Who recorded it first
Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
Not a Led Zeppelin original — Joan Baez recorded it first, in 1962
Because it opens Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut, the song is widely taken to be theirs from the ground up. It isn’t: the first recording to reach the public was Joan Baez’s, the opening track of her live album Joan Baez in Concert, released by Vanguard Records in September 1962 — and it was Baez’s record that put the song in front of Jimmy Page. The writer was neither of them. Anne Bredon composed it as a student at Berkeley in the late 1950s, but Baez released it as “traditional, arr. Baez” and Led Zeppelin as “Traditional, arr. Jimmy Page,” so Bredon’s name was missing from the credits for decades until she pursued the band and won both a writing credit and a substantial back-payment of royalties.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released An album track, not a single — the opening song on Joan Baez in Concert, a live set drawn from Baez’s 1962 US concert tour, issued by Vanguard Records (VSD-2122) in September 1962 and produced by Maynard Solomon. Just Baez’s voice and finger-picked acoustic guitar in front of an audience.
Charted Not a chart single — it was never released as one. The album carrying it reached No. 10 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart and was certified gold in the United States.
How a Berkeley student’s song became a Led Zeppelin opener
Anne Bredon wrote the song while a student at UC Berkeley in the late 1950s and sang it around 1960 on The Midnight Special, a live folk show on Berkeley radio station KPFA — per Wikipedia’s biography of Bredon ↗.
The folk singer Janet Smith heard that broadcast and carried the song east; Baez learned it from her at Oberlin College, and recorded it not knowing who had written it — see Wikipedia on the song ↗.
Vanguard released Joan Baez in Concert in September 1962 with the song as its opening track, credited only as traditional; the album reached No. 10 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, per Wikipedia’s album entry ↗.
Jimmy Page found the song on Baez’s record and worked it up with Robert Plant in August 1968; it opens the band’s Atlantic debut ↗, originally credited “Traditional, arranged Jimmy Page.”
Wikipedia: “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” — origins and later versionsKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
Who actually got there first
This is a case where the famous record is not the first record, and where the person who wrote the song was absent from both sleeves.
Led Zeppelin
It opens their 1969 debut on Atlantic and is one of their signature performances, so it reads as an original — and early pressings said “Traditional, arranged Jimmy Page,” which encouraged exactly that reading.
Joan Baez
Her solo live performance opens Joan Baez in Concert, released by Vanguard Records in September 1962. It is the recording Jimmy Page heard.
Anne Bredon
She wrote it as a Berkeley student and sang it on KPFA radio around 1960. Neither the Baez release nor the Led Zeppelin release named her at the time.
Written by Anne Bredon in the late 1950s, first put on record by Joan Baez in 1962, and made famous — not made — by Led Zeppelin in 1969.
Context
Why the cover eclipsed the original
The interesting question is not why Led Zeppelin’s version is better known — a loud British rock band on Atlantic in 1969 will always out-travel one woman with a guitar on a folk label. It is why the song arrived at both artists with no author attached. It moved the way folk songs move: Bredon sang it on Berkeley community radio, a listener learned it, carried it across the country, taught it to Joan Baez, and by the time Baez recorded it nobody in the chain could say where it came from. So it was labelled traditional, which is what the folk revival called a song whose parent it had lost.
That label is what made the misattribution durable. Baez’s sleeve said traditional; Led Zeppelin’s said traditional, arranged by Jimmy Page — and an arrangement credit on a traditional song is a claim of authorship in all but name. Bredon, who had left performing behind, did not find out until the 1980s. Baez had in fact printed Bredon’s name in her 1964 songbook; the correction simply never reached the record that mattered.
The chronology, step by step
- Late 1950s — Anne Bredon writes the song while studying at UC Berkeley.
- Around 1960 — she performs it on The Midnight Special, a live folk programme on Berkeley radio station KPFA. Singer Janet Smith hears it and takes up the song.
- Joan Baez learns it from Smith at Oberlin College, without knowing who wrote it.
- September 1962 — Vanguard Records releases Joan Baez in Concert (VSD-2122) with the song as its opening track, credited as traditional, arranged by Baez. The album reaches No. 10 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.
- 1964 — Bredon is named as the author in The Joan Baez Song Book.
- August 1968 — Jimmy Page, who knows the song from Baez’s record, works on it with Robert Plant at their first meeting.
- September and October 1968 — Led Zeppelin record their version at Olympic Studios, London.
- January 1969 — the song opens Led Zeppelin on Atlantic Records, credited “Traditional, arranged Jimmy Page.”
- 1980s — Bredon learns of the Led Zeppelin recording and takes the matter up with the band.
- Since the early 1990s — the Led Zeppelin version is credited to Anne Bredon, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, and Bredon received a substantial back-payment of royalties.
It was never traditional. It just travelled like it was.