Customer Reviews

When Giants Walked the Earth

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"When Giants Walked The Earth" is without question the best-researched and "insiders" biography of Led Zeppelin.

Author Nick Wall traces the band's history chronologically, with the use of italic second person (author talking to the band member within the text) narrative text to flesh out historical and personal information. This device is interesting at first, but does become tiresome.

Unlike "Hammer of the Gods" and Richard Cole's book, author Nick Wall does not glamorize the (at times) gross excess of the band's offstage behavior. He also doesn't sweep it under the table. Instead, he places it in the proper context: hugely successful bands in the late 60s and early 70s, including the Beatles, Stones, and The Who, indulged in horrendous excess, but it doesn't erase the amazing music they made.

Wall has spent considerable time interviewing Jimmy Page, and he addresses Page's interest in Crowley and "the occult" in an objective way. Page studied and had an interest in these matters, but was not sacrificing children or virgins and was far less "evil" in his exploits than the drunken, depraved antics and brutality that John Bohnam and Richard Cole particpated in when homesick or bored. Wall now depicts Page as a straight, lucid, exceedingly talented, and gentle man who would like to have the grand body of work he masterminded in the 1970s stay alive.

Wall depicts Plant in a simlarly objective manner. Bonham and Plant were not the industry insider London muscians that Page and Jones were. However, their talents were undeniable, and one is impressed with how quickly all four of these musicians were making true magic together. Plant rises in esteem and fame throughout the story, while Bonham sadly has a much harder time dealing with being away from his family and maintaining a sane existence. Wall presents Bonham as an immensely talented individual who could shift from loving family man to sick maniac in a matter of a few (copious) drinks.

The book essentially ends with Bonham's death, although Wall briefly addresses the Plant/Page tours and Jone's solo/production work.

He addresses the December 2007 reunion, one of the few areas where I'd have to disagree with his assessement. Wall attended, noted the yuppie conveniences of the 08 arena in London and star power of the crowd, and dismisses the experience as something he liked but wouldn't probably go to again if he had a chance. He describes Jimmy Page as an older man playing at a younger man's game, and lauds Robert Plant for his new life/career playing bluegrass/folk/country with Alison Krauss. Wall seems to feel this is a much better place for Plant than playing with his former bandmates.

I beg to differ. Page sounds much better than he did during the 1977 Zeppelin tour, and other lower points in their journey. I've seen videos of Plant/Krauss and the entire 2007 02 Reunion. In my opinion, Plant sounds/looks/acts in his element with the 2007Led Zeppelin, and seems pretty weak to me in his Alison Krauss co-star role.

That aside, don't miss this book. Simply the finest Zeppelin biography to date, and impossible to top unless Page, Plant, or Jones choose to pick up the pen.

When Mick Wall's "When Giants Walked the Earth" was published in a hardcover edition last year for the U.K. market, it contained some timely commentary about their highly successful one-night show staged at the end of 2007. The author notes that Plant, who had been interested enough in the making of a re-released The Song Remains the Same movie and soundtrack that year to actually sit in, thought the Led Zeppelin reunion show ought to be a proper farewell from the band. Wall says Plant had a bigger say in what songs would and would not be included; gone were songs that were "too heavy metal," and he would do "Stairway to Heaven" but only buried in the middle of their two-hour set, not as a finale or an encore.

Of course, the others had learned by then to cater to his wishes; after all, the last time a Zeppelin reunion had been seriously considered with Plant going along with it had been back about 16 years earlier. He even cites a remark made in 1993 by Peter Grant to Dave Lewis: "You've got to realize Robert always wanted to be the boss of the band anyway. He finally got his own way." This appears to be Wall's thesis, that the band was, in essence, hijacked over the course of time by Robert Plant, stolen from the reins of founder Jimmy Page. To illustrate this concept, Wall starts by going to the very beginning of the story: Page as a child learning from the earliest rock 'n' roll in existence and wanting to be a part of it, and eventually wanting to do certain things with a band of his own. Wall, leaving no part of the story unturned, lists it all.

"When Giants Walked the Earth," now available in paperback and hardcover editions in the United States, is quite perhaps the most detailed a book has been in attempting to uncover the mindsets of the men behind Led Zeppelin. The most unique part of this book is one very irregular style of writing that helps the reader understand the bigger pictures as presented. Wall writes long odes to the characters of the story, as if somebody were speaking to them at a certain period of time but with knowledge of the future. This style of writing is definitely jarring at first, but once accustomed, the reader can learn the larger context of the story.

