Customer Reviews

Led Zeppelin: 1968-1980

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What sets this new group biography apart from all the rest (including the wonderful Stephen Davis "Hammer of the Gods") is that the author seeks to inform only about the music. No gossip, no rumors, just music. Shadwick sheds light on both studio and live performances and encourages the listener to appreciate Led Zeppelin with new ears.

There are many volumes available about LZ, but I think with this new book by Keith Shadwick we now have the definitive biography.

Keith Shadwick brings an informative, extremely well written thorough biography of Led Zeppelin in a manner that the band members truly deserve. His focus on what drives the band's passion - their music, their unquenchable drive for unique and meaningful musical and lyrical expression will serve any reader interested in Led Zeppelin well.

The photos are excellent. The writing is vivid, honest, and diverse in scope.
More than anything, "Led Zeppelin: 1968-1980" brings a historical, dignified, and well rounded representation of one of the greatest bands in the history of rock and roll to life.

It's well worth the price & deserves 10 stars.

Barbara Rose, author of If God Was Like Man and Stop Being the String Along

This book I discovered at the Local Library and it brought me back to my high-school days when I listened incessantly to Zeppelin and other stadium-filling rock bands of the day. Nostalgia filled me and the book deepened my regard for this incredible rock and roll band. Sure they had flaws, but they lived a musical dream, a rock fantasy, and they cared mostly about their music, and this book highlights their history, their vision, their immense talent, their personal demons, and everything that life threw them. This is a well-written, highly engaging, almost scholarly tome of a band that deserved the hoopla heaped on their doorstep. Essential reading for any rock and roll fan.

Keith Shadwick without a doubt has compiled the most detailed account of the bands career, interviews, and quotes; yet his "musical snob elitist" attitude gets in the way of enjoying this book to its full extent. Keith finds a problem with literally every single song the band had ever recorded, even down to the tinest detail, and constantly quips how great other lesser known, or more under appriciated older musicians are when comparing every song to older ones. It is to no Zeppelin fan's suprise that the band had borrowed ideas from other artists, from pop to folk music, but at that time in the music industry it was normal to cover other bands music and it was a time when bands wrote singles and did not worry about full albums like zeppelin did. His personal opinions make you wonder at times if he is even a fan of the band or not, by trying to make the best effort to disguise his disliking of the band in favor of more "pure" musicians who put out more "inspired" music, as he puts it over and over. His information about the tours, attitudes and visions of the band, and facts are wonderful and that is what kept me reading the book, but his obvious musical snobbery (many times simply just his WELL OVERTHOUGHT opinion about things) kept this book from being what it could have been. Rock n' Roll is not about sheer perfection, or always being musically correct, thats where the passion and originality comes from, but to Keith it seems as if he finds a flaw in anything and everything that Zeppelin ever recorded from track listing, to favoring obviously lesser quality b-sides (to make him look intelligent for liking "poor tom" more than "bron-yur-a-stomp"), to saying how out of pitch Robert is, or Page's "uninspired guitar solo", to Jones "overplaying" keyboard and bass lines, to Bonham obviously taking this drum pattern from the following songs. The fact is, the band wrote what they wrote and took in all their influences. You can't name a rock band that has not taken an idea from another group and gone with it, or showing obviuous influence...that is not a fault of musicians by any means.

The book is a fine read for the information, but the author's personal opnions really ruined alot of it.

Don't bother comparing this with Richard Cole's book. This one focuses on the band's fantastic musical legacy and Jimmy Page's post Yardbirds vision. Rare, unseen photos, musical insight, concert lineage is given, ending with Bonham's death. Overdue information about a band with fantastic musicality and catalog.

This is the best historical account I have read - and I have read most of the books on Zeppelin that have been published. What makes this book different and in my opinion better, is that it is much less about the partying and much more about the process that they used to create the music. There is great historical info on the Yardbirds and good accounts of concerts.
Most if not all of the photos have been published but that is understandable since there is limited supply of photos. It's unfortunate that Zeppelin didn't seem to have a staff photographer along for the ride. Same is true for the limited video shot of the band.

