"This is a teaching album": Why I ❤️ Led Zeppelin IV, by Heart's Ann Wilson

[Zep Hed]

By Jaan Uhelszki ( Classic Rock )

 

Robert Plant hanging with Heart backstage at Milton Keynes Bowl, 1982.

In December 2012, Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones sat in the audience at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, D.C, having been honoured earlier in the evening at the White House.

Onstage, Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson were joined by Jason Bonham to perform an emotional, devastating version of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven. So perhaps it’s not much of a surprise when you ask Ann about the album that changed everything for her.

“I think it’d be Zeppelin IV. I would listen to The Beatles and listen to the Stones and Elton John and the other groups that I was listening to in my teens, but that album really hit me where I lived.

“I knew from the first that I have to reproduce that. This is a teaching album, I said to myself. I know it had a lot to do with Plant’s lyrics. I mean that’s my favourite part of the gig is getting to sing those words, our words, Zeppelin’s words, whoever, is just getting to recreate the poetry in song.

“And that’s the album when he really started to write in a more masterly way.”

Earlier this year, before Heart's tour was cancelled to allow Ann Wilson to recuperate from surgery, the sisters appeared on the Howard Stern Show, where they spoke more about Led Zeppelin's influence, looked back on that Kennedy Center performance of Stairway To Heaven, and played another song from Led Zep IV, the classic Going To California.

https://www.loudersound.com/features/ann-wilson-led-zeppelin-IV

[Canadianzepper]

The importance of song order was really critical for that album.  Only eight songs, all different in their own way but a seamless ride from the first song to the end.  Probably their best finish to an album that leaves the impression you need to relisten to the entire album again.