Led Zeppelin - Lighter than Air - Non-Album Tracks (1971-1973)

It's strange how things work out sometimes. This is the fourth stray tracks Led Zeppelin album I've made. The first three all had a majority of original songs. But this one is almost entirely make up of cover versions, generally of classic 1950s rock and roll songs. Since I've ordered these chronologically, I can't take credit for giving this thematic unity. I guess the band was just really into 1950s music in this time period, because the number of such covers goes way down after this.

As far as I can tell, the only originals here are "Walter's Walk," the instrumental "Lighter than Air," and "Sugar Baby," which I guess is also known as "Strawberry Jam." The other songs generally come from live concerts, where I removed the audience noise to make them sound like studio tracks.

Four of the songs actually come from the official live album "How the West Was Won," although that isn't obvious at first, because they're not on the song list. That's because they're all from a  25-minute long "Dazed and Confused." Most of that isn't "Dazed and Confused" at all, because of these four fully formed songs inside it - "Boogie Chillun," "Let's Have a Party," "Hello Mary Lou," and a "Going Down Slow" that's almost nine minutes long.

That last five songs come from a 1973 soundcheck in Chicago, where Led Zeppelin played a bunch of cover songs for over an hour, most of which they never played before or since. It's actually not as good as it sounds, because for some of the songs they clearly were bluffing their way through songs they didn't really know, and it showed. Sometimes, the song would stumble along and then break down before getting to the end. So I left a few of these songs behind, such as covers of "Nadine," "Reelin' and Rockin'" and "Down the Line."

The band did some other covers during this time that I didn't include due to the poor sound quality of the recordings or just because they weren't very good. Examples include "Weekend," "For What It's Worth," and "Louie, Louie." Due to my quality control, what one is left with is mostly Led Zeppelin at the height of their musical powers acting much like a 1950's covers band!

01 My Baby Left Me (Led Zeppelin)
02 A Mess of Blues (Led Zeppelin)
03 Lighter than Air [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
04 Boogie Chillun (Led Zeppelin)
05 Let's Have a Party (Led Zeppelin)
06 Hello Mary Lou (Led Zeppelin)
07 Going Down Slow (Led Zeppelin)
08 Walter's Walk (Led Zeppelin)
09 School Days (Led Zeppelin)
10 Shakin' All Over (Led Zeppelin)
11 Move On Down the Line (Led Zeppelin)
12 Please Don't Tease (Led Zeppelin)
13 Sugar Baby [Strawberry Jam] (Led Zeppelin)

https://www.imagenetz.de/cdYvY

Thanks to The Lifehouse for making the cover art.