Coinage of Musical Term "Heavy Metal"

[Ed Keer]

That's interesting. I had laways heard (not from
reliable sources) that the term heavy metal was
related to the Le(a)d in Led Zeppelin. I remember John
Entwhistle saying that Led Zeppelin took their name
from a phrase describing a bad gig: "We went down like
a lead zeppelin."

soundsl ike the two are unrelated though.

Ed


--- Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> Jesse Sheidlower asked me about the coinage of
> "heavy metal" referring
> specifically to music (I previously had pushed back
> the William Burroughs
> prehistory of the term to 1962; OED's first use is
> 1973).  One of the
> Research Editors for my quotation dictionary
> contacted "Metal Mike"
> Saunders, who provided the citation for his coinage
> of the term
> (remarkably, this was in the same issue of Creem
> that coined the term
> "punk rock"):
>
> 1971 Mike Saunders in _Creem_ May 74  This album
> ["Kingdom Come" by Sir
> Lord Baltimore] is a far cry from the currently
> prevalent Grand Funk
> sludge, because Sir Lord Baltimore seems to have
> down pat most all the
> best heavy metal tricks in the book.
>
> (Saunders goes on to make comparisons to the MC5,
> Led Zeppelin, Blue
> Cheer, and Free.)
>
> Fred Shapiro


__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
http://platinum.yahoo.com