When Jimmy Page heard his bandmate, Robert Plant, sing for the the first time, he worried that the legendary vocalist had a fatal flaw that he was missing. “I just could not understand why, after he told me he’d been singing for a few years already, he hadn’t become a big name yet,” the guitarist said. Together, the two joined forces with drummer John Bonham and bassist John Paul Jones to form Led Zeppelin. From 1968 until Bonham’s death in 1980, the British rockers were on top of the world. And that’s likely how these patrons felt when Plant strolled into a small New Orleans jazz club and delivered the performance of a lifetime.
Watch Robert Plant Transform “Black Dog”
If you’ve ever visited New Orleans, you’ve felt the possibility in the air. It truly is a place where anything can happen—like Robert Plant wandering into a jazz club and surprising the crowd with one of Led Zeppelin’s most timeless hits.
Videos by American Songwriter
Back in April 2023, when the “Kashmir” legend was in the Big Easy for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, he headed over to Preservation Hall. There, he treated the audience to a jazzed-up rendition of the 1971 hit “Black Dog.”
“Everyone in the room having fun, including Plant,” one Facebook user commented on video footage of the performance. “That’s all that matters.”
Another added, “Is it possible he just keeps getting cooler?”
[RELATED: 5 Songs That Show Off the Softer Side of Led Zeppelin]
How “Black Dog” Came to Be
Back in the early ’70s, Led Zeppelin headed to the pastoral country house Headley Grange in England to record their definitive fourth album. The record, known as Led Zeppelin IV, contains such transformatie works as the nine-minute “Stairway to Heaven” and “When the Levee Breaks.”
While there, the rockers noticed a black Labrador wandering the grounds. Disappearing in the evening, they wouldn’t see the dog again until he returned exhausted in the early morning hours. After resting all day, he would repeat his nightly ventures. Believing the dog was stealing away for nightly trysts with his “old lady,” Robert Plant came up with the concept for the song that would become “Black Dog.”
Featured image by Jeremychanphotography/Getty Images
Most Viewed
-
Huty23631 0001 -
English rock and pop group The Hollies perform the song 'Sorry Suzanne' on the set of the BBC Television pop music television show Top Of The Pops at Lime Grove Studios in London on 27th March 1969. Members of the band are, from left, Tony Hicks, Bobby Elliott, Allan Clarke, Terry Sylvester and Bernie Calvert. (Photo by Ivan Keeman/Redferns) -
Paul Revere & The Raiders Perform American pop group Paul Revere & the Raiders perform in matching outfits, probably on a television studio set, mid 1960s. The band includes Mark Lindsay (third left) as the vocalist and Paul Revere (right) on keyboards. (Photo by Authenticated News/Getty Images) -
UNSPECIFIED – CIRCA 1970: Photo of Dottie West Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images -
UNSPECIFIED – JANUARY 01: Photo of Bobby RYDELL (Photo by Richi Howell/Redferns) -
Thirty-nine years ago today, Randy Travis was at the top of the country chart with an award-winning hit inspired by a child learning to pray. -
American bluegrass singer and mandolin player Bill Monroe (1911 – 1996, left) backstage at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, with Kenny Baker on the fiddle, 2nd May 1975. (Photo by Sylvia Pitcher/Redferns/Getty Images)
