Led Zeppelin "How Many More Times"

It's easy to understand why Led Zeppelin music was dismissed by some as white boy blues. By the time you get to the last song on Led Zeppelin I, you will have heard three blues numbers, all of them covers ("How Many More Times" did not have the Chester Burnett credit until 1993). "How Many More Times" is Led Zeppelin's swinging blues number that incorporates a Spanish bolero rhythm with hard rock vamping and a brief foray into psychedelia.

Similar to "Dazed and Confused" in many ways - in length, in its use of vamping and the improvised middle section where Jimmy Page uses a violin bow - "How Many More Times" is the longest song on Led Zeppelin I. As it closes the album it also closed Zeppelin's early shows and if you're lucky to find an early bootleg you can hear Robert Plant introducing the members of the band during the opening rhythm.

A jazzier song played in the classic Zeppelin style, it starts out quietly and picks up energy with its powerful drums and heavy guitar. Once it slows down and descends into the eerie middle section, Page overdubs a pair of dueling guitars giving us an early example of the orchestration that gave Led Zeppelin its multi-layered sound. Bonham and Jones reverently support Page and the lead guitar goes wild exploring its own sound, coming off very much like something from a Jeff Beck recording.

Then the song nearly stops and you think you are listening to something completely different. Possibly this is "Dazed and Confused" and indeed Page is using a violin bow while Robert Plant howls and ad-libs his own cries of passion in the background. The mood remains low and quiet, forging into the psychedelic and sounding like The Doors for a moment before Plant shouts out "Oh Rosie!" and we slowly start climbing our way back to hard rock. Bonham breaks into a marching cadence while Plant leads the troops forward and then Jimmy Page kicks in. "They call me the hunter..." takes us to the end.

This is another song that can't receive the justice it has earned until heard through headphones. The final moments are especially engaging and the song rocks back and forth between left and right speakers, making your brain pound with hundreds of drums and guitars.

Note of trivia: though the original LP lists the time as 3:30 the song is actually over 8 minutes in length. This is a deliberate "error" as Jimmy Page knew radio stations would never play an eight minute song and he wrote a shorter time onto the sleeve in order to fool the radio jocks. Such was the nature of the man behind the band.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Many_More_Times