First Listen - "Hats Off To Roy Harper" + Album Review (Led Zeppelin Album)
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- Опубліковано 16 тра 2023
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There's no bad Zep albums!
Rather than say they tried to imitate a bad blues recording I'd say "Early blues recording".
Your intelligent, insightful breakdowns are appreciated - best on the interwebs 👍
The reverb effects are so interesting when Plant’s voice and the harmonica almost meld into one sound.🖖🏼
a bit like when the Beatles ran their vocals through a Leslie amp.
I have no way of verifying it, but it sounds like he's pushing his vocals through a slightly overdriven Fender tweed amp with tremolo using a harmonica mic.
Page's open-tuning and slide includes tons of intentional glitches, to evoke the style in Mississippi Fred McDowell's version. The lyrics are a hybrid of McDowell's and Bukka White's versions plus some Sonny Boy Williamson lyrics from a different song. So it's kind of a "hats off" to four artists.
Cool, thanks. Ha, that reads like a standard modern sarcastic remark, but I liked your comment.
We think along very similar lines with this one dude. It's cool that you're honest about it instead of pretending to be into everything, which I feel like maybe some reactors do. Can't wait for you to dig into IV and Houses of the Holy, they really returned to form with those. Agree with the consensus that IV is their best.
Roy Harper and Jimmy Page have been long time buddies. Roy's "Cherishing the lonesome" is a great blues/folk/rock song , featuring Page, who was also a collaborator on the album "Jugula"... Good album.
Harper has now (I believe) retired.
One of his which is well worth a few minutes of anybody's time is from his album "HQ". It's called "When an old cricketer leaves the crease".
This is a fairly experimental song. The composition is credited to "Charles Obscure" which was a pseudonym of Jimmy's. It sounds like music heard through a 1920s dusty, tinny-sounding, old timey radio. It mixes bits and pieces of blues songs with twangy, bottleneck slide, and Robert's vocal is sent directly through a vibrato amp he used to use for his harmonica. According to Jimmy, they were attempting work up a blues/country number "Harper style". The entire album was experimental; they'd finally got some downtime from the whirlwind of recording the first two albums and non-stop touring to be able to try new things and approach different sonic textures. You will continue to catch the occasional glimpse of arrangements from this album in songs to come. It's a smart idea to record several reactions at once and release as you wish because then you keep your headspace focused on the groove at hand but it's a fine line between keeping the groove and not letting the music breathe by recording *too* many at once and getting burned out.
I like this track. Going for that old blues 78 type of sound really worked.
From what I remember, Roy Harper had opened for Zep in the early years on one tour, so this was Page's appreciation song. Harper also sang lead on Pink Floyd's Have a Cigar. Finally, Page and Plant had been jamming on some blues songs. Robert had been singing through an amp, so they used an amp in recording this song.
Jimmy's slide guitar is always a work of art...no matter how well produced their music was...Jimmy always insisted on a grungy gritty garage and down low down dirty filthy nasty blues sound. and Robert loved using really old BBC radio mics ins the studio...those four were really one of a kind
LZ III has some shining moments, but has some misses as well. Not my favorite album, but important in their total discography.
Agreed. Often spun up the album for some great songs ( I got good at lifting the needle on and off as a teenager )
@@markhodge7 I ruined more than one album doing that. 😂
Great song and I'm glad that you liked it. Yeah, in order of albums sales, starting with the highest, it's IV, II, III . . . Album III is not for everybody but it's experimental nature was well-received by many.
I did start listening to your channel because of led zepplin but I stuck around because of your complete honesty in you reviews. You also have a different perspective because of your background and seem highly intelligent and have very interesting perspectives on the lyrics of songs.
Always appreciate Roy Harpers vocals on Pink Floyd’s song Have a Cigar.
Yup! It wasn't until the magic of UA-cam that my benighted ass even knew that was him singing, lol! And love the story behind it as well!
