VictorB
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- May 21, 2024
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On this day in 1969, Led Zeppelin II was released in United States.
It began with rehearsals at my home in Pangbourne and 'Whole Lotta Love' and 'What Is and What Should Never Be' were later recorded at London's Olympic Studio Number 1 with George Chkiantz, who engineered the basic tracks and some guitar overdubs.
This provided the foundation for the rest of the tracks to be recorded and overdubbed at various studios in America during our forthcoming tour. We recorded and overdubbed our way from West Coast to East Coast with tour-fuelled energy.
It was said that if you spent more than six months in America in a year, you could be drafted into the Vietnam War. So we needed to do as much as possible as quickly as we could before the six months ran out. The 1969 schedule was so intense. It wasn’t just the concert dates, there was also the recording sessions for the second album and the mixing, as well as artwork selection and promotion. Having seen a chink of light through the door to America opening, the only way was to kick that door open and go full-on to get the word across the whole country through live performances.
As producer, I would also take care over the sequencing of our albums; each song sets up the next. They were designed for listeners – even then people listened to music on their headphones, so I’d make sure that they’d be in for some surprises when I was doing the stereo mixes. The craftsmanship that went into those original mixes wasn’t meant to be disposable. It was meant to last.
I think that until the film 'Becoming Led Zeppelin' was released in 2025, many didn’t quite realise the intensity of that year as we put the record together on the road during a full-on touring schedule. I did the final mixes with Eddie Kramer at A&R studios in New York. The hedonistic mix of 'Whole Lotta Love' was to pioneer the radio success of the album.
It began with rehearsals at my home in Pangbourne and 'Whole Lotta Love' and 'What Is and What Should Never Be' were later recorded at London's Olympic Studio Number 1 with George Chkiantz, who engineered the basic tracks and some guitar overdubs.
This provided the foundation for the rest of the tracks to be recorded and overdubbed at various studios in America during our forthcoming tour. We recorded and overdubbed our way from West Coast to East Coast with tour-fuelled energy.
It was said that if you spent more than six months in America in a year, you could be drafted into the Vietnam War. So we needed to do as much as possible as quickly as we could before the six months ran out. The 1969 schedule was so intense. It wasn’t just the concert dates, there was also the recording sessions for the second album and the mixing, as well as artwork selection and promotion. Having seen a chink of light through the door to America opening, the only way was to kick that door open and go full-on to get the word across the whole country through live performances.
As producer, I would also take care over the sequencing of our albums; each song sets up the next. They were designed for listeners – even then people listened to music on their headphones, so I’d make sure that they’d be in for some surprises when I was doing the stereo mixes. The craftsmanship that went into those original mixes wasn’t meant to be disposable. It was meant to last.
I think that until the film 'Becoming Led Zeppelin' was released in 2025, many didn’t quite realise the intensity of that year as we put the record together on the road during a full-on touring schedule. I did the final mixes with Eddie Kramer at A&R studios in New York. The hedonistic mix of 'Whole Lotta Love' was to pioneer the radio success of the album.