was Jimi Hendrix producer, Eddie Kramer.

Jimmy Page
"In other words, some of the material came out of rehearsing for the next tour and getting new material together."

Eddie Kramer | Engineer
"We cut some of the tracks in some of the most bizarre studios you can imagine ...
but in the end it sounded bloody marvellous ... there was one guy in charge and that was Mr. Page.

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Whole Lotta Love

"a new sort of collage of sound" that would include mellotron keyboard while still featuring the guitar."
That was how Jimmy Page initially described his new band, before forming Led Zeppelin.
But no one could've anticipated "Whole Lotta Love", from the first notes to the kick in drums, it grabs the ears.

The middle montage of attack and phase rolls like thunder, while congas and cymbals drive the train.
Real drums churn up and down like pistons, pumping in and out, building, then receding. Peaking.
The voice echos in and out, but compressed as though under glass. and then that kick ass guitar - Stomp stomp.

Eddie Kramer
"The famous "Whole Lotta Love" mix, where everything is going bananas,
is a combination of Jimmy and myself just flying around on a small console twiddling every knob known to man."

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Loosely based on the Muddy Waters song, "You Need Love", and much closer vocally to The Small Faces, "You Need Loving"
Steve Marriott, the singer and guitar player for The Small Faces, remembered Page and Plant attended several gigs,
and expressed an interest in the song. Marriott said, "he [Plant] sang it the same, phrased it the same,
even the stops at the end were the same"

Robert Plant
"Page's riff was Page's riff. It was there before anything else.
I just thought, 'well, what am I going to sing?' That was it, a nick.
Now happily paid for. At the time, there was a lot of conversation about what to do.
It was decided that it was so far away in time and influence that ...
well, you only get caught when you're successful. That's the game."

Led Zeppelin settled with Dixon in 1985 for an undisclosed amount.
Subsequent releases of the song give an additional credit to Willie Dixon



You Need Love | Muddy Waters

Willie Dixon



These are all Willie Dixon songs.
Originally recorded or released on Chess between 1959-1963

William James Dixon was born in July 1915,
he is best known as a Blues singer, bass player, and songwriter for Chess Records.

Dixon was born in Vicksburg MS, and came from a large family of fourteen children.
As a young boy, Willie often imitated his mother Daisy's, way of rhyming words.
He loved music and began singing at his Baptist Church at the early age of four.

Later he admired a local pianist, Little Brother Montgomery and as a teen got his ears in blues music.
Dixon learned to sing harmony from a co-worker that also sang with "The Union Jubilee Singers"
They were a regular group on radio station WQBC, and soon Willie was adapting his poems into songs to begin selling them.

In 1936, he moved to Chicago, and being a big man, 6ft 5in, over 250lbs, he took up boxing.
He won a State Golden Glove Award, and became a professional boxer in 1937, but soon left over a money disputes.
In a local gym, Dixon met Leonard Caston, Caston persuaded Willie to a music career, and built him stand up bass.
A cheap thing, made of one string and a tin can, he taught Dixon to play bass, in addition to learning guitar.

Caston and Dixon formed a vocal group called "The Five Breezes", and did harmonizing much like The Ink Spots.
When WWII came, Dixon refused induction as a "conscientious objector" and was sent to prison for ten months.
After the war, he formed "The Big Three Trio" with Caston, and got a record deal for some minor releases on Columbia.

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Chess

Dixon signed on to Chess Records, as a recording artist, eventually working his way into the operation full time.
He became, artist, producer, talent scout, and songwriter for the label.
From the early 50's to the early '60s his influence is far reaching thru time.
His songwriting body of over 500 songs,

included, "Help Me", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Can't Quit You Baby", "I'm Ready", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", and "Spoonful".
Songs by other artists, "Evil" (Howlin' Wolf), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (Muddy Waters),
"Pretty Thing" (Bo Diddley), "The Seventh Son" (Willie Mabon), "Wang Dang Doodle" (Koko Taylor),
and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (Bo Diddley), and so many more.

Rock acts of the seventies, covered his songs as standards on both sides of the Atlantic.
Often times never gave him songwriting credit. In his later life he fought those legal battles for compensation.
There were many. Eventually, dues were properly paid, and Dixon went on to fight for other artists that got the same rap.

The "Seventh Son", yea, I'm the one, your "Hoochie Coochie Man"
everybody knows I'm am, but "I Can't Quit You, Baby"