Though few cover versions of their
material surfaced in the seventies, after 1980 the Zeppelin imitation
game began to gain momentum. Its origins can be traced back to
the early eighties and an L.A. based group 'The White'. Led by
Plant soundalike Michael White (later to release records in his
own right), The White specialised in looking and sounding like
Led Zeppelin and took their musical tribute to Zeppelin on the
road. Fellow tribute bands bearing original names such as Kashmir
and Physical Graffiti followed in their wake.
The zepp influence later began to be felt by the likes of The
Cult and The Sisters of Mercy in the UK and was blantantly sampled
by Rick Rubin for The Beastie Boys' album (which led in turn to
Robert using Zepp samples as a retort on the 'Now and Zen' album).
In 1988, Kingdom Come built a whole album around sounding like
Zeppelin and enjoyed massive, if short lived, success.
The whole Zeppelin imitation game took on bizarre proportions
at the turn of the decade with the emergence of Dread Zeppelin.
Led by larger than life Tortelvis, this unlikely outfit played
Led Zeppelin covers to a reggae beat with an obese Elvis Presley
impersonator singing vocals. An extremely well executed satire,
that proved a hit even with Robert Plant as well as a legion of
followers.
Though few cover versions of their
material surfaced in the seventies, after 1980 the Zeppelin imitation
game began to gain momentum. Its origins can be traced back to
the early eighties and an L.A. based group 'The White'. Led by
Plant soundalike Michael White (later to release records in his
own right), The White specialised in looking and sounding like
Led Zeppelin and took their musical tribute to Zeppelin on the
road. Fellow tribute bands bearing original names such as Kashmir
and Physical Graffiti followed in their wake.