LED ZEPPELIN - BLACK DOG

 "Watch your honey drip, can't keep away"

John Paul Jones has always been the quiet one, the studious one. Never one to push himself into the spotlight, he did however have a knack of producing great riffs and ideas. From 'Good Times, Bad Times', to his sterling keyboard work on 'Your Time Is Gonna Come' and 'Baby Come On Home', his brilliantly lyrical (but uncredited) bass licks on 'Ramble On', through the 'III' sessions with 'Celebration Day', 'Since I've Been Loving You' and more. And that pales to his pivotal and unsurpassed onstage musicality.

When the band reconvened at Headley Grange he had ideas. The (too) fast embryonic motif of  'No Quarter' aside, 'twas the riff of  'Black Dog' that stood out. Long, rambling, cutting through time signatures as it ploughed on through. Jonesy recalled listening to Muddy Waters' 'Electric Mud' experimental blues/psychedelic fusion elpee from 1968 as an inspiration. He wanted to do a blues with an impossible riff that turned back on itself. He recalled 'playing a riff so impossible we got to the end and fell about laughing for ten minutes then recorded it'.

The remarkable Headley Grange rehearsal tapes we can now date from November 1970 reveal a relaxed but intense Led Zeppelin learning Jonesy's fantastic riff as they try 3 takes to get locked in. There's some chatter as they get to grips with it and within minutes Bonzo has it down. No wonder Jonesy described playing with Bonzo as 'a dream'. 3 takes and John not only has it but effortlessly elevates it to another level with that ridiculously powerful syncopation.  

Robert adds some tentative guide vocals and with extra count-ins from Bonzo to keep the whole thing afloat, it's more than half way there. It was laid down in Island Studios 2 on December 5th 1970 and the companion disc work in progress mix gives us a fascinating insight to how Jimmy was building the song, layer by layer. 

Opening 'Untitled', 'Black Dog' begins with some handling noise, a scrape of strings. As Jimmy would opine 'the Guitar Army. Wakey wakey, rise and shine!' Call and response in structure, vocals then band, it's a half bred cousin to Fleetwood Mac's 'Oh Well' but lifts way beyond that with the larger than life 5/4 riff that kicks in after 3 vocal lines, twisting and turning while Bonzo powers a 4/4 beat and they all meet together, perfectly, at the end.

With the 'ah oh ah ah, ah oh ah ah' motif before another riff variation it cements its' own power, and for the second half of the song the guitar army adds wave upon wave of harmony guitar building the power and tension all the while. At the coda, Jimmy's solo (not to mention the perfect tight but loose fluidity of the Jones-Bonham groove growling underneath) is startling. Edgy yet melodic, dissonant yet perfectly tuneful and harmonic, it weaves across and above the strutting undercurrent while Robert struts his stuff and they head off into the sunset. Genius.

Auditioned at rehearsal for the 'Back To The Clubs' tour, 'Black Dog' was an obvious live number. Premiered at Belfast Ulster Hall on Match 5th 1971, it came in at 4th in the set. It stayed there, occasionally swapping places with 'Dazed And Confused' until the late 1971 British Tour where it was pushed up to 3rd, more heavy metal adrenalin to follow the 'Immigrant Song'/'Heartbreaker' double shot openers.

Again, when 'Rock And Roll' took over as opener for the second Japanese Tour it followed, pushing the opening salvo crunch. By the time the UK tour was underway 'Over The Hills And Far Away' was slipped in between to give a bit of restbite and colour. By the 9th US Tour it was the final part of the 3 song power start, using a few bars of 'Bring It On Home' as a fanfare introduction. Almost all live performances before or since used a blast of 'Out On The Tiles'. 

1975 was different. Lauded as the official encore, it was preceeded by a token fanfare riff and loose jam of 'Whole Lotta Love'. By the time Led Zeppelin had warmed up and shrugged off their ailments in February '75 the opening verses of 'Whole Lotta Love' were fixed as the introduction. There it stayed - except being dropped for 'Heartbreaker' on March 20th - until the final night at Earls' Court 

1977 saw it disappear from the set, too straightforward Rock to fit with the more fluid songs favoured for the tour. It was to appear twice (as far as we know so far), at the penultimate Madison Square Garden show once again teamed with 'Whole Lotta Love', and as a stand alone encore at the first Oakland Day On The Green gig. With the renewal in 1979 it reverted to 3rd in the set, a reliable crowd pleaser with full call and response muscular power. There it remained in 1980, even having Jimmy introduce it in various languages (chein noir, schwartz hund....) as per their location.

There are countless live performances, various official live releases (the movie, BBC,How The West Was Won) and a fair few filmed ones too. Apart from the truncate then full movie versions, there are the pro-shot Earls' Court and Knebworth bootleg dvd's and much cine film from San Bernardino '72 all the way up to Cologne (possibly Zurich and Munich too) on the Over Europe 1980 tour.

Post Zeppelin Jimmy dropped in an insert in Custard Pie during the Outrider shows, and also was played alongside David Coverdale. The Page Plant project saw a fabulous Australian TV version complete with didgeridoos and a full band run through recorded for the American Music awards. It became a tour staple in 1995 and more of an occasional thrill in 1998. Robert has also teased various arrangements, from straight out rock to bluegrass and banjo semi acoustic versions. Jonesy has performed it too (it is after all his riff) instrumentally to great effect.

Whatever solo performances, the original and subsequent live Led Zeppelin performances show their power and instrumental majesty, the ability to weave in and out of the breath taking power and heaviness with ease, using it as another dimension and not be weighed down by it.

The second US single from 'Untitled', it was backed with 'Misty Mountain Hop'. 

There's a rare edited mono/stereo US promo single, and it's also part of the very scarce 'little LP's' 3 track juke box 7" that also features 'Rock And Roll' and 'Stairway To Heaven'. The Japanese 7" has a gatefold insert featuring facsimile's of their autographs. That aside there are numerous foreign picture sleeve singles too.