@@joescott8877 ditto! Loved the album all these decades but never knew that. Hell, I had no idea who Roy Harper was, or his history, until the past couple of years . I made great use of UA-cam during the pandemic. 🙄
@@w.geoffreyspaulding6588 Ditto backaychya! I'm 58, and sometimes reflect on how fortunate I feel to be that age at this time: to have had the joys of a "free-range" childhood without the internet/social media, listening to albums with friends in a room, coming in at dusk from roaming around and even outside of the neighborhood, killing time by creating--as opposed to reacting to--Fun. And yet now I ALSO get All This: The instant Zeppelin Bootlegs, the endless font of news, views and access to Recordings ancient and current. YT especially seems heaven-sent to me. But so glad I've "straddled" the two eras. Maybe every generation has such Nostalgic Reflections, and maybe such moments increase as we hurtle towards our dotage. (!) But, yeah, man, I love that I can dial back to hearing "The Rover" blast from a car in a parking lot filled with thirty restless teens, and to, earlier, playing "Red Rover" as our parents call us in for dinner. (And then looking up in 3 seconds where the game "Red Rover" came from, and what WAS "Lunatic Fringe" by Red RIDER, about anyhow? And...) Dang this was blabby, lol. Cheers!
You should now go to the great single hey hey what can I do, which was released at this time. Great song
Oh, good call! Yeah, he def should, hope he knows of it!
Great breakdown. Experimental is right - what's appreciated is they had the guts to package together so many different ideas and send it out to the public.
Can’t wait for you to cover Led Zeppelin 4 and HoH
Looking forward to your commentary on IV starting with Black Dog. IV represents a quantum leap forward in Zeppelin’s soundscape. One of the best produced records of all time, with Dark Side of the Moon and Sgt. Peppers for pure ear candy.
Many of RP's lyrics were lifted directly from blues songs. 'Shake 'Em on Down' by Mississippi Fred McDowell in this case.
Roy was a much loved & regular performer at Stonehenge Free Festival (& others) in the 80's along with Hawkwind. Roy Harper's Guitar work is well worth checking out, tracks such as "McGoohan's Blues" & for his superb lyrical content, his bitter "I Hate The White Man" is an epic tune, his gentler side is reflected in such tunes as "Tom Tiddler's Ground" & "Another Day".
I’ve seen roy harper live he was truly brilliant, his guitar playing was special to say the least and his son Nick played with him as well for a while also great. Nick is touring the uk October this year.
Syed, there's a point in every great band's career when they reach full maturity and truly become iconic. For the Rolling Stones, it's their single, "Jumpin Jack Flash" and accompanying album, "Beggars Banquet". For Pink Floyd, it's "Dark Side of the Moon". And for Led Zeppelin, it's "Led Zeppelin 4", when their blues and folk roots and more exotic influences were now fully absorbed to create a truly original sound.
"Led Zeppelin 4" is almost unanimously praised as their greatest album. Not only that, in my opinion, it's a top 10 all-time great album. I was ten years old when this album came out... and I've never been the same.
The more experimental nature of their third album would pay off in a big way from this point forward. They became even more creative, and now knew how to make it work.
It's starts off with a jaw dropping beast of a song, takes your mind to some exotic places, contains their most famous song, - and rocks like a motherf***er in between.
I found your wonderful channel because I stumbled across your reaction to my most favorite Zeppelin song, "When the Levee Breaks". I'm very glad I did, because you give your viewers fresh insight into music we've loved, so we can fall in love with it again.
Thanks, Syed. You're going to LOVE "Led Zeppelin 4" !
There’s one more song you’ll have to react to before the next album, Hey, Hey What Can I Do? It was left off this album but it was the B side of Immigrant Song’s single. It’s an awesome tune!
Its a cover of Bukka White's Shake Em On Down. Sun House's cousin, song got semi-famous when he was doing time for a shooting. Pretty sure it's about life of a debt collector in the 30's. The hats of to Roy Harper (the guy in pink floyd's Have a Cigar) is respect to the fact that Roy only recorded when he wanted to and didn't give into the pressure of labels. Great tune, slide guitar 10/10.
