Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin: The Illustrated History of the Heaviest Band of All Time [Paperback]

Jon Bream (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2010

Now available in paperback, this all-star tribute to one of the biggest rock ’n’ roll bands ever features glorious concert and behind-the-scenes photography from top names in rock photography, from their first 1968 show as Led Zeppelin through the 2007 reunion. Also included are more than 200 rare concert posters, backstage passes, tickets, LPs and singles, T-shirts, buttons, and more from the United States, UK, Canada, Germany, France, and Japan, all comprising a book as epic as the band it honors. And if that’s not enough, top American and English rock journalists from Rolling Stone, Creem, Billboard, cover every Zeppelin LP in depth, while some of rock’s top performers reflect on the band’s legacy. An appendix features the complete discography.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this extensive collection of interviews, band memorabilia and photographs, longtime MinneapolisStar Tribune music critic Bream assembles the ultimate guide to the infamous rock group Led Zeppelin. Veteran performers Joe Perry, Peter Frampton, Ray Davies and Steve Earle, among many others, contribute commentary about Zeppelin and its tremendous impact on popular music. The book is a treasure trove of information, featuring tour dates, copies of limited-edition concert posters, delightfully fluorescent foreign advertisements and a wide variety of photographs from live performances. This is the ideal resource for obsessive fans yearning to absorb every bit of minutiae related to Led Zeppelin. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Eggleston has been called the father of color photography, by which is meant that he was the first to master color for the kind of insouciant, instantaneous aesthetic that burgeoned in the wake of action painting, the Beats, and Robert Frank’s groundbreaking road photography. The essential Eggleston photo seems to register a stopped instant in the flow of a visual continuum, like a frame from a strip of movie film. What is shown is nothing special, which is why he calls his work democratic, his process one of regarding no one thing in a visual field as more important than any others; he also takes pictures from any and every angle, playing no favorites. Composition is unpremeditated, though southerner Eggleston has quipped that his model is the Confederate flag, and indeed, image after image has a center: the edge of the heel of a canvas shoe in a flash-lit shot under a bed, the clasped hands of two trick-or-treaters on a colorfully crepuscular suburban road, a no-parking sign on a lamppost on a sunny urban street. Besides more than 134 plates, this invaluable retrospective contains stills from Eggleston’s cinema verité videotape Stranded in Canton (1974) and six cogent, jargon-free essays, the best by Eggleston’s longtime writer friend, Stanley Booth. --Ray Olson --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Voyageur Press; First edition (September 17, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760339554
• ISBN-13: 978-0760339558
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 9.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #366,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Have Item for Zeppelin Fans, September 21, 2008

By 

Lucy - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin: The Illustrated History of the Heaviest Band of All Time (Hardcover)

This book is incredible. The photos alone make it worth owning, but added to that are interviews with other bands, musicians talking about Led Zeppelin and my favorite part, the history of each of their tours. What happened specifically on that tour? See behind the scenes and also see the memorabilia from each specific tour (t-shirts, posters, ticket stubs). I also wrote about it on my blog, Layla's Classic Rock: http://laylasclassicrock.blogspot.com/

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So incredible, you'll have trouble putting it down, September 25, 2008

By 

Dusty Punch (McKinley, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin: The Illustrated History of the Heaviest Band of All Time (Hardcover)

I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to see Led Zeppelin live (fingers crossed about the rumored reunion tour), but this book brought me about as close as I could've hoped. It has Zeppelin covererd from A to Z, whether you're looking for photos and memorabilia of the band, tour-by-tour or album-by-album coverage, or stories about how Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham inspired an entire generation of writers and performers. Trust me, both the casual fan and the "sleep on the sidewalk for tickets" fan is going to love this book!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Zep Gift Book for Your Dad, June 6, 2009

By 

G. YEO "gyeo" (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin: The Illustrated History of the Heaviest Band of All Time (Hardcover)

The challenge of this book, as with all Zep books - is to find new material and a fresh way of capturing a legendary band for the fans.

Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin does this with the compendium / tribute approach. It's not a be-all and end-all of Zep books (an accompanying live bootleg DVD would have been awesome) but it does bring something new to the party.
(I have my personal favourites for this - the Q and Mojo magazine specials were truly excellent for fans reading.)

Journalists have written volumes about Zep, and in a sense, there is nothing new to say. However, this tome does collect and present some new material: color plates of Zep's concert posters, magazine covers and international releases; and some nifty write-ups with William Burroughs interviewing Jimmy Page; Ann and Nancy Wilson's gushing tributes which reflect the fan in all of us.

What would have been nice: more candid insights from the band members (you notice that Jimmy Page was the man giving the press the most interviews) - I was expecting more revelations and interviews from Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones, but they are actually in the background somewhere (meaning: read in between the lines for their presence) as the music and the force of the band takes centrestage. It's like Led Zeppelin was this big huge stage or movie production that the rest were just a small part of. Which in a way it was.

And there are historical inaccuracies in the discography - shocking for such a comprehensive tome - e.g. the recording dates for certain tracks on the Physical Graffiti listing are wrong. "Boogie With Stu" was not recorded in 1974! for example.

Still, this makes a great gift for any rock fan which is why I got a copy (as a gift) and I would recommend it. For true fans, search out other books to complete your Zep collection. I sense there is a space for yet another book in the future but it's going to have to be different - or maybe everything has been said.