If there is a downside to this book it is the editing. It is written by a british author and it shows. It was not edited/translated for American readers so you will need to read some of the passages twice to get past what seems like bad structure. British readers may not agree but it does have a few rough spots for American readers. This is no reason not to consider this book.

If you are a Zeppelin fan or are just interested in the history of the music scene at that time, then you should add this book to your collection. It is the best Zeppelin book yet. It's not "Hammer of the Gods" which is a disputed accounting of the band's history. This book is full of foot notes identifying sources - It is much more honest in describing the bands history.

One of the best Led Zeppelin books, ever. Over 300 large pages with small print and filled with photos l'd never seen. Deals mainly with the music, its creation and presentation and, doesn't get bogged in drama or supposition. Mr. Shadwick is sometimes opinionated, but it only reveals his deep respect and knowledge of the band. The only disappointment is that the story always ends with Bonham's death. Why can't someone just lie and report that he's living a peaceful existence in the Alps or something?

There are many Led Zeppelin biographies out there, some good and some downright awful, but this one by Keith Shadwick is easily the most heavily researched and journalistic. Shadwick largely avoids the sordid tales of touring exploits and personal lives that populate many inferior Zep biographies, and focuses on the musical and business sides of the band. Even fans who have read most of the other biographies will pick up many new details here. Shadwick digs up long-lost period interviews (including invaluable tidbits from the historically under-quoted John Paul Jones and John Bonham), and finds some useful source material on the operations of Swan Song Records and everything that went wrong creatively and businesswise with the film "The Song Remains the Same."

Here the studious Zep fan will find a great deal of insight on what matters most now - the music, not to mention a great many photos that you may not have seen before (although the designers should have used a much better pic for the cover). But despite its great insight and attention to detail, this book suffers from some important structural weaknesses. One technical problem is that Shadwick relies way too much on discredited tour manager Richard Cole as a source for happenings on the road, even while mostly avoiding Cole's well-known weakness for distorted tales of drunkenness and debauchery. See a plethora of latter-day interviews by Page, Plant, and Jones for their opinions on the usefulness of Cole's memories.

But the biggest underlying problem here is Shadwick's musical snobbery. While he usually analyzes the songs from a useful technical standpoint, other reviewers are justified in questioning whether Shadwick is really an impartial biographer or if he is just a frustrated jazzbo trying to show off his technical knowledge. Especially annoying examples include "Friends" and "Black Dog" - first praised by Shadwick as unappreciated masterpieces (true) before complaints about how the band screwed up those songs' conclusions. He even says that "Stairway to Heaven" could have been even more glorious if the band had only done the conclusion slightly differently. Shadwick also shoots down fan favorites like "Thank You" and "All My Love" for being heartfelt and simplistic, and fully dismisses other unique and unconventional tracks like "Four Sticks" and "Carouselambra" for not displaying his own sense of musicianly chops.

Despite these flaws, the faithful and knowledgeable Zep fan will appreciate the strong research focus of this book but is likely to become disillusioned when Shadwick whips out his often condescending opinions about the songs, which is frustrating because he mostly keeps his opinions to himself otherwise. Regardless, this biography is at or near the top of the heap for useful info on Led Zep's business and musical sides. For a less overwhelming treatment of those same topics, I also recommend the out-of-print "Led Zeppelin: Heaven and Hell" by Charles Cross. [~doomsdayer520~]

Balanced, informative. Told me a lot I did not know, and after following Led Zep from their first album, I already knew a good deal about the band. If you are interested in the seedier, sensational side of things, get "Hammer of the Gods but if you want a balanced account, this is the book IMHO. It does not shy away from the negative stuff, far from it, it just doesn't dwell there.

Rick

I love Led Zeppelin, but not this much.

The effort and studious detail is immense, but it was like reading a book about Gettysburg where every platoon, scout, and man was detailed to the privy level.

To be fair if you are a musician this book might make more sense. Alot of the detail had to do with music at a level I don't understand. My love of Zeppelin is visceral, so alot of this is lost on me.

If you are looking for a book that details the musical side of this band, this is the book for you.