A new Led Zeppelin biography is being released in November

(PBS)

A new biography of Led Zeppelin written by Bob Spitz will be published later this year.

The book, titled “Led Zeppelin: The Biography,” will have 688 pages and is currently scheduled to be published by Penguin Press on November 9.

It’s currently available to pre-order from Amazon US here. There’s no word of new interviews with any surviving band members for the book.

Spitz appears to have been working on this biography since at least 2018, when someone posting under his name asked on Led Zeppelin’s official forum for accounts of Led Zeppelin’s Boston Tea Party performances which took place from January 23-26, 1969.

Fans of music biographies may recognise Spitz as the author of the 2005 book “The Beatles: The Biography” which received glowing reviews at the time.

Here’s the description of the book from Penguin Random House’s website:

From the author of the definitive New York Times bestselling history of the Beatles comes the authoritative account of the group Jack Black and many others call the greatest rock band of all time, arguably the most successful, and certainly one of the most notorious.

Rock stars. Whatever those words mean to you, chances are, they owe a debt to Led Zeppelin. No one before or since has lived the dream quite like Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. In Led Zeppelin, Bob Spitz takes their full measure, for good and sometimes for ill, separating the myth from the reality with the connoisseurship and storytelling flair that are his trademarks.

From the opening notes of their first album, the band announced itself as something different, a collision of grand artistic ambition and brute primal force, of delicate English folk music and hard-driving African-American blues. That record sold over 10 million copies, and it was the merest beginning; Led Zeppelin’s albums have sold over 300 million certified copies worldwide, and the dust has never settled. Taken together, Led Zeppelin’s discography has spent an almost incomprehensible ten-plus years on the album charts.

The band is notoriously guarded, and previous books shine more heat than light. But Bob Spitz’s authority is undeniable and irresistible. His feel for the atmosphere, the context–the music, the business, the recording studios, the touring life, the radio stations, the fans, the whole ecosystem of popular music–is unparalleled. His account of the melding of Page and Jones, the virtuosic London sophisticates, with Plant and Bonham, the wild men from the Midlands, into a band out of the ashes of the Yardbirds, in a scene dominated by the Beatles and the Stones but changing fast, is in itself a revelation. Spitz takes the music seriously, and brings the band’s artistic journey to full and vivid life. The music is only part of the legend, however: Led Zeppelin is also the story of how the 60’s became the 70’s, of how playing in clubs became playing in stadiums and flying your own jet, of how innocence became decadence. Led Zeppelin may not have invented the groupie, and they weren’t the first rock band to let loose on the road, but they took it to an entirely new level, as with everything else. Not all the legends are true, but in Bob Spitz’s careful accounting, what is true is astonishing, and sometimes disturbing.

Led Zeppelin gave no quarter, and neither has Bob Spitz. Led Zeppelin is the full and honest reckoning the band has long awaited, and richly deserves.

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8 Comments on "A new Led Zeppelin biography is being released in November"

  1. Really looking forward to Spitz’s book (already ordered). None of Zeppelins biographies have really been that revealing – Mick Wall’s book and Barney Hoskins’ books are excellent reads (Wall’s a nut job!) but still you feel there’s more to discover. A biography that focuses more on the music; it’s recording as well as the deliberations about the content of each album and why they made the choices they made. There are a tons of Zeppelin books about but most are either photograph collections or collections of short articles. Dave Lewis’s books are very good but you know Dave will never say anything negative about the band.

    The truth is, Jimmy, Robert, John-Paul and Bonzo are not particularly interesting people if you compare them to John, Paul, George and Ringo. The guys in the Beatles all had separate lives that were, for the most part interesting or provocative. The Zeppelin guys got put in the basement and powered down when they weren’t recording or touring. Bonzo getting drunk on tour and Jimmy’s time researching magick are about it. If the band as people are not all that interesting (to me anyway) compared to the Beatles then a biographer has a hard job making a book compulsive reading. Mick Wall lost his mind with his preambles to each chapter in When Giants Walked The Earth. Barney Hoskins book is very good but still falls short of what Bob Spitz did with his Beatles book. I am really looking forward to his book as I’m hoping it will be the biography that the band deserve.

  2. Roy JOHN Watson | 14th April 2021 at 12:50 pm | Reply

    well said dave parry enjoyed you comments hope bobs book digs out some more info

  3. I would ask each one “what is the most soul grabbing moment you experienced?”

  4. Does anyone have a good reason why I should buy this book? I have every other biography on the band. How much of the content is new information?

  5. Why, given the countless biographies and other publications on the band over the years, should I buy this book? Is there any new information in it?

  6. Doesn’t say if this Book is an Authorized Biography 🤔
    Either way, I will definitely check it out. ✌️

  7. Being the biggest Zeppelin fan I know, I was very excited to read about this and to find that the author was on Marc Maron’s podcast. I gave it a listen and was frankly annoyed that a man who just wrote a 700 page book on Zeppelin didn’t know that In Through The Out Door was NOT released in 1977, and that Physical Graffiti was NOT released after Houses of the Holy. I don’t think I’m asking too much from a biographer.

  8. Jimmy page & John Bonham made Led Zeppelin they didn’t need nobody else just themselves I’m old school 67 years old here they also came with the British InvasionTo America first came The Beatles than the stones can’t forget the Yardbirds that was an awesome group 1st concert I ever went to Meriwether Post pavilion Maryland 1969 Seeing Blind Faith and a group called the band well you’llee the blind faith was Eric Clapton ginger baker and Steve Winwood Truly though I believe there’s a rift between Robert plant and Jimmy page because Paige made plant

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