Fascinating story of a group of musicians finding the right ideas for a particular influential sound. Emerging in a tight scene in the late 1960’s reasy to transform music and its business. But also how the fortune translated to miserable lifestyles and abuse of drugs.

The biography is a bit remote from the characters but thorough in covering the musical story of the band. ( )

The inside cover flap boasts: Led Zeppelin gave no quarter, and neither has Bob Spitz. "Led Zeppelin" is the full and honest reckoning the band has long awaited, and richly deserves.

Despite those lofty fighting words on the flap, “Led Zeppelin The Biography” is hardly a reckoning. It is nothing more than a mean-spirited book report.

Spitz’s “reckoning,” apparent in his bibliography and chapter notes, is mainly sourced from the works of others. Almost every Zeppelin-related book, periodical, radio interview, and fan forum (huh?) out there is sourced. Harvested quotes and information are inserted to fit the narrative Spitz chose to spin, with little heed to whether the sources are inaccurate or innuendo, or whether selected quotes are used in proper context.

As other reviewers have noted, there isn't anything new in this book. The personal interviews that Spitz conducted are with mostly peripheral figures, most of whom fell out of favor with the band, rendering their statements less than objective. A few interviewees are identified mysteriously as “confidential” sources. None of the interviews produced anything beyond similar recollections made in other books. Credibility is questionable when certain figures alter their stories over the years.

Spitz editorialized throughout the text and made deliberate word choices to mock the group and manager Peter Grant. Some barbs weren’t subtle. Calling John Bonham, who died from alcohol abuse, “sh*tfaced as usual" was in poor taste. Spitz also overused creative license in what is supposedly a factual biography. Exactly how is it that Spitz can declare without quoting a source that Jimmy Page had a “cell-like bedroom” as a child, or that his parents had a radio on which “Jimmy worked its Bakelite dials with a safecracker’s expertise?” Spitz also took the liberty of inventing dialogue in numerous passages with no identified sources.

Amidst other factual errors that appear from cover to cover, Spitz made the bizarre error of stating that Sandy Denny sang on “Gallows Pole.”

Spitz included the requisite wokery which seems to be a requirement for an author to get published at this moment in time. However it is unrealistic to view events that occurred 50 years ago through the moral lens of today. In what world other than Spitz’s “reckoning” can Robert Plant’s blues singing be considered “cultural appropriation”?? As enlightened to new social mores as Spitz attempted to be in some areas, he fat-shamed Peter Grant repeatedly and ridiculed John Bonham for substance abuse disorder. Bullying isn’t very enlightened. Spitz also mocked journalist Chris Welch numerous times throughout the text, but sourced no less than three of Welch's published books on Zeppelin and Peter Grant.

The photos are stock images widely available on the internet. The dates for three photos relating to the notorious Oakland shows which took place in 1977 are erroneously captioned as 1979. A photo identified as a rehearsal for Knebworth is from a completely different time period. ( )

When the first Led Zeppelin biography, Hammer of the Gods, by Stephen Davis, was published in 1985, it caused a sensation. Riding on the coattails of the equally sensationalistic No One Here Gets Out Alive, the Jim Morrison autobiography published in 1980 that caused a Doors revival, Hammer of the Gods bared to the world the debaucheries behind Led Zeppelin’s cooler-than-shit façade. Such as the groupie/mud shark tale which happened right here in Seattle, at the Edgewater Inn. I had read Hammer of the Gods even before I moved to Seattle, and can say for sure the book confirmed the many sordid stories I’d read hints of from the rock and roll magazines of my high school days.

Except, not really. Much in that book was claimed as exaggeration or fabrication. The authors relied on the recollections of Richard Cole, Led Zep’s ex-roadie, who had a motive to sell them out: money. The Zep members denounced it, in the same way the Beatles denounced the memoir of their first manager Allan Williams, who wrote about their wild times in the Reeperbahn District music clubs of Hamburg. (That book, too, set off a wave of retro Beatlemania.)

Led Zeppelin: The Biography doesn’t entirely avoid the sensationalism, which is too bad. But it’s also a much more thorough history, and for the most part avoids the snark of Hammer which was considered essential in rock journalism at the time. (The otherwise excellent Beatles bio Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation also had this problem.) For that alone I rate the book highly.

Indeed, if you read only one Led Zep biography, read this one. Everything is there, who did what and when and where, enabling the reader to connect the dots to a wider range of players in the music industry and how they all interacted. Dusty Springfield, for example, rated John Paul Jones so highly a session player on her albums that a chance remark by her led the band to secure a highly favorable record deal.

Even better, the business machine behind the band is laid bare, making it a case study in music management 101. Manager Peter Grant receives a strong case for being the unlauded fifth member of the group. Grant didn’t discover them like Epstein did the Beatles. He accrued them because he managed the Yardbirds who Jimmy had first played with, and, impressed with his talent, stole the proto-Zeppelin out from under Micky Most’s nose. How hard of a sell Jimmy did on Grant the book doesn’t say, but I’d bet his talent spoke for itself. It was only through Grant’s unwavering faith and strong-armed tactics the group became the powerhouse it was, along with the casual connections, lucky encounters, and twists of fate. Everything just clicked into place.

