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Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n
Tue 28 July 2026 19:30, UK <\/p>\n
It was a rare sunny day in Birmingham, and puzzled old folks in flat caps looked on at a hippie being paraded through the streets like counterculture\u2019s inverse Christ. Pickets were held aloft, saying, \u201cLegalise pot\u201d, and \u201cRobert Plant<\/a> must go free\u201d. The times were a-changin\u2019.<\/p>\n The puzzled old folks might have wondered, \u2018Who was this martyr?\u2019 Well, he was, frankly, an 18-year-old nobody who wasn\u2019t even facing a drug charge. The whole faux pot protest was a drummed-up stunt looking to launch the name of a would-be singer who had recently decided he might like to be a rock \u2018n\u2019 roll hero.<\/p>\n In the years that followed, Plant became a fierce fanboy of some of Britain\u2019s finest bands. He loved Fleetwood Mac, calling them \u201cthe best blues band\u201d, but he also adored one outfit modernising the genre in a manner that he hoped that he might one day emulate.<\/p>\n That group was Small Faces, and their screaming frontman, Steve Marriott, is a very obvious influence on what Plant would become once you connect the dots. This wasn\u2019t lost on the Small Faces singer<\/a>, either. Marriott had noticed Plant\u2019s lion\u2019s mane pronouncing around at plenty of their concerts. How could he not?<\/p>\n Years later, in All Too Beautiful, Marriott would lay out the dominoes, starting with the Muddy Waters song, \u2018You Need Lovin\u2019\u2019, originally written by Willie Dixon. \u201cIt was fantastic,\u201d Marriott said of the proto-blues rock anthem. <\/p>\n \u201cI loved it, Muddy Waters recorded it but I couldn\u2019t sing like Muddy Waters so it wasn\u2019t that much of a nick.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n However, his passion for the track served to liberate his own style. As he explained, \u201cI was a high range and Muddy was a low range so I had to figure out how to sing it. So I did and that was our opening number for all the years we were together. Every time we were on stage that was our opening number, unless we had a short set.\u201d <\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n The Small Faces would perform it with a noted roar, Marriott using his sublime vocal command to an almost operatic extent, waking up even the sleepest of Monday audiences in the process. Plant was often among them, as the singer recalled, \u201cThat\u2019s where Jimmy Page and Robert Plant heard it. Robert Plant used to follow us around. He was like a fan.\u201d<\/p>\n Inspired by the singer, who he has since waxed lyrical about, and by \u2018You Need Lovin\u2019\u2019, in particular, Page and Plant would soon craft their own Faces-adjacent take on Dixon\u2019s tune with \u2018Whole Lotta Love\u2019. Lovingly ripped off, in the liberal manner that made Led Zeppelin<\/a> a freewheeling force, the Brummie band further extended the roughness at its heart.<\/p>\n Marriott might have bemoaned, \u201cHe [Plant] sang it the same, phrased it the same, even the stops at the end were the same\u201d, but it didn\u2019t seem to bother him too much. After all, at least Plant had been a fan. He\u2019d paid for his ticket and gone along for the Small Faces ride.<\/p>\n Dixon, however, wasn\u2019t so friendly. He took them to court of the song, prompting Plant to admit, \u201cPage\u2019s riff was Page\u2019s riff. It was there before anything else. I just thought, \u2018well, what am I going to sing?\u2019 That was it, a nick. Now happily paid for. At the time, there was a lot of conversation about what to do.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cIt was decided that it was so far away in time and influence that,\u201d he concluded, \u201cWell, you only get caught when you\u2019re successful. That\u2019s the game.\u201d It\u2019s a game that was afoot from him when he was 18 with a \u2018Legalise Pot\u2019 picket, and it was in full swing when he was taking notes from his beloved Small Faces. Eventually, it would make him a master worth nicking from<\/a>, too. And we can all be thankful for that.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter<\/p>\n