Keith Shadwick

Keith Shadwick, author of the similarly exhaustive and excellent Jimi Hendrix: Musician(2003, Backbeat Books), among others, has produced a work worthy of a band of Led Zeppelin's stature and legend. This lengthy book covers the entirety of Zeppelin's career in serious and thorough fashion, beginning with their emergence from the ashes of the Yardbirds in 1968, through the death of drummer, John Bonham, in 1980. There have been several efforts to capture the history of the band, notably Stephen Davis' Hammer of the Gods (Pan 1995), and former tour manager, Richard Cole's, Stairway to Heaven (Pocket Books, 2002), both of which focus largely on the band's penchant for over-indulgence and general bad behavior. Shadwick's is much broader approach, largely passing over the tales of debauchery in favor of a thorough and insightful analysis of of the band's music, their working methods, and the unique personalities of the four members. Page, Pland, Bonham, and Jones appear less the crazed rock stars that popular reputation has come to regard them as (although they certainly are that), and more as driven and accomplished musicians who worked incredibly hard on stage and in the studio. This is the definitive book on the band.… (mehr)