When Giants Walked the Earth
50 years of Led Zeppelin. The fully revised and updated biography.
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- 3,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
Over ten years after WHEN GIANTS WALKED THE EARTH, Mick Wall's seminal biography of the band, comes this major and extensively researched revision, which provides an unflinching look at life inside one of the biggest-selling rock bands of all time, and presents the definitive, final word on Led Zeppelin.
They were 'the last great band of the sixties; the first great band of the seventies'; they rose, somewhat unpromisingly, from the ashes of the Yardbirds to become one of the biggest-selling rock bands of all time. Mick Wall, respected rock writer and former confidant of both Page and Plant, unflinchingly tells the story of the band that wrote the rulebook for on-the-road excess - and eventually paid the price for it, with disaster, drug addiction and death.
WHEN GIANTS WALKED THE EARTH reveals for the first time the true extent of band leader Jimmy Page's longstanding interest in the occult, and goes behind the scenes to expose the truth behind their much-hyped yet spectacularly contrived comeback at London's O2 arena in 2007, and how Jimmy Page plans to bring the band back permanently - if only his former protégé, now part-time nemesis, Robert Plant will allow him to. Wall also recounts, in a series of flashbacks, the life stories of the five individuals that made the dream of Led Zeppelin into an even more incredible and hard-to-swallow reality: Page, Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham, and their infamous manager, Peter Grant.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this ambitious biography, Wall narrates the history of a band that became one of the biggest musical and cultural phenomena of the 1970s. The brainchild of studio wizard Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin marked the transition from flower-power good vibrations to the rough sounds of a disillusioned era. More than just another hard-rock band, however, Zeppelin drew on elements from reggae, soul, blues and R&B, as well as more exotic sounds from India and the Middle East. The trashed hotel rooms and violated groupies Zeppelin left in its wake helped to create an enduring rock and roll road archetype. Wall painstakingly traces Zeppelin's development and musical pedigree. His access and attention to detail make this a definitive work. However, he falls short in substance and style when he tries to move beyond the music. Flashback segments written from the perspective of the various principals are confusing, and his forays into nonmusical subjects such as Page's interest in the occult are often portentous. Nevertheless, this volume is an essential source for anyone eager to learn about the era when rock stars ruled the world.
