The sound sparkles, and the many early versions and mixes of some fabled tracks will thrill fans.
The final group of three albums - including Presence, In Through the Out Door, and Coda - is out this week. Now we have the latest (and definitive, we’re told) remastering of the band’s now-historic catalogue. Jimmy Page put an end to all of that with Led Zeppelin, the band that broke the blues and created something new - hard rock, heavy metal, whatever you want to call it. They were done with brio, but with probity and respect, too. Rock bands always fooled around with doing the blues louder and with less finesse, of course, but beyond that, folks like Eric Clapton were the models, with their sincere embarkations into the music. The blues were a serious matter, meant to be played a certain way. It’s difficult to remember now how precious the blues seemed to rockers in the 1960s. Photo: Maya Robinson and Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
