You would be hard-pressed to find a Led Zeppelin fan who doesn’t know about the famous “Whole Lotta Love.”
The song is definitely one of the band’s most memorable—but how could it be improved?
Try imitating the guitar with your voice. Do you think it’s not possible? Michael Winslow did it, and what a tremendous show it was.
As it turns out, most of the sounds in the original song were played on a theremin and an electric guitar.
The guitarist of English hard rock band Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, famously explained the legend behind “Whole Lotta Love.”
“I knew what I wanted, and I knew how to go about it,” said Page, adding that he “detuned the guitar radically and just basically pulled on the strings to make an assortment of growling noises, evil sounds that you’re not supposed to hear on commercial radio.”
Well, creativity has almost always paid off!
In Led Zeppelin’s case, the song was certified Gold in 1970 and sold over a million copies. In 2004, “Whole Lotta Love” was ranked No. 75 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The song also ended up third-place in Q magazine’s The 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks list.
The most recent accolade came in 2014, when listeners to BBC Radio 2 voted the song as containing the greatest guitar riff of all time.
Michael Winslow proved to be an expert when it comes to creating realistic sounds with his voice.
It all happened on the Norwegian talk show Senkveld med Thomas og Harald on TV2.
Michael was amazing everyone in the studio with some great imitations of the sound of drumming when Odd Nordstoga came in. Nordstoga is a popular musician from Norway, and he enters the studio carrying a guitar. We knew something amazing was about to happen when these two musicians collided.
Michael and Odd briefly discuss the key the original song is in before the show starts up.
No one knows what song they’re about to play, but the audience quickly recognizes the famous “Whole Lotta Love” sound. Nordstoga plays an acoustic guitar and everything you hear that sounds like an electric guitar is actually Winslow’s voice. The man’s got an incredible ability to sound like several instruments!
The host and the audience can’t believe their ears.
It’s a phenomenal act that took everyone by surprise. We knew that Michael Winslow was excellent at what he does, but we had no idea that he could recreate one of the most famous guitar riffs in the history of music using only his voice!
It’s an impression of a guitar that almost sounds better than a guitar would.
In the video, Michael plays the role of a hard rock superstar perfectly.
He did the drums, Robert Plant’s voice and the guitar—and all of it combines into something truly mind-blowing.
Since the performance was posted, it has earned almost eight million views on YouTube.
Winslow is best known for his role as Larvell Jones in the Police Academy series of movies and TV shows.
His voice is behind numerous sound effects and commercials.
The man of 10,000 sound effects certainly made us enjoy his performance!
This is the kind of jam we would love to see again and again.
Check out the full performance in the link below:
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