Stairway To Heaven by Richard Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

to buy Buffalo Springfield, Love, and Moby Grape albums. Most of the British rock scene, he thought, was an embarrassment and barely worth the vinyl on which the records were pressed. But the Grape—with its combination of blues, folk, rock, r&b, country, and bluegrass—left Robert humming and itching to get back to music, much to his parents’ continued distress.
    Even long after Led Zeppelin had turned Robert into a millionaire, a reconciliation with his father took years. Robert’s dad still had trouble acceptinghis son’s rock music career, even with the enormous success—a fact of life that troubled Robert a lot. At a social function in Birmingham, I was chatting with the elder Plant and offered him a bottle of beer—with no glass. He looked at me with disgust, as if to say, “Who the hell do you think I am that I would drink out of a bottle?” He was from a different world.

4
BONZO
    J ohn Bonham was as down-to-earth as they came. For as long as I knew him, there weren’t pretensions that needed to be peeled away to get to the real Bonham. All the loudness, all the craziness, all the wit, and all the talent were all Bonzo. What you saw was what you got.
    As a child, long before John had become the drummer with the Band of Joy or Led Zeppelin, he was banging on just about anything that could make noise. Born in 1948 in Redditch—about twelve miles south of Birmingham—he would pound on his mother’s pots and pans or on a round coffee tin that had a wire attached to it in an attempt to mimic the sound of a snare drum.
    Bonham’s mother bought him his first real drum at age ten, and before long, his father brought home a full drum kit, secondhand and a bit worn. That drum set may have been rusty, but John absolutely treasured it. He would become upset when some of his friends and fellow drummers wouldn’t give their own instruments the tender loving care he felt was warranted. To Bonzo, that kind of neglect was just a rung below child abuse. Music became his first addiction, and if he went a day without playing the drums, it was like going through withdrawal.
    Shortly after John left school, at a time when Ringo Starr was already the envy of every youngster in England with a set of drumsticks, Bonzo began trying to make a living with his music. He performed with Terry Webb and the Spiders, attired in a string tie and a purple coat, with his hair greasedback. His playing was a bit calmer and more controlled than it would soon become.
    Like Plant, Bonham was pressured by family members to give up music. “There’s a lot of honest work out there, John,” his father told him. “You can make a decent living if you really want to.” Bonham’s dad was a carpenter and a builder, and John helped him for a while, putting aside the drumsticks for a set of hammers. But he loved music—nothing he had ever done made him so happy—and before long, he was back playing in local bands: the Nicky James Movement, A Way of Life, and Steve Brett and the Mavericks.
    John believed that music was the only thing he was good at, but nevertheless he became the stereotypical starving artist. At age eighteen, when he met his future wife, Pat, she was level-headed enough to think twice about marrying someone whose future might include more famine than fame. Bonham, however, was persistent.
    â€œIt’s just a matter of time,” he told Pat. “I’m going to make it if you have faith in me. Don’t give up on me.”
    Despite the odds, she didn’t. Pat finally relented, and they moved into a fifteen-foot trailer together. On occasion, when Bonzo was feeling dejected about the slow pace at which his career was moving—and when he’d lose his temper and lash out when reality fell short of his expectations—he might promise Pat that he would quit if things didn’t soon turn around. But they were hollow promises, and both of them