Quote:
Originally Posted by ProggyMan
When The Levee Breaks and Trampled Underfoot.
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WTLB is probably their most overengineered recording. Granted, it's a Memphis Minnie cover and it sounds absolutely badass, but I don't think they needed to overproduce it. They only played it 2-3 times live (out of over 300 possible performances), and it was really difficult for them to do. For one, the strange time signature and phasing on the main guitar riff is incredibly difficult to duplicate live, both in terms of mechanical ability (guitar playing) and technical ability (soundboard operator). Another strange idiosyncracy is the drums. To duplicate the feeling of being battered by rain and wind, they used massive reverb and staggered echo effects (which weren't available at the time of the recording). So they told Bonzo to play it at the bottom of a three-story stairwell and record it from a mic at the top. Pretty brilliant, but immensely difficult to produce the same effect on the senses in a live performance.
I do like WTLB. Prob the most solid Zeppelin outro on any album, and certainly one of their best hard blues-to-rock ports.