The decade in which I was born has given me a strange perspective on its music. I discovered pretty much all of the 70’s sounds – from prog rock to punk to disco – well after they came into the world. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that I discovered what I was missing. I would characterize the decade as one where budding genres leaped off their inspiration pads and came to fruition. For the month of February, Mental Jukebox will feature some of these gems with a different 70’s song each day. #28DaysOf70sSongs
My Led Zeppelin IV cassette in 9th grade was a defining album for my budding interest in classic rock. I assumed I was in for just the hard stuff and would be comfortably flanked by Robert Plant’s howl and Jimmy Page’s hard-edged riffs. But IV took me my ears on a bender from the opening verse to “Black Dog” to the final guitar riff in “When The Levee Breaks”. The album fuses folk elements, straight ahead rock, early heavy metal elements and a heavy dose of blues. And it’s the blues that makes “When The Levee Breaks” one of the greatest tracks on the album.
Plant’s harmonica and Page’s guitar riff seemed attached at the hip, playing along the same octave. “When The Levee Breaks”, by name, was overshadowed by monster Zeppelin hits like “Stairway to Heaven”, “Black Dog”, “Rock and Roll” and “Going to California”. But I think it surpassed all the aforementioned classics. Those songs mastered epic riffs. They really relied on Page and Plant mostly. But “When The Levee Breaks” mastered hard rock blues more than any other Zeppelin song I can think of. It took the whole band to give it their all – and I count the song as one of Bonzo’s best and biggest barrages on the drum set.
“Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan.”