Some of you Zep fans are so out to lunch and ignorant in music history. First of all Led Zeppelin or Robert Plant are the last people to complain about copying. Plant copied his vocal style from Steve Mariotte of the Small Faces. Check out their song You Need Lovin and you will know what I mean. Also LZ is known for copying many songs that resulted in law suites. Deep Purple was around before Zep. Even though they had some success with the huge hit in Hush, Blackmore was still not happy with the direction of the band because he loved heavier music like Hendrix who was his favorite guitarist. After seeing Led Zeppelin he thought Plant was great. Blackmore axed Purples first singer and recruited a singer that could compete with... not “imitate” Plant. Enter Ian Gillan. Plant and Gillan have nothing in common looks wise or sound wise. Gillan became easily one of the best hard rock singers and definitely the best screamer. So good that he was picked to sing as Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar after the creators heard Child in Time off In Rock which is a masterpiece. by 1973 and 6 albums later Deep Purple WAS the biggest Selling band in the world. However Blackmore being Blackmore decided he didn’t like Gillan and wanted a blues singer like Paul Rogers. Enter David Coverdale. Coverdale and Plant were complete opposites sounding nothing alike. In fact the two camps are seen on many occasions partying together or attending each others concerts. Blackmore quickly got bored of that and eventually left to form Rainbow with Ronny Dio. Coverdale went on to Form a blues type of band called Whitesnake which was successful in Europe and Asian countries. Coverdale wanting to break America again signed on with the American record label Geffen records who made Whitesnake heavier younger and mtv friendly. The plan worked. They had huge success with Slide It In and the 87 album which is one of the biggest selling albums ever in hard rock. Only after Coverdales success did Roberta Plant (after knowing Coverdale for 15 years) all of a sudden start criticizing him and calling him David Coverversion. At first Coverdale had a laugh about it but when Plant persisted Coverdale ripped into him and called him every name in the book. What Plant did was classless and even Page stuck up for Coverdale. I’ve disliked Plant ever since and to be honest he just bugs the shit out of me. FYI... it’s 2020 and Coverdale, Blackmore and Gillan who is leading Deep Purple are still making great music while Plant is off doing shit and Page hang out out a good album since his partnership with Coverdale.