So this special effect was built into many guitar amps way back in the 1950s. It's called Tremelo. And way back since the 50s blues musicians were playing around with that effect, and blues singers were plugging their microphones into guitar amps with tremolo. This is actually very traditional blues from the 50s style. Not really new age technology. Zeppelin did push it though. And of course Page was playing with a slide, which is very traditional from way back.
Plant’s voice sounds like it was recorded through a Wurlitzer organ.
NICE
Very old style blues, Syed.
Good react.
I think III has some awesome songs but it feels like a transition from their early blues rock riffage to the epics of IV- Phys Graffiti. I-III is a great review of all their styles that they synthesize into huge arena rock thereafter, starting with the explosion of sound that is Black Dog. I agree with Syed that III is uneven and not their best sounding record, but has great moments.
This sounds like Page has substituted his acoustic guitar, for a Dobro; which in case you are not familiar, with that, it is like an acoustic guitar, with a round metal plate instead of the sound hole.
"Ghostly." "Spooky." You got it--Zep proving once more that their talent is downright--well, Otherworldly! (ANd...Don't forget to do "Hey Hey What Can I do," which was a B-side of the Immigrant Song 45 record, if I recall. Not sure why it didn't make the album, but it's totally worthy of the band!)
I think two things Page was going for in the production on this were 1) making Plant's vocal by itself sound like a distorted harmonica through a classic Sure green bullet microphone, 2) mimicking the sense of the old 1930s blues songs sounding like they were played in "no time" rather than a consistent 4/4, etc. Those like Clapton that were/are really into that era state it's because their arrangements were so complex that they weren't comprehensible for us mere mortals. I actually think Clapton and others are just being respectful to the sources but in reality those original versions were NOT as good. The genre and the instrument were much newer in the 1930s and those artists didn't really refine their songs before having the chance encounter to record them in a studio or in the larger world by Alan Lomax and others.
Well at least now it’s time for “the one”: Led Zeppelin IV
Where are from?
Led Zeppelin fans have so many diverse opinions and favorites that it's hard to get consensus on best/favorite albums/tracks. However, one thing on which just about every Led Zeppelin fan will agree is that 'Hats Off' is among the band's worst songs.
This is the song that everybody loves to hate on this album. And they end with it. I know who Harper was, but never got why they they did this weird style to “honor” him.
I like the music. When Plant tries to imitate the great singers, he does it screaming a lot of times which is annoying to me. The Blues isn't about trying to scream like Little Richard. Zeps first two albums Plants vocals are great with the Blues, after that he can be absolutely off base a lot of times imo. When Plant just uses his own voice, his own vocal style, I enjoy it.
I really just cant get into Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. Just not a hard rock type of person I guess.
Just because Roy Harper plays acoustic guitar doesn't make him a folk player.
Some of these lyrics sound horrible out of context lmao
LZ stole everything they played from the Missippi Delta Blues until their fourth album. Just like the Rolling Stones, whose Keith Richards said in his auto biography, that all they were trying to do early in their career was be the best blues players in Britian.
Sorry but this is nonsense. Yes, they did quite a few covers or interpretations of old blues stuff, but wrote plenty themselves too. On the third album, for example, only this track and Gallows Pole are "covers", the band wrote the rest.
@@tcrime You misunderstand my point. I wasn't suggesting that they literally played previously recorded songs. I am suggesting that they were playing the blues, following the musical rules and traditional structure of blues in general. The weren't appropriating previous songs, they were appropriating a genre.
@@tcrime By steal, I meant they copied the style, the chords, the meter, not covered. Led Zeppelin turned out to be great musicians, top 5 rockers of all time, but like most Brits, they appropriated the blues.
Worst Zeppelin song ever done. Can't take Plant's wailing.
Sounded horrible.