Wall, who was editor-in-chief of Classic Rock magazine, has been somewhat criticized for questionable sourcing of information in the book, but to his credit he has logged many hours with the Zeppelin members over the years. Further, he notes there are some sources who "for reasons of privacy do not wish to be named." Still, he says he has taken heat for the book; he wrote in August 2008: "I appear to have lost the 20-year friendship of Jimmy Page (how dare I try and write a better book than the bog-awful Hammer Of The Gods), Robert Plant (he'll change his mind when he sees it) and related friends like - apparently."

While some biographies of Led Zeppelin delve briefly into the topic of Jimmy Page's alleged interest in the occult and the works of Aleister Crowley, Wall devotes 28 entire pages to unravelling that mystery. In a manner that probably no other author has attempted, Wall goes long into details about precisely what teachings of Crowley's might have most appealed to Page. Here, Wall attempts to represent Crowley's teachings in a manner that separates the original intentions from the way they have been conveyed popularly. It's a lot of information, more than this particular reader enjoyed although other opinions and levels of interest may vary considerably. The author discusses the possibility of a curse alleged to have been placed on Page by filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Wall notes that the hardships Led Zeppelin experienced in the second half of the 1970s began around the time Anger was supposed to have made this curse.

One bias of Wall's appears to be that the second half of Led Zeppelin's existence contained nothing but bad experiences, in sharp contrast to the mostly good experiences of the first half. He does go too far in dismissing the efforts on the albums Presence and In Through the Out Door, and his opinions of the judgment that guided Led Zeppelin in the later years are not high either. Taking these biases into consideration, the biography still does much to demystify the personalities behind Led Zeppelin as the years progressed. This is one biography that should not be overlooked.

This biography provides by far the deepest analysis I have read of Led Zeppelin's astonishing, synergistic creativity. The journey into Page's occult studies; Robert Plant's escape from middle class mediocrity; John Bonham's raging working class anger and John Paul Jones' genteel drifting through a landscape of session musicians: the narration of these things lifts the shroud of mystery just a little and reveals just how and why this explosive combination of musicians worked so well. As a Zeppelin fan of some forty years, I recommend this book.

To say that "When Giants Walked the Earth" is the best available biography of Led Zeppelin actually is not saying much. The book's only real competition, not including lavish illustration-based books, is Stephen Davis' "Hammer of the Gods," and that book, though well written, is flawed by its obsession with the band's violent excesses during tours and its overreliance on oral testimony from people like Richard Cole and aggrieved groupies and journalists, who were all too willing to feed that obsession. In many instances, "Giants" beats "Hammer" in terms of detail and breadth of research (the number of people interviewed is very impressive). In other instances, "Hammer" is the winner. For instance, if you want to get a traditional narrative sense of the build-up of the band from Page and Jones' time as session musicians, Page's Yardbird days, and Plant and Bonham's days in Birmingham-based bands, "Hammer" is the book that provides it. "Giants" author Mick Wall, on the other hand, decided to intersperse most of this history throughout the book in the form of italicized "flashback" sequences written directly to the protagonists in the second person ("It all changed for you the night you went out after a Bo Diddley shown in Newcastle..."). I found these passages not only boring to read, but irritating because they interrupted the flow of the book, and often you have to read through half a page of one before figuring out which person is being referred to. Be warned that nearly all of the pre-Zeppelin history of the band members is imparted in these "flashback" passages, so that if you want to learn about the protagonists' childhoods, teenaged years, and early bands, the only way to do so is to force your way through them. I tried at first, but decided it wasn't worth it and gave up.

Otherwise, the book has many good points. Wall really did his homework as far as the research goes. He tracked down and interviewed all kinds of people, including not only the band members themselves and their musical colleagues and confidants, but also more obscure people like festival promoters, studio engineers, album-cover artists, and even Jimmy Page's rare-book dealer. I was particularly excited to read the lengthy testimony of Jake Holmes, the largely unsung original composer of "Dazed and Confused." It is gratifying that, in a book about such great megastars, Wall devoted so much time and space to honoring the enthusiasm, creativity and hard work of dozens upon dozens of ordinary people.

