Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin took the blues and made it enormous. Jimmy Page's riffs and inventive, layered production, John Bonham's thunderous drums, John Paul Jones' bass and keyboards and Robert Plant's wailing vocals gave songs rooted in Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf a heavier, louder, more mystical charge.

Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II, with 'Whole Lotta Love', set the template for hard rock, while III and the untitled fourth album, home to 'Black Dog' and 'Stairway to Heaven', added folk and acoustic depth. Houses of the Holy and the sprawling double Physical Graffiti, with 'Kashmir', pushed into funk, reggae and Eastern sounds. Bonham's death in 1980 ended the band.