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John Henry Bonham was born on May 31, 1948, at Redditch, Worcestershire. The son of a carpenter, he grew up near Robert in Kidderminster, hammering things. His first drum was a bath salts can with wires on the bottom and a coffee tin that his dad rigged with a loose wire for a snare effect, plus his mother's cooking pots.
At age 15 his father got him a used, slightly rusted drum kit. He started playing in his first band with Terry Webb and the Spiders, wearing purple jackets with velveteen lapels. When he was 17 he went on to another group called "A Way of Life" and married his sweetheart, an English rose he'd met at a dance at Kidderminster.
Some of the bands wouldn't hire Bonzo, since local clubs often wouldn't even book bands that Bonzo played with. They said he played too loud. But Bonzo gradually developed a lighter touch as well; he stopped breaking drum heads when he learned to play louder with out hiting as hard. He was one of the first drummers to line his base drum with aluminum foil, and was already playing drum solos with his hands when he started out with Robert.
On September 24, 1980, Led Zeppelin gathered for the last time, hoding rehearsals at Jimmy Page's house for the group's upcoming reunion tour. Early the next morning John Henry Bonham was found dead of an overdose of alcohol, having drunk 40 measures of vodka during a twelve-hour period, and then choked on his own vomit while asleep.
Taken from the pages of Stephen Davis' book
Hammer Of The Gods
We knew that if Bonham had been there, he would have done what had to be done. You know, you need a drum about that big and be able to hit it so hard. Bonham---you won't get another one of him... ~Charlie Watts~
