A tribute to Robert Johnson's 1936 recording of Terraplane Blues (youtube.com). The song evolved out of a jam session in 1972 and is credited to Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. Much rehearsal went into perfecting the relentless semi-funk riff that dominates this song. John Paul Jones has credited Stevie Wonder with the inspiration for the beat ("Superstition", 1972), which he played on a clavinet. Page played through a wah pedal and, as producer, employed reverse echo on the recording. Regarding the innovative guitar sound on this track, Jimmy Page told Guitar Player magazine: "It's sort of backwards echo and wah-wah. I don't know how responsible I was for new sounds because there were so many good things happening around that point, around the release of the first Zeppelin album, like Hendrix and Clapton."
Here's a live version:
(post is archived)