When Giants Walked the Earth: 50 years of Led Zeppelin. The fully revised and updated biography.

I've been a big fan of Mick's work for many years and I loved this book. I've only read one other Zeppelin book, Ritchie Yorke's biography of the band, so I can't really compare this to a wide range of other Led Zep-related books but it is a very enjoyable and well-researched read. Mick has clearly put a lot of work into this and it really does feel like the definitive account of the band from it's creation in the early days right through to the present day. There's a real attention to detail and I really enjoyed the stories around the recording of the albums and the legendary and notorious US tours. It's a very compelling read and I found it hard to put the book down once I had started it. If you're a Zep fan I'd definitely recommend it.Great work from Mr Wall, thank you!

Nobody could say Jimmy Page had an obvious narcissistic streak could they? I mean he could have taken a leaf out of Jeff Beck's book and named The New Yardbirds after himself. But he was much too clever for that; had he done so he may have lost his own talented front man just like Beck would lose Rod Sterwart. But that doesn't mean Jimmy, like any Rock legend, didn't have an ego the size of China, and unlike other rock legends, an uncanny talent for controlling everything without drawing attention to the fact. This book is perhaps testimony to that ability.Like the other well known Zep biography 'Hammer of the Gods' Wall's offering paints Page as a flawed genius with the charismatic charm of a Dickens character (it doesn't dwell on the flaws to quite the same extent 'Hammer' did). Also like the original Zep biog, Robert Plant is depicted as a talented but oafish midlander, initially awestruck by the bright lights of fame; Bonzo is seen as the greatest of skinsmen, a brutish drunk but with a soft heart when sober, and John Paul Jones is no more than chopped liver. I would have liked a more insightful examination.Strange that the Plant/Page chemistry (or alchemy if you prefer) is not contemplated to any great extent in either book because these two colossal talents contributed equally to the most synegetically brilliant partnership in rock history. Robert Plant was to Zeppelin what Mick Jagger was to The Rolling Stones, Paul Rodgers to Free, or Joe Strummer to The Clash, but unlike Plant, the Jaggers, Rodgers and Strummers of the rock world would wrestle control of their respective bands away from their founders. Robert's astonishing voice and charismatic presence would influence generations of rock singers, his look adopted by established front men like Roger Daltry, and cloned by an army of David Coverdales, yet Jimmy's control of the band throughout its twelve year history was never questioned.There isn't really much in this book that 'Hammer of the Gods' didn't have, but if like me you're a hopeless Zep nutter, it's still necessary reading. The first half is great, I enjoyed the first person italics as a vehicle for telling each band member's story individually, even though it eventually becomes tiresome. On the downside, halway through Wall suddenly dedicates a whole chapter to Aleister Crowley, even endorsing some of his views. A few pages would have been fine for those curious about Jimmy's interest in Crowley and the occult, but after the first twenty I thought I was reading a different book to the one I'd started. But more significantly, I sensed the subtle influence of Page, and I suspected that an 'arrangement' had been struck betwixt him and the writer. Of course Jimmy would never admit it, and he must have baulked at aspects of the book; but the truth is, it isn't cool to authorise a rock biography, even though rock stars want them out there, so they are forced into clandestine semi-deals with talented rock writers.The book is predictably well written and manages to pack in all the juice without burdening the reader with so much detail it becomes a choir, like 'Shakey' Jimmy Mcullock's overly insightfull authorised biography of Neil Young; or leaving the reader wanting more like Joe Jackson's brilliant and charming autobiography of life before success 'A Cure for Gravity'. Whether or not you've read 'Hammer of the Gods', you should read this, it is marginally better, slightly less bitchy, but it must be said, dissapointingly similar.

Well pleased.

