Every member of Led Zeppelin could have been justifiably called a virtuoso. Throughout their tenure together, every member had their moments of performing something ingenious, from Robert Plant’s guttural howls at the end of ‘How Many More Times’ to Jimmy Page’s penchant for coming up with one fantastic riff after the next across all of their albums. While every member of Zeppelin could handle anything thrown at them for most of their tenure, one riff from John Paul Jones threw them for a loop in the studio.
When the group were first breaking themselves in on their debut, most of their material didn’t stray past the conventional blues structures that the British hard rock scene had been used to. Although there were exotic elements sprinkled into songs like ‘Black Mountainside’, the following albums would see the band taking on various musical struggles, like the orchestral sounds of ‘Friends’ or the hazy atmosphere captured on ‘What Is and What Should Never Be’.
Once they were met with spite from the critics, their fourth outing would be the moment they called their bluff. Since the media thought that Zeppelin was all hype, the band released their fourth album with no fanfare, putting it out into record stores, before quickly turning it into one of the most successful records of their career.
Kicking off the album with a flurry of distortion, John Paul Jones was responsible for the central riff of ‘Black Dog’, which had an unusual time signature to work around. Occasionally swapping out different beats and changing tempo, Page and John Bonham initially had difficulty settling into the groove. Then Bonham came up with an idea.
Rather than play it off the floor, ‘Bonzo’ recorded a click track with his sticks in time with the riff, which would be fed into everyone’s headphones so no one would slip up. Considering how complicated the riff was, it makes sense why Plant’s vocals are reserved for the moments where there’s no instrumentation, as the rest of the band keeps on their toes to return to the next section.
Even with the massive head-trip that went into learning the song, it’s easy to get into the groove they create in those sections. While every member is locked into the groove, the subtle intricacies of their playing are on full display, with Bonham playing slightly behind the beat, Page staying one step ahead of the beat, and ‘Jonesy’ playing everything straight up the middle.
After taking to the road, Zeppelin would turn the song into a staple of their live show, with Plant holding the crowd in the palm of his hands for a few seconds before the rest of the band came screaming in behind him. Then again, Zeppelin didn’t have time to pat themselves on the back for writing something so complex.
Across their next album, Houses of the Holy, Zeppelin were looking to push themselves even further, with Page turning in the ethereal ballad ‘The Rain Song’ recorded in an open tuning and offering up another riff with an odd time signature, ‘The Ocean’. While most artists are comfortable in conventional 4/4, ‘Black Dog’ is the ultimate example of how cool it can sound when an artist decides to take a chance on something different, something a bit more baroque.