That said, I feel Wall was too eager to use every bit of information and testimony that he gathered. His quotations are too long and often include platitudes that needn't have been repeated (how great a particular concert was, how hard Jimmy Page worked in the studio, how crazy the guys got in a hotel room one night, and so on). Sometimes the quotations include information that is just irrelevant. A quotation from Robert Plant about John Bonham's declining health in 1980 (p. 409) includes Plant's revelation that he now takes Omega 3 oil to improve his tennis game. When the subject of Jimmy Page's occult interests comes up, Wall gives several turgid pages of background on occultism throughout Rock `n' Roll history (pp. 208-214). Then comes eleven pages of thorough, but unnecessary, biography of Aleister Crowley (pp. 217-228), which a writer with better judgment would have condensed and left it to the reader to find more on his or her own. (That is what bibliographies are for.) The description of the famous theft of $200,000 during one of the band's U.S. tours includes a long paragraph discussing whether Richard Cole might have been the culprit (p. 296); but as Cole passed a lie-detector test and the band never pressed charges, it's hard to see the point of lingering on the question. The amount of space given to accusations of Satan-worship leveled at the band, is far more than the accusers deserve; Wall should not have given them the satisfaction.

The result of such unwillingness to sacrifice information is that the book lacks a sense of smooth narrative movement. I really started to enjoy the book only once I decided to allow myself to skim major passages. Unfortunately, this ended up including the disappointing ending: The last chapter is an "epilogue" consisting of seventeen mind-numbing pages cataloging every hint dropped since 2008 about whether Zeppelin might or might not reform. Cutting this epilogue (which the editor of a more serious book would have insisted upon) would have ended the book on a climactic note and given it a tighter narrative structure. Instead, it just fizzles out. (Come to think of it, not unlike the career of Led Zeppelin.)

Many moments in the book, though, are brilliant and make great reading. Wall's critique of several of the albums, such as "Physical Graffiti" and "In Through the Out Door," is spot on, as is his recounting of the O2 concert in 2007. In general, he did a great job by beginning the book focusing on Page, but ending it with the spotlight on Plant, which is suggestive of how the two men's roles reversed over the course of the story.

Finally, the title is a great choice. Taken from Genesis 6:4 ("In those days the Nephilim [giants] walked the earth"), it suggests a time that was profoundly different from our own and is unlikely to come back. The 50's, 60's and 70's of rock was an age that supported giant figures and great cultural ambitions. Our time, though, is an age of niche artists who pursue individualized and obsessional work, and have narrow, frenetic followings. It's a more confusing, complex and lonelier time. Figures of massive, lasting appeal and significance like Elvis, the Beatles and Led Zeppelin simply are not born, and cannot thrive, in it. Even when the survivors of that time continue to work today, we listeners feel lucky if we can consider the resulting material satisfying; we don't even hope for it to be monumental or ground breaking. In a way, Wall's book is a paean not just to a band but to a lost era.

I'd give this 3.5 stars. It covers the history of the band from Jimmy in the Yardbirds to now, when Plant is off doing bluegrass with Allison Kraus and talk of a reunion tour is always being mentioned.

It's less tabloidy than Hammer of the Gods, which is good, but it still has plenty of Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. You get a better, more well rounded picture of Page, Plant, Jones, Bonham, and Peter Grant.

One thing I didn't like about the book is that it does this thing where the author assumes the identity of different characters, John Bonham for example, and writes a couple of pages of reminiscence from his perspective. So you'll be reading about them touring in 1977 or something and then for a couple of pages you're Bonham remembering how you first got into playing the drums. This messed up the flow of the book for me.

Still, as a Zeppelin fan, I needed a fix and I learned a few things - Plant's voice is speeded up on some of Houses of the Holy for example, and he really doesn't like singing Stairway to Heaven anymore. I learned a little more about Alistair Crowley too.

All in all, an entertaining, if uneven bio of the Zep.

There are plenty of reviewers in this space who know far, far more about Zep than I. And their reviews are outstanding. I picked up the book as a casual fan and walked away with a far greater appreciation of this band, and the personal stories of its members.

The book is greatly detailed, rich in its research and sense of storytelling. Wall is a talented biographer. Yes, the far-too-frequent lapses into the italicized, "second person" narrative gets very old quickly. But he seems to use this technique to provide his best sense of detail and biography. So "just put up with it" seems to be the message here. A biographer such as Caro in his prime would have woven in the same detail and narrative without such a contrived device. But then again, we can't expect rock biography to elevate to those heights, right?

Anyway, the book boils down to this: About 60 percent is about early history and examination of musical roots and the members' growing professional stature (in spite of convincing evidence presented by Wall that they were a bit too fond of stealing other performers' songs and calling it their own) and all of that sort of high-minded discussion, and the rest is about "Hot Juicy Stuff." Wall does quite well on both counts. There's a story involving Bonham, a day off from touring, a hotel deck where he could fish off of, a redheaded groupie and an excessive amount of alcohol that simply can't be repeated here but certainly must be read to be believed.