The book also gets right what Hammer did not. Page’s family did not own a car dealership in the Epsom section of London, he came from humbler beginnings. The band did not call them themselves the Nobs for a gig in Scandinavia because it was slang for balls, but because it was the name of an associate of theirs. The mud shark incident did not involve the Zep band members; it was conceived by Richard Cole and Carmine Appice, the drummer for Vanilla Fudge. Though that they watched and did nothing to stop it was questionable; whether there was anything to be stopped the book leaves up in the air, leaving the reader to decide if it was sexual assault on an out-of-it victim or willing participants in raunchy play.

Which to me was the biggest fault of the book, rehashing those old incidents at face value. Though the author adds moralizing from a present day viewpoint, no new spin is put on them. For example, in one part it’s hinted that underage groupie Lori Maddox (I’m using the earlier spelling of her name) was pimped by her mother to bag a rock star, but this is not explored any further, which is a shame. In fact none of the female associates of the band are explored in any depth. This might be an omission of the author’s, or the women might have been unwilling to talk. But one day I hope to hell to see the band’s history told from the viewpoint of the wives, girlfriends, and female associates of the band.

Also mildly annoying was the reinteration of the phrase "do as though wilt" -- a saying of Aleister Crowley, an occult figure Jimmy had a fascination with -- at certain times whenever the band does a morally questionable thing. But basic reading of Crowley and Thelema shows that it doesn't mean do all the evil you possibly can without fear of reprisal. That's the meaning Spitz put upon it. What it does mean is a sort of self-actualization, in the form of cause and effect. Which must have attractive to the young Jimmy Page who claims he read one of Crowley's books around the age of 11.

The in-depth basic information makes the book very readable for a newbie, but for Zep aficionados there are many new revelations. Like how Swan Song records, the band’s vanity label, passed on rock groups Heart and Queen because everyone running the label was too drugged and apathetic to run it properly. Post-Zep history is barely touched on, but then that would require a whole other book.

Comparing the book to Mick Wall’s 2008 When Giants Walked the Earth, also a very thorough biography, I’d say Spitz’s book comes out better, though it’s missing the personal touches of the band member’s lives. Though not the “you are [insert band member’s name]” fanfic chapter preludes, which had me cringing in secondhand embarrassment for the writer. In spite of that I enjoyed the book, but the Spitz book does the history better.

The book includes about two dozen well-chosen photos, among them a lovely pic of a very young Jimmy and Jeff Beck tuning their guitars, courtesy of one Linda Eastman, later known as Linda McCartney.

After all that I am seriously zepp'd out. But at some point I'll continue on with a Jimmy Page biography I started. ( )

Of course a very long and sad book. Really enjoyed the first part about their lives before LZ, most of the attention (appropriately) was paid to Jimmy Page, and it was a great look at the early and mid 60s UK blues/rock scene. But when they became Led Zeppelin their thuggish manager and all the drugs and awful behavior was unrelenting and sad. Book is well footnoted and indexed. I still love much of their recordings. ( )

Led Zeppelin has maintained a deliberate air of mystery for more than 50 years, and the members have not deigned to participate in an authorized biography beyond releasing the Led Zeppelin photo book a few years ago.

That has not stopped many an author from writing biographies of the band or of the individual members. Each new release, and they seem to come every few years, purport to be THE definitive biography. These authors aren't stupid, they know the name Led Zeppelin will sell a book.

"Led Zeppelin: The Biography" by Bob Spitz, packaged as some sort of highbrow tome, contains nothing new. There are a lot of inaccuracies, and the same old tired sources make their regularly-scheduled appearances in the latest Zeppelin book. Bob Spitz seems to have intentionally written an unflattering portrait of the group. In seeking to capitalize on the "me too" era, Spitz is only dredging up material from previously published books, so nothing here is a revelation. But the marketing of the book and the timing of the release was shrewd; the author and publisher were sure to draw in some curious new readers who may never have picked up a Zeppelin book before.

Each individual reader must decide if he or she is going to believe what is printed in a book. The barrage of Zeppelin books began with "Hammer of the Gods" by Stephen Davis, which has been highly discredited, yet stories in that book from the band's disgraced and fired road manager are now repeated as gospel truth. It should be realized that many sources who participate in these kinds of books - whether "Hammer" or this most recent book by Spitz - have their own agendas. Foremost, many sources won't spill without being paid for it, and they aren't going to get paid for a boring story, so perhaps some embellishment occurs. Perhaps a source is happy to participate and tell an unflattering story due to a perceived sleight by the band or its associates back in the day. Perhaps someone sees an opportunity for self-recognition, with participation in a book a springboard to repeating the tale again, and another payday, maybe from a British tabloid. Why not, eh?

Here is what Spitz said about the members of Led Zeppelin in an interview with Spin Magazine: "No, I don’t know them. They were prepared to speak with me when #MeToo landed, and suddenly they weren’t talking to anyone anymore. But I’ve always felt that the musicians, who live in a bubble, are the most unreliable narrators. I left it to everyone else, those who were with them every step of the way, to fill in the details. Of course, I was despondent over losing the band members, but was reading a copy of David McCullough’s John Adams bio when I realized he never spoke to Adams!"

In the same breath, Spitz states that the band members were going to speak with him (highly doubtful) but then calls musicians "unreliable narrators." And to compare his inability to speak to the band members to that of a biographer who was unable to speak to a president who died in 1826 is comparing apples and oranges. ( )