Whole Lotta Love- Led Zeppelin
The Story behind the Riff…

Jimmy Page built a reputation in large part with his riffs on this classic Zeppelin song.

The song is featured on the opening track on the band’s second album, Led Zeppelin II which was released on October 22, 1969. “Whole Lotta Love” became their first hit single. In 2004, the song was ranked #75 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and in March 2005, Q magazine placed “Whole Lotta Love” at number 3 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks and it placed 11 on a similar list by Rolling Stone. It is also the last track the band ever played as whole.

In 1962, Muddy Waters recorded “You Need Love” by peer Willie Dixon. Some of the lyrics of Led Zeppelin’s version were borrowed from the Willie Dixon song, a favorite of Robert Plant’s.
 
Jimmy Page played the riff for the intro, on a Sunburst 1958 Les Paul Standard through a 100W Marshall “Plexi” amp top. As audio engineer Eddie Kramer explained: “The famous “Whole Lotta Love” mix, where everything is going crazy, is a combination of Jimmy and me twiddling every knob known to man on a small mixer.” Kramer is also quoted as saying: At one point there was bleed-through of a previously recorded vocal in the recording of “Whole Lotta Love.” It was the middle part where Robert screams “Wo-man. You need it.” Since we couldn’t re-record at that point, I just threw some echo on it to see how it would sound and Jimmy said “Great! Just leave it.” In a recent interview Jimmy Page said…“Whole Lotta Love” was put together when we were rehearsing some music for the second album. I had a riff, everyone was at my house, and we kicked it from there”.

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