heavy metal, or at least loud, rock music, driven by a bass guitar and drumkit and punctuated by a distorted guitar, was basically a mutation by white musicians of black american blues music in the form of the yardbirds, cream, the who and fleetwood mac in the uk and by american artists such as blue cheer, vanilla fudge and jimi hendrix. sixties session guitarist jimmy page, initially as a yardbird, then a new yardbird but most convincingly whilst leading led zeppelin, managed to distil and concentrate this new, exciting sound on led zep’s first two albums in 1968 an 1969. but led zeppelin, for all their heavy virtuosity remained rooted in the folk and blues that first inspired them. even deep purple took three albums of lightweight pop followed by a concerto for group and orchestra before settling on a more intense sound with 1970’s ”…in rock”. in 1970 it almost seemed that black sabbath had appeared fully formed on the planet, unleashing one of the most startling debut’s in the history of popular music.
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