Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant has been a rock ‘n’ roll fan from an early age. Like many of his generation, he was galvanised by the pulsating sounds of the form’s pioneers, setting him on his long path to becoming one of the genre’s definitive heavyweights in his own right.
Whilst Plant had many heroes during his youth, Elvis Presley had the most significant impact on him by showing him the way into the future via music. Speaking to Jools Holland, Plant explained how he first came across the Mississippian rocker as a child. He said: “The BBC wasn’t very kind to youth culture in those days, but every now and then on Two Way Family Favourites on a Sunday lunchtime, some servicemen would send messages back to Mom and Dad and request a song.”
It was during one of those Sunday episodes that Plant was exposed to the era-defining 1956 single, ‘Hound Dog’ by Presley, which hooked him instantly and started his deep love of rock ‘n’ roll. The Led Zeppelin man continued: “That was the kind of lock-in. It was an opiate. Something happened when I heard the sound of that record. It certainly made me put my stamp collection to one side for a bit.”
‘Hound Dog’ also introduced Plant to the extensive back catalogue of Presley, which saw him jump feet first into it. It proved to be a momentous experience, which was affirmed when he discovered ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, which prompted feelings he had never previously felt.
Opening up about the song’s seismic impact on him, Plant told Life in 1987: “It was so animal, so sexual, the first musical arousal I ever had. You could see a twitch in everybody my age. All we knew about the guy was that he was cool, handsome and looked wild.”
Later, when speaking to Charlie Rose in 2005, Plant explained more about his love of Elvis Presley and American rock music. “I was absolutely infatuated,” he recalled. “Well, you know, there’s a kind of saccharine sweet thing about British pop music. It was somewhere between Johnnie Ray and Pat Boone. It was something that was happening, and with Presley mimicking the Black voice and bringing a little lift of Black music into the mainstream, that was the first, that was the sort of hors d’oeuvre, and then a little later on you’ve got all these Black American bands who started to permeate.”
Despite his above comments about the sentimental nature of British pop music during this period, plenty of good material came out of the UK rock ‘n’ roll scene. When speaking to BBC Radio 6 in 2022, Plant listed 32 of his favourite songs of all time and explained why they mean so much to him. Showing that it wasn’t just American rock ‘n’ roll that he loved when younger, he picked Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers – ‘I Can’t Stand It’ as a part of his collection, describing it as “ridiculous stuff”.
“Mayhem, Mayhem. Cliff Bennett and The Rebel Rousers. A Joe Meek production. As a matter of fact, the Blue Rondos, prior to that, was another Joe Meek production. Just ridiculous stuff,” Plant said.
Listen to ‘I Can’t Stand It’ below.
