Led Zeppelin II was released in October, 1969, and became the first LZ album to go to #1 on the U.S. album charts, unseating “Abbey Road” by The Beatles for the top spot. It was the first recording with engineer Eddie Kramer (famous then for his work with Hendrix) and his expertise, combined with their desire to “keep it raw” in the studio, produced a record that influenced every heavy metal/hard rock record (and act) that followed.

Amazingly, this record took 8 months to record, since the band was touring the U.S. and the U.K. most of the year, and so they’d go to the studio during breaks to lay down tracks whenever possible. Although they could not spend that much time writing new songs, their re-workings of the rock and blues standards (“Bring It On Home”, the hit “Whole Lotta Love”, and others) let them add the Zeppelin touches – guitar solos, extended drum solos, pounding bass lines – that turned these tracks into what would become “classic Led Zeppelin”. Robert Plant was able to exhibit his song-writing prowess, however, on new tunes such as “Ramble On” and “What Is and What Should Never Be”, and it is pretty obvious that Kramer and Jimmy Page twirled many a knob on the mixing board creating the psychedelic center section of “Whole Lotta Love” (creating a 6-minute hit song during a period where 3-minute hits were the norm).

In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine declared the album #75 in their list of “Greatest Albums of All Time”.

"On a final personal note, I grew up in Epson Surrey, UK (as did Jimmy Page) and we went

to Art Schools in the same area. This area was a great place for music fans, and I would have liked to have taken the time to learn the guitar, but instead decided to concentrate

on drawing and painting (I still wish I had done both).

I have been a professional Artist and Designer for 40 years including stints in Ad Agencies,

a Studio (Wurlitzer) partnership and doing a lot of freelance illustrating/designing."