Who recorded it first
When the Levee Breaks
Not a Led Zeppelin original — a 1929 Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie single on Columbia
The riff, the hallway drums and the seven-minute sprawl are Led Zeppelin’s, but the song is not. “When the Levee Breaks” was written and first recorded by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, cut in New York City on 18 June 1929 and issued by Columbia Records that August or September, with “That Will Be Alright” on the other side. McCoy sang and played rhythm guitar; Minnie, the stronger guitarist, supplied the finger-picked embellishments. Led Zeppelin’s 1971 rearrangement credits Memphis Minnie alongside the four band members — but not McCoy, whom Charles Shaar Murray identifies as the song’s actual writer.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Recorded in New York City on 18 June 1929 and issued by Columbia Records in August or September 1929 as a 10-inch 78 rpm single — the duo’s first release for the label — backed with “That Will Be Alright”.
Charted Did not chart. It was sold into the segregated ‘race records’ market and, as American Songwriter puts it, “didn’t have much of an impact at the time” relative to the duo’s other sides.
The paper trail
Wikipedia’s article on the song ↗ gives the 18 June 1929 New York session, the Columbia release in August–September 1929, the “That Will Be Alright” B-side, and notes Charles Shaar Murray’s identification of McCoy as the writer.
MusicBrainz ↗ keeps the 1929 country blues work, credited to Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy, separate from the Led Zeppelin work credited to the band plus Minnie — the two are distinct entities in the database.
Louder ↗ describes the original’s two-guitar arrangement and states plainly that the Led Zeppelin credit names Memphis Minnie although McCoy wrote it.
American Songwriter ↗ records that the 1929 single made little impression at the time, and that the credit on the 1971 label carried Memphis Minnie’s name alongside the band’s.
MusicBrainz: the 1929 work and its recordingsKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
What people get wrong
The confusion here is not that a band recorded someone else’s song — it is that the rearrangement is so total that the source vanished, and the printed credit only names half of it.
Led Zeppelin, 1971
The version on the untitled fourth album is so radically rebuilt — slower, longer, and famous for its drum sound — that it is routinely taken for an original composition.
Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, 1929
Recorded in New York City on 18 June 1929 and issued by Columbia Records that August or September, backed with “That Will Be Alright”.
Kansas Joe McCoy, with Memphis Minnie
The song is credited to both, though music journalist Charles Shaar Murray identifies McCoy as the actual songwriter. Led Zeppelin’s credit lists Memphis Minnie beside the four band members and omits McCoy entirely.
First recorded by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, Columbia Records, 1929. Led Zeppelin’s is a cover — a magnificent one, and an incomplete credit.
Context
Why the 1971 version swallowed the 1929 one
The original is a mid-tempo country blues built on two guitars: McCoy’s loose, almost ragtime rhythm underneath, Minnie’s dancing lead on top in an open tuning. It runs a little over three minutes, because that is what a 78 rpm side held. It sold into the ‘race records’ market of 1929, made no lasting commercial impression, and was one of a whole shelf of blues records the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 produced — Lonnie Johnson and Barbecue Bob had already been to the studio with flood songs of their own.
Led Zeppelin did not so much cover it as rebuild it. The tempo dropped, the melody changed, the arrangement stretched past seven minutes, and the drum sound — a room, a stairwell and one microphone — became a piece of production folklore in its own right. When a record is that thoroughly reconceived, the source tends to disappear behind it. The credit on the sleeve did the rest: Memphis Minnie’s name appears there, McCoy’s does not, and the version most people can hum is the one with a 1971 date on it.
The chronology, step by step
- April 1927 — the Great Mississippi Flood; levee failures displace hundreds of thousands across the Delta. Blues records about the flooding begin appearing within days.
- 18 June 1929 — Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie record “When the Levee Breaks” in New York City for Columbia Records. McCoy sings and plays rhythm guitar; Minnie plays the finger-picked lead.
- August–September 1929 — Columbia issues the 78, backed with “That Will Be Alright”. It is the duo’s first release for the label.
- 1971 — Led Zeppelin cut a heavily rearranged version at Headley Grange, Hampshire, with Bonham’s drums recorded in the hallway. It is the only track on the album mixed at Sunset Sound in Hollywood.
- 8 November 1971 — released by Atlantic Records as the closing track of Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album. Never issued as a single; the album reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 on the US Billboard 200.
- Composer credit on the Zeppelin recording reads Bonham, Jones, Memphis Minnie, Page and Plant — McCoy’s name is absent.
The drums are 1971. The song is 1929.