Which brings us to the four gents who are subjects of the books.

Frankly, at first, all four come across as the world's biggest, ahem, shall I say 'not nice guys'? (Feel free to substitute your own phrasing there. I'm trying to keep this clean for Amazon.) Page is depicted as self-absorbed, occult-obsessed and generally just an unfeeling lout, especially when it came to the (incredibly vast amounts of) women in his life. Plant comes across as a Diva's Diva. And Bonham? Well, he's like Keith Moon, only packing three times more alcohol in his system to fuel frequent incidents of disturbing violence. Moon may have smashed hotel rooms and drove Caddys into pools. But, somehow, he remained somewhat charming and (relatively) harmless amid it all. Heck, he often seemed like a fun guy to hang out with over a cocktail or 20. Not so Bonham, who smashed actual people with his formidable fists -- men and women according to the book -- and did it often and without apparent regret. (Paul Jones gets off relatively lightly. He's also positioned as clearly the second-best musician in this group, next to Page. And he actually has the deepest knowledge, experience and range of any of them. Wall doesn't dwell to much on his post-Zep career, or lack thereof. But it remains an unspoken reality that this guy deserved more credit for providing greater depth to Page's musical ideas, and should have had a better solo career than, say, Ringo Starr.)

Interestingly enough, Wall spends the first half or two-thirds of the book "tearing down" his subjects with sensational episodes (most of them related to the band's touring adventures in the U.S.) Then he builds them back up, and the sense of humanity that emerges is very satisfying to read: Bonham's physical violence and obvious alcohol abuse seems to stem from his homesickness, as he was a devoted family man who grew quite depressed when touring overseas. (Yet Wall, to his credit, never let's Bonham "off the hook" for the violence. Nor does he ever romanticize it or shrug it off as a 'boys will be boys' thing.) Plant -- as conveyed in heartbreakingly detailed fashion -- loses his young son while on a tour in the states. Bonham, a longtime boyhood friend, inexplicably remains the only bandmate to show up for the funeral, conveying a poignant sense of loyalty and devotion to his friend in his time of anguish. Plant then emerges as introspective, a sadder, wiser man for losing his son and finding out about the extent of loyalties amongst his bandmates. Yet, with the passage of time, he also emerges as so much happier the man after launching his modern-day partnership with Allison Krause, one that he describes as more fulfilling as anything he's done with Zep.

As for Page? Well, Wall won't entirely give him a pass here. But by the end he is a soberer, more enlightened grown-up (finally) who seems to understand the extent of pain he's caused. He doesn't explain everything (especially the funeral snub, which he essentially won't answer to). But he does seem eager to make things better again. (Then again, Wall leaves open the possibility that Page is simply bored and wants to go out touring again, and realizes Plant is the only ticket out of the castle here.) At any rate, it makes for compelling reading. Well worth the time spent reading and even if you're a casual fan like me, it's nice to know more about the players who created such great music.

The title of the review is from the lyrics of "For Your Life" from Zeppelin's Presence and can be used to sum the path Robert Plant took from when he jumped on the train in 1968 to the crash landing that happened when John Bonham passed. No surprises within for those who followed the story as it played it out but an interesting read on how one man's desire for success and power, read Jimmy Page, ends up costing those around him more than they ever expected to pay. Also a lesson in how fleeting fame and fortune are but then again "there's nothing new under the sun" from 900BC to today. I recently saw Robert perform with his Band of Joy and the version they performed of "Ramble On" was simply amazing. This was a different take, in no way trying to cover Led Zeppelin. Not simply acoustic, the chorus was left with just the major phrases and when "in years ago in days of old when magic filled the air" came up the feeling was not just a hint to Tolkien as it is but also a nod to what is now lost beyond repair in the lives of both Page and Plant.

Led Zeppelin may well have been the greatest rock band ever, the logical end point of the British blues rock invasion, the model and point of departure for every hard rock band since then. The band members, each one a virtuoso; the music, almost uniquely consistently excellent over a decade; the legacy, undeniably lasting to this day. As such, the band's story has been tackled by various biographers before, sometimes in lurid technicolor, sometimes in more sober treatments, none of them ultimately satisfying as approaching the complete and final study of the phenomenon of Led Zeppelin.

