Were Led Zeppelin actually influential? Heavy blues rock with a sideline in folk. That's very of its time. Page and Bonham were influential as individual musicians but that doesn't mean the sound they developed as a band led anywhere. Probably important for the sound that Deep Purple and, well, Black Sabbath developed but not much else. I don't hear them in later metal bands except wrt to the drums. Who does heavy Howlin Wolf covers these days? Or even in the late 70's?