Led Zeppelin II @55- Jimmy Page, Robert Plant

Though barely ten months had passed between the inauspicious releases of their debut and followup in 1969, so much had transpired in that time with the band- and the world- that by the time Led Zeppelin II erupted in late October 1969, the largest music event in history had occurred at the Woodstock Festival barely six weeks after two Americans walked on the Moon. And then “Whole Lotta Love” blew up my car radio that Autumn and changed everything.

The first Led Zeppelin album in  1969 was released, like the vast majority of unknown untested “baby bands”, in January. It was unhyped, particularly in America, as three of the four members of the British band had no reputations Stateside whatsoever, and only band founder/lead guitarist Jimmy Page had some fame in the dying embers of the Yardbirds. Fast-forward ten months to Led Zeppelin II, and by then all of that had changed. Led Zeppelin II  was released the same year in October, when record companies put out their blockbusters guaranteed to rack up holiday sales. And unlike the first album, Led Zeppelin II  hit American Top 40 radio  fifty-five years ago like a thunderclap. When I heard both Chicago radio powerhouses WLS and WCFL play “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin in Fall 1969, it changed my life and forged the template for hard rock/ heavy metal for half a century. In classic rock interviews, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant join me here In the Studio for Led Zeppelin II to document what had ensued in the ten months between the first two releases, and to reveal the songs you know by heart including “What Is and What Should Never Be”, “Thank You”, “Heartbreaker/ Living Loving Maid(She’s Just a Woman)”, and “Ramble On”. –Redbeard