I really enjoyed this book. Mick seems to know his subjects well. I cannot fairly comment on the italics in the first person view because I eventually got into them and came to enjoy them. Others however will not.This is my third Led Zeppelin book now. I guess I am trying to get down to the truth of the band. It's beginning onwards. Well let's face it there will not be an end or we would not be writing about them.I would say this is a great read. Not only can you get under the skin of your characters but very close to what makes them tick.You can make up your own mind about why they were flat out despised by some critics and just disliked by others. The book will give you some of those heartbreaking reviews and if you are a Led Zeppelin fan you can just shake your head and just wonder ' why '

Just finished the book and I wanted to put down my thoughts on the piece. Apologies that it is subjective in terms of my opinion, but hope that I present a balanced case.(WARNING: This review contains SPOILERS and uses an inference to a swear word that appears in the book, but is for reference to the actual writing only and not the opinion of the reviewer).The book (on the whole) is very well written. It has a relaxed style and the language is accessible for the narrative pieces of the historical information. I thought the early days to about 1978 were very detailed and clear. The pace was quick without being too glib. Unfortunately from 1980 onward the historical information gave way to a more subjective style and really missed out major chunks of the solo careers of members. That said there is a lot of focus on Robert Plants 'Raising Sand' project and after-all it is a book about Zeppelin and not their solo careers.The information regarding the career of Led Zeppelin is very good and doesn't stray too far away from the subject material and if it does it is only to support the historical markers and why certain decisions were made at certain times. However, there are three aspects of the book that I personally found deeply frustrating.Firstly, the first person pieces that appear from time to time that attempt to put you in the mind a particular person during their early days: In the beginning I found these quite endearing, although I thought it was shame that in order to portray Peter Grant it was felt that using the word C*** over and over was justified. But as the book wore on, the dropping out of narrative in order to put these pieces in just become tedious and sometimes irrelevant, to the point that the last entry for John Bonham made me feel very frustrated. Especially when you're reading about the band say in 1977 one minute and you're thrown back to 1968 by the first person sections. There is also the aspect that it took a while to work out who actually is talking from time to time, which I felt detracted from what is other wise a very well paced book.(SPOILER ALERT!! - Actual reference to two of the sections is cited here)Secondly, some of the writing is so utterly subjective that it made me swear out loud sometimes with frustration. For example, the authors inference that it was the band who stole the money from the hotel after the gig is purely subjective and is written more from a headline grabbing attitude than an actual historically founded position. Another example was the review of the 2007 come back gig, where the author decries the event as basically awful and low energy, (when it is pretty much universally acknowledged that it was a complete triumph and success, but that in itself is very subjective. My apologies). Here I think it would have been better just to state the facts, rather than paint a unnecessarily negative picture of the decline of the band in order to play-out the 'rise and fall' nature of the story. It almost came across sometimes that where the author didn't have solid information that he made up a headline grabbing opinion just add spice to the mix, (an accusation he throws at the book 'Hammer of the Gods'), which in honesty he really didn't need to do when the rest of his content is so very well written and researched.My final gripe was the portrayal of the members of the band, which I personally feel came across as exaggerated in order to make the book again more spicy. (Again SPOILER ALERT!!!). Jimmy Page is depicted initially as a tyrannical dictator who descends into being an emasculated hermit, with no life direction or purpose, which is very unfair and also untrue. His solo work is reasonably glossed over and there is no mention of his charity work in Brazil. Robert Plant on the other hand is the complete opposite, starting out as a weak willed figure who is bossed around by Page and then develops into this evil figure of a man who is selfish; dictatorial when it comes to the come back show and who will do anything to smash the hopes and dreams of Page. Completely over the top! Where he does get it right is the role of John Paul Jones in the band, but again there is little development of him from 1980 onwards.But, I want to be absolutely fair to Mick Wall because in terms of a biography of Led Zeppelin it scores hands down over Hammer of the Gods and Stairway to Heaven (the Richard Coal biography), in that it avoids the lurid sensationalism of these other two works and really has a lot of excellent detail. (However, I personally feel that "Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man" by George Case is a far superior work in terms of the life if JP when compared to all three).In conclusion, if you are a well read fan of Zeppelin lore, this makes a worth while read. But if you are using this as your very first entry into the world of Zeppelin history, then do check out other works for a contrasting view point. Especially Magus Musician Man. Jimmy Page: Magus Musician Man