This one isn't it, either, but it's closer than the rest. Wall has done extensive research, is well respected and very knowledgable about the music and the scene, and writes very well. He has also had a good deal of access to all of the major players, most clearly Jimmy Page. His approach is balanced, serious, and deep, the best book on the band (as opposed to an individual in the band) to approach all aspects of the story.

The book's strengths are in the thorough knowledge of the entire music scene, the 'biographical' aspects of the work, the progress of the band in business and as a cultural phenomenon, as well as the almost encyclopedic treatment of the background and personalities of the band members (and manager Peter Grant, and various hangers-on). The treatment of the individuals involved is respectful, thoughtful but not overly indulgent; excesses are addressed, addictions not excluded, but not dwelt upon or wallowed in just for shock effect.

The book's principal weakness is paradoxically something of an outgrowth of Mick Wall's extensive background knowledge: he tries very hard to give the reader an idea not only of what took place, but why it took place, by getting into the heads of the major characters. This is done in frequent 'flashbacks' told from the points of view of Page, Plant, etc, and works only infrequently, at least for this reviewer. Wall does much better in terms of psychological insights than previous Zeppelin biographers, but somehow the effect in this case jars somewhat. I wonder if it might not have been more effective to have presented the same ideas in a somewhat more linear way, or as the speculation and opinion of the author, rather than placing words directly in the mouths of people still (mostly) alive and able to confirm or reject them.

When Bonham dies, so shortly thereafter does the story of the band. Wall keeps on with a short chapter rounding up the story right through the Plant/Krauss CD, watching as Plant's career expands but Page's seems to shrivel, ultimately a tragic situation. Jimmy Page and Zeppelin are two sides of the same coin; but without Plant (and Jones, to a lesser degree) he can't do his act; he has been trapped by the legend of his own creation. Plant, meanwhile, has allowed himself - forced himself - to grow past the strictures imposed by the Zeppelin time. Looking back, as fine a drummer as Bonham was, the decision to disband upon his death must have seemed obvious at the time to the band, but now in retrospect seems, certainly from the point of view of a sober and still creative Page, to have been a major and very wasteful mistake.

A very good book on an endlessly fascinating subject.

When Giants Walked the Earth is a good read. I have only recently peppered my morning reads with biographies/autobiographies of rock stars, Lennon, Clapton, now Zep. The common thread that interests me is the youth to experience ratio, these guys packed a lot of action into young lives. We all want to be rock stars (sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll!) but then when you peel back the veneer, you see what they really put themselves through and it (lifestyle) seems a lot less appealing. Success always changes the dynamic. Led Zeppelin has always been one of my favorite bands and to have additional insight into their forming, production and music is always a plus.

Why four stars? Mick Wall includes what he describes as "..italicised "flashback" passages..." which are "..the product of my imagination." ... a few comments-

They missed the typo in the Authors note (italicized)?

From a typesetters view, italics function for the emphasis of a few words or maybe a sentence, not entire passages. These quickly become almost headache material because they are so hard on the eyes.

I'm at a loss to understand why Wall feels it necessary to "flashback" to the beginning almost all the way through the book. The flashbacks are repetitive and add nothing new to the story... o.k., I get it ... they listened to LOTS OF RECORDS when they were young.

About half way through, these became skim passages to make sure I didn't miss something important, I don't think I did, so I basically stopped reading the flashbacks.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Led Zeppelin ...
now that I am done with the review, I'm going up to my room with a preserved minnow of some sort, stick my little pole outside and actually catch a fish ... do you know what I mean?

I am one hundred pages from the end, and may choose to stop there; I keep finding inaccuracies, which don't deal directly with Zeppelin, yet call the author's credibility into question. First, as others have mentioned in their reviews, Wall chose to include "fictionalized" accounts which are "products of {his} imagination." That, found in the "Author's Note" struck me as odd before I ever read a word.

The book has had many entertaining and illuminating moments - possibly? Here are two errors which leave me uneasy about the time I've invested thus far:

1) In mentioning Zep's legendary "Starship" Boeing airplane, Wall states that the aircraft once belonged to former teen idol Bobby Sherman and that Sherman was "one of the creators of The Monkees." It doesn't take much knowledge of pop culture or even research to know that the Monkees were created by TV producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider.

2) In discussing the Physical Graffiti track, "In My Time of Dying,"the author refers to an Indian "droning" instrument called a "tempura"; while there is more than one spelling for the instrument known as the tamboura, the Japanese fried batter spelling is not one of them.

Let the buyer/reader beware.