For most people, Led Zeppelin felt like a lightning bolt at the end of the 1960s — the first time rock and roll hit them square in the chest. Between Robert Plant’s raw vocals, Jimmy Page’s molten guitar, and that thunderous rhythm section of John Paul Jones and John Bonham, Zeppelin didn’t just play music — they summoned it. But even a band as seismic as Zeppelin didn’t emerge from nowhere.
Behind the thunder was a deep well of inspiration. Long before they carved their legacy, these guys were shaped by the rock and roll trailblazers of the ‘50s — the American legends who fused blues, R&B, and soul into something new. Zeppelin just took that sound and set it on fire.
Jimmy Page had already paid his dues as a session musician with early UK rock outfits like Carter-Lewis and the Southerners and Mickey Finn and the Blue Men. He’d later join the Yardbirds alongside Jeff Beck. Meanwhile, Plant and Bonham found each other in the psychedelic blues band Band of Joy. These weren’t kids in a garage — they were already steeped in the traditions of rock, blues, and beyond. By the time Led Zeppelin formed in 1968, the pieces were in place. They weren’t inventing rock — they were reinventing it.
And Zeppelin didn’t live in a vacuum. They had ears open to everything around them, borrowing fearlessly from the past and the present. In a 2005 interview with Charlie Rose, Robert Plant pulled back the curtain on his biggest rock and roll inspirations. Among his top picks? Elvis Presley’s “A Big Hunk O’ Love,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightnin’,” Link Wray’s “Rumble,” and Dion’s “Lovers Who Wander.” Not all of them screamed rock and roll by genre, but to Plant, they were the sparks that lit a fire under everything that came after.
Howlin’ Wolf, in particular, loomed large in Plant’s mind. “We hammed it up, trying to get as black as we could,” he said. “As they say in England, a miss is as good as a mile, but occasionally we got there.” Plant knew the power in that voice, in that sound — and while he admits Zeppelin only caught flashes of that magic, those attempts helped shape their identity.
But Plant didn’t stop at the ‘50s. He also tipped his hat to the wild experimental sounds of the ‘60s and ‘70s, naming Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” Love’s “A House is Not a Motel,” and Bob Dylan’s “One More Cup of Coffee” as some of his all-time favorites. Dylan, in particular, changed the game. “He was the guy who woke us all up,” Plant said. “Dylan made it sexy, and he brought it home in such a vital way.”
Sure, Woody Guthrie and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott had their place in the pantheon. But for Plant, Dylan redefined what rock could say — and how deep it could cut.
So while Led Zeppelin may have sounded like a new world being born, they were really the next step in a long line of revolutionary voices — voices that echoed from Memphis to Chicago to London and back again.
Robert Plant picks his favourite rock and roll songs
- A Big Hunk O’ Love
Elvis Presley
- Smokestack Lightnin’
Howlin’ Wolf
3.Rumble
Link Wray
4.Lovers Who Wander
Dion
5.White Rabbit
Jefferson Airplane
6.A House Is Not a Motel – 2015 Remaster
Love
7.One More Cup of Coffee
Bob Dylan
