Dude, same here haha I usually skip stairway as well. Legendary song, don’t get me wrong - but I’ve heard it more than any other song pretty much ever.
I tend to go back to HOTH a lot, love the studio version of No Quarter. The drum kit is phenomenal.
I can’t say I’m all that familiar with Simon and Garfunkel unfortunately, my dad just blasted Zeppelin or Ozzy most notably in the house when I was a kid in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Stairway was forever changed for me when I saw Ann and Nancy Wilson do it with John’s Son at the drum kit 10 years ago at the Kennedy Center honors. Best ever. If I had one knit to pick, it would be that the guitar solo wasn’t quite on par with the rest of the performance. Beyond that, it still gives me chills. Especially watching the band’s reaction to it.
That was an awe-inspiring performance from Heart. Plant was in tears in the balcony, and he HATES “Stairway.”
Have y’all heard Dolly’s rendition?
I have not. Now I am curious…
Not as good as Heart’s live rendition, but not bad at all. A bit too much slick Nashville Velveeta for me, even though I love Dolly as a national treasure.
@pk500 Finally got a chance to listen. I think your assessment is spot on. In the spirit of the moment, I have to share this. A really good piece with Jimmy Page.
Man, when I see Mr. Page working the turn table I wonder about the wonders of vinyl. But that is a rabbit hole I just cannot go down.
A musical genius explaining how it all came together. Pretty damn cool😎
I still find it hilarious that Rolling Stone magazine, self-proclaimed oracles of rock music, called Led Zeppelin a knockoff of Cream.
Perhaps originally it was, though Zeppelin quickly went well beyond Cream.
I get no pleasure from listening to Cream, though I enjoyed it when I was in high school.
A hilariously bad take in hindsight (though not sure RS has improved at all since them) and one that Zeppelin definitely went well beyond - but within that climate it was both an educated guess & low hanging fruit to make such an inference.
Both Clapton and Page being part of the Yardbirds as their first real commercial group. Early Zeppelin was often said to have been influenced by The Jeff Beck group which came out the same year and given that Beck replaced Clapton (Beck played with/recruited Page) whilst Page was also Clapton’s recommendation to initially replace him in the Yardbirds shows how interconnected these musicians were, with Page being seen as the junior.
After the Bluesbreakers, Cream was Clapton’s first real creative and leading venture. Similar as Zeppelin was for Page - being called “The New Yardbirds”. Both were formed in an era where guitar was being replaced by big bands in accompaniment - why Page left being a session musician - and where in a much more restrictive and stifled conservative environment where straight British Invasion/Blues of short form radio applicable length was the preferred choice of a publication like RS magazine.
Whilst all have individual historical significance there are a lot of striking similarities - the rise of a supergroup of session musicians, opposition to Wall of Sound instrumentation, non conformist lyrics & exploded song structure, Ginger Baker leading the way for forward drumming and solos - which Bonham admitted to being influenced by, Rod Stewart in the JBG being an admitted commercial influence for Plant, as well as the use of 4 chord bass lines throughout all those bands with, until then, unheard quasi “god” like guitar playing being the highlight instead of the lyrics.
So a bad take - 
- but sort of understandable within an era that was very “scene” derived.
They weren’t alone. Many critics shredded Zeppelin, even through the release of “IV.”