From '' Bad Blood / Babe I'm Gonna Leave You ''
Label: Decca -- F 12006
Format: Vinyl, 7"
Country: UK
Released: Oct 1964
Tracklist
A Bad Blood (Wriiten by Leiber, Stoller)
B Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
NME review Oct 30, 1964.
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"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a folk song written by Anne Bredon (then known as Anne Johannsen) in the late 1950s.
It was recorded by Joan Baez (credited as "traditional") and released on her 1962 album Joan Baez in Concert, Part 1, and also by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, who included it on their 1969 debut album Led Zeppelin.
Other interpretations of the Bredon song include versions by:
The Plebs (1964 Decca Records UK/MGM Records USA),
The Association in 1965 (also doing a live version in 1970)
and British pop singer Mark Wynter in 1965.
Quicksilver Messenger Service recorded a variation on the song in 1967.
Welsh band Man would later cover the QMS song on their 1976 album Maximum Darkness (recorded live at Roundhouse, Chalk Farm on 26 May 1975).
Joan Baez version
Whilst a student at UC-Berkeley in around 1960, Anne Bredon appeared on a live folk-music radio show The Midnight Special on radio station KPFA, on which she sang "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You".
A fellow folk singer who guested on The Midnight Special, Janet Smith, took up the song and developed it further, playing it live at hootenanny folk-song events at Oberlin College, one performance of which was attended by Joan Baez.
Baez requested Smith to send her a recording of her songs, including "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You", which Baez subsequently began performing herself. It became the opening track on Joan Baez in Concert, Part 1.
Initially, the song had no writers' credit, but after Smith contacted Bredon, who confirmed her authorship, later pressings of ...In Concert gave the writing credit to Bredon.
Led Zeppelin version
The band covered Baez's version: both guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant were fans of Baez. Baez's album had originally indicated no writing credit, and Led Zeppelin credited the song as "Trad. arr. Page". In the 1980s Bredon was made aware of Led Zeppelin's version of the song and since 1990 the Led Zeppelin version has been credited to Anne Bredon/Jimmy Page & Robert Plant: Bredon received a substantial back-payment of royalties.
Page played the song to Plant at their first meeting together, at Page's riverside home at Pangbourne in late July 1968.
It is sometimes stated that the arrangement evolved when Plant played Page the guitar part that eventually appeared on the album but, in an interview he gave with Guitar World magazine in 1998, Page denied this, noting that he had worked out the arrangement long before he met Plant, had told him he would like it on the album, and that Plant at that time did not play the guitar.
It is rumored that Page recorded another version of the song, with Steve Winwood in 1968, that was never released.
The band played this song at Led Zeppelin concerts on its 1969 concert tours, then Page and Plant brought it back in a 9-minute version for their 1998 reunion. A live, filmed performance of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", from Led Zeppelin's gig on Danmarks Radio at Gladsaxe, Denmark, on March 17, 1969, is featured on the Led Zeppelin DVD (2003).
At the 1:41 mark of Led Zeppelin's version of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", it is possible to hear Plant singing, "I can hear it calling me" just before he sings the same line in full volume: bleed from Plant's scratch vocal appears on the drum tracks, which were recorded with the full band.
Record producer Rick Rubin has remarked, "It ["Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"] is a song with a classical nature that also really rocks. It really takes you on a trip."
The song is featured on the 2006 One Tree Hill episode entitled "The Show Must Go On".
As a result of touring in the United States and watching various "Led Zeppelin" cover bands and other artists perform this song Robert Plant performed the song with his band "Strange Sensations" and as a solo artist.
Although a cover itself, numerous artists have covered the Led Zeppelin version of the song, crediting Page/Plant/Bredon..
1971: Pyg (Free with PYG [recorded live 1971])
1996: Great White (Stage)
2000: Paul Oakenfold (Perfecto Presents: Another World [remix by Quivver])
2002: Cactus Jack (DisCover)
2002: Doro (The Music Remains the Same: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin)
2005: Hal Lindes (Get the Lead Out)
2007: Vanilla Fudge (Out Through the In Door)
2007: Carl Kennedy with Dirty South (Onelove: Your Disco Will Eat You [remix])
2008: Tony Franklin (Rock N' Pop Ballads)
2008: Joe Lynn Turner (Led Box: The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Tribute)
2009: P!nk (As part of her Funhouse Tour)
2011: Overload (As part of Overload Live at the Apartment Sessions)
2011: Dorians (Live in Erevan)
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