Earliest known Led Zeppelin recording

Behold, the earliest known Led Zeppelin recording. Part of a December 1968 show that took place three weeks before the band's Led Zeppelin album came out, this version of "Dazed and Confused" is part of a full-show bootleg that's been available to fans for awhile. This is just its first time on YouTube. Apparently, when this was recorded, Led Zeppelin was so obscure that they were listed as "Len Zefflin" on ads for the show. Enjoy!

(Thanks, Ms. Paige Worthy!)

Previously:

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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Related: I just got the Led Zeppelin 2-DVD set that was released in 2003, and have had it playing almost nonstop for two days (while I’m actually at home, of course).

If you’re a fan and haven’t seen it–go forth, get it, it’s fantastic. Five hours of live concert sets, from the Royal Albert Hall in 1970 to the Knebworth Festival in 1979. Skillfully remastered: sounds great, looks even better. Plus some assorted extra goodies, which is what this post’s clip reminds me of.

The best thing about it, conceptually, is that when you put the first DVD in, it just starts: backstage, then out onstage into the first chords of We’re Gonna Groove. No menu, no title, nothing. Feels very You Are There, ‘specially if you’ve got a big TV.

Anyway, that’s my LedZep plug.
jaytkay

Orly? The band’s Led Zeppelin album was recorded less than three weeks before its release?!
- HighVis
  
  Err, no. Read the paragraph again. The concert was recorded three weeks before the album came out.
- Anonymous
  
  This is 3 weeks before the album was released. This is a live show, NOT a recording of said album.
  - Anonymous
    
    Isn’t the album a recording? The album had to be recorded more than 3 weeks before this show so the album would then be the earliest recording known. I think what is meant is that this is the earliest known LIVE recording.
- Anonymous
  
  This is a recording of a live show that the band played three weeks before the album was released. This isn’t the recording that was on the actual album.
Anonymous

saw the group in memphis, Tenn I believe in 1969 after I and II….anybody there?
littlebone

I actually have Jake Holmes vinyl album with his original version, presented here for your enjoyment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTsvs-pAGDc
Anonymous

Live recording? I don’t buy it. The sound is too good, no bum notes, extraordinarily well mixed and it’s in stereo with really good separation. Couldn’t be done live in ’68 (hard enough even today)

Listen to Bonham’s drums at the opening, you can’t get that sound out of a live show even today and taking it direct from the desk.

And if you look at the photos from the show (pointed out by igpago #15) you’ll see there are no drum mikes – even Page isn’t that good an engineer to get this sound out of the sort of thing that must have been on the tape.

Quite a bit of “post production work” in this one I think.
- Anonymous
  
  The reason there are no drum mikes in the picture is simply because John Bonham didn’t need them. He played so loud the sound filled the whole venue. It wasn’t until they started playing in stadiums that he used mikes. He didn’t think he needed them but their manager Peter Grant assured him he needed them to fill a whole stadium.
kaffeen

Fantastic…good stuff…just reminds me what a special time in music those years were.
Phikus

Great garage band. Maybe they’ll make something of themselves some day…
- Felton
  
  I think they’ll go over like a heavy metal airship.
jimh

Too bad it cuts out before we get to hear the crowd reaction.
ill lich

I knew someone would chime in with the Jake Holmes track (Page apparently lifted it from Holmes after the Yardbirds shared a gig with him)– it’s kind of annoying how many of Led Zeppelin’s tunes were lifted outright from other performers: “Black Mountain Side” from Bert Jansch, “Bring it On Home” from Sonny Boy Wiliamson, several songs from Willie Dixon (3 of which they were sued over), at least one song from Blind Willie Johnson, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and several others were traditional songs they decided to take credit for. . . .

I’m not complaining– I love their versions of these tunes, and “Dazed and Confused” might be the best of the bunch.
- Phikus
  
  It’s Nobody’s Fault But Theirs
  
  (Don’t forget the Staple Singers)
- littlebone
  
  “Chiming” in again.
  
  I had not intended to disparage the Zep version of “Dazed and Confused” which I really like, too. I just wanted to offer Jake Holmes original version. It’s good in its own right.
- Marktech
  
  Lifting old tunes was SOP in blues & folk circles, of course. Still is: I remember when I bought Bob Dylan’s “Modern Times”, I was surprised to see that he was credited with writing “Rollin’ And Tumblin’”, which Elmore James had recorded back in 1960.
xzzy

The distortion is pretty terrible, I hate when people record concerts with their cell phones.
- Anonymous
  
  They didn’t have cell phones in 1968.
Anonymous

Amazing – begged, stolen or borrowed – Still amazing
ToddBradley

The headline is misleading (or flat out wrong, depending on how you look at it). It should read “Earliest known live Led Zeppelin recording.” With the album coming out in 3 weeks, the tracks must have been already recorded and mixed by this time.
ill lich

Good to see the photos show Page playing his Telecaster– most folks associate him with the Les Paul because that’s what he used live all through the 70′s, but most of the studio albums were recorded with a Telecaster. Count me among those who feel the Tele is the most ideal electric guitar ever made (although even I have a problem with the original 3-saddle bridges and their intonation problems.)
pinch

Wasn’t Page Jeff Beck’s successor? In fact, I believe Beck and Page were both in the Yardbirds at the same time for about five minutes.
erindipity

‘Led Zefflin’
Thank you!
Anonymous

Led Zepplin was hardly an obscure band – Page, as Clapton’s sucessor in the Yardbirds, was even then one of the better know quitar players in the world. He was famous enough that Keith Moon and John Entwhistle seriously considered forming a super-group with him.
- Anonymous
  
  They may have been well known at the time because of Jimmy Page, but they were known by many as the New Yardbirds. The name Led Zeppelin didn’t catch on right away which makes sense of why their name was spelled funny.
igpajo

Check out the photo gallery at LedZeppelin.com for 4 photos from this show.
http://www.ledzeppelin.com/image-galleries/led-zeppelin/1968-1969
Anonymous

They didn’t have cell phones in 1968.

Whoosh!
Boldt

The first time Plant, Page, Bonzo, and John Paul Jones recorded together (as The New Yardbirds) was as the backing band for P.J. Proby on his song “Jim’s Blues”. I’ve heard the album featuring that song is to be reissued on LP soon.
fyodordos

The live shows get much better after the Fillmore West shows in January 1969……..8/31/69 at the Texas International Pop Festival is incredible.
Anonymous

I was less than a year old. If only my parents had taken me as an infant to this show I could’ve seen Led Zeppelin live.
Anonymous

Hey, I was alive and living in Spokaloo on this day! Of course, I was only 22 months old. Still, I shoulda pestered my folks to take me.
dsxdsx

Sounds like shite, doesn’t it? Used to love this band but they didn’t age well at all.
Anonymous

“Hurdy Gurdy Man” featured Donovan Leitch vocals and rhythm guitar, Jimmy Page lead guitar, John Paul Jones bass, John Bonham drums. Basically Zep with Donovan instead of Plant.
zandar

“The first time Plant, Page, Bonzo, and John Paul Jones recorded together (as The New Yardbirds)”

Why the name was confusing as well; they had just changed it.
Anonymous

This is pretty cool. I live in Spokane and am currently going to GU.