Goldmine magazine recently spoke to legendary [lastfm]BLACK SABBATH[/lastfm] drummer [lastfm]Bill Ward[/lastfm] about the the artists and music in general that matter to him. You can read the entire article at this location.

While Ward is a fan of “probably anything” in the [lastfm]LED ZEPPELIN [/lastfm]catalog, “Led Zeppelin I” has the strongest memories for him.
“I love [lastfm]Jimmy Page[/lastfm]. He’s bloody great,” Ward said. “When I first heard their very first album, we had a bunch of songs as well, but we hadn’t recorded our first album, and then somebody brought over ‘Led Zeppelin I’ and we listened to it, and I’m listening to it and going, ‘Holy crap.’ You know, it sounded really professional and everything. I’d known[lastfm]John Bonham [/lastfm]since I was 16 years old, and I’m listening to Bonham playing his chops, man, and I’m going, ‘Wow.’ I thought that that album was just completely out of sight. It was so good, and I love Jimmy‘s chops. We just sat around going, ‘Wow.’ We were in a different bag. We were working on ‘What is this that stands before me? …’ and so we were in quite a different place, but that first album was just, like, holy crap, blew me away. Just a really very, very good album.”

“All of us — [lastfm]Tony Iommi[/lastfm] , myself, and the likes of [lastfm]Geezer Butler[/lastfm] and [lastfm]Ozzy Osbourne[/lastfm], you know, we all knew Bonham, and we all knew [lastfm]Robert Plant[/lastfm]. We were all from basically the same area, so we bumped into them all the time. We’d see them every other day or something,” Ward recalled. “But I love [lastfm]John Paul Jones[/lastfm], as well… What a bass player, man. He’s doing good stuff. He’s always been a brilliant bass player. He reminds me now of, unfortunately he passed away, [lastfm]John Entwistle[/lastfm]. Entwistle‘s bass playing is just fucking phenomenal.”

[Source: Blabbermouth]