Expert: Mike Caldwell - 6/6/2009

Question
Hi Mike I appreciate all that you do and all that you know.  I just wanted to know
if any of the members of Zep were above average or even great at each others
instruments? i.e. Page rockin on the drums, Jonesy belting out vocals, Bonham
sherding a guitar etc. thanks

Answer
Hi Spencer

Overall, nobody excelled at playing another band member's instrument; if anything, John Paul Jones was likely the most multi-faceted of the bunch.  He had solid piano/keyboard skills, could play elaborate bass, acoustic guitar, mandolin, etc.  Jones and Page were rather abysmal singers - Page tried cutting a single with himself on vocals in the mid 1960s called "She Just Satisfies" and it was, well, just badly sung.  Jones supplied some drowsy backup singing to some group tracks, and sang forgettable counterpoint vocals to live versions of "Battle of Evermore" during the 1977 tour.  Amazingly, the nicest sounding backing vocals from 1973's tour came from John Bonham, who used to back Plant during the "nah nah" a-cappella section of "The Ocean".  
Jones and Plant were able to play guitar, but not up to the standards of Page, of course.  Page could play rudimentary bass guitar, and did so for the sake of recording demos, but of course nothing to the technical or creative level that Jones proffered in the subsequent finished products.  
Overall, Jones was regarded, even at the band's outset, to be the most "well rounded" of the bunch, and perhaps that was the case, sans his singing.  Other than that, they were all somewhat specialists at their own given instruments.