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Led Zeppelin Is Being Brought
To You By Music for Sight
The music
of this week’s featured artist at Music for Sight is well known to classic rock fans the world over. Once described as the progenitors of “heavy metal”, Led Zeppelin is in fact much, much more
than heavy metal. They do that genre the greatest justice. No doubt! And bands that have tried to emulate them in that
genre have usually fallen miserably short of the mark. The talents of Jimmy Page,
Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones went way beyond heavy metal. Which
is what made it so impossible for other band to successfully emulate their style. Blended
with heavy metal, the Zep offered a nice fusion hard rock, blues, folk, country, Latin, Celtic, classical and more.
| Led Zeppelin |
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| Monntrose 1970 |
A few months before that fabled event, while Jimmy Page was still trying to
decide what to do with his own musical future, he had the idea of putting together a “super group” with himself
and Jeff Beck on lead guitars, Keith Moon and John Entwhistle, drums and bass respectively, Donovan on vocals, Steve Marriott
on vocals and keyboard and Steve Winwood on vocals and keyboards. It never happened of course, but can you imagine the sound? Keith
Moon, who, along with John entwhistle were playing with Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend in The Who, apparently didn’t
care much for the idea and said the idea would go over like a “lead zeppelin”.
That being a phrase he had coined to describe a show that bombed out. Page
and Plant, Jones and Bonham liked the sound of Led Zeppelin. They changed the
spelling of “lead” to “led” to prevent Americans from pronouncing it “leed”. It worked out ok, eh?
The name worked out ok that is until they were scheduled to perform a show in Copenhagen on February 28, 1970 when the Countess Eva von Zeppelin threatened legal
action over a “couple of screaming monkeys” unauthorized use of her distinguished family name after she saw the
guys and the band’s logo, the fiery crash of a zeppelin. In order to keep
the show on, they changed the name of the band for that event to “The Nob”.
After that, it was back to Led Zeppelin and to the best of this author’s knowledge, no further problems have
been encountered.
The Led Zeppelin Discography
1969
Led Zeppelin
1969
Led Zeppelin II
1970
Led Zeppelin III
1971
The fourth album*
1973
Houses of the Holy
1975
Physical Graffiti
1976
Presence
1976
The Song Remains the Same
1979
In Through the Out Door
1982
Coda
*The fourth album had no title. It was referred to in the Atlantic catalogs as IV, 4, Led Zeppelin IV, Sticks, Man With Sticks, Herm, Zoso and untitled. Since Jimmy Page calls it simply, “the fourth album”, that’s what I call it.
| The fourth album's cover |
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What Do Those Symbols Mean?
I'll
tell you. First though, let me tell you a bit about why the album has no name. We've got critics to thank for
that. With the phenomenal success of their first three albums, those darned critics began to imply, rather obnoxiously,
that we, the rock and roll music buying crowd of the late sixties and early seventies, were buying all those millions of albums
more for the name of the band than for the quality of the music. The critics further went on to suggest that future
Led Zeppelin albums would not be as good since they had all of us fans brainwashed, relieving the musicians of the need
to continue the level of quality found on the first three albums.
Not
surprisingly, Jimmy Page took offense at these silly suggestions and recommended to the band they not give the next album
a name. He went on to suggest they put nothing on the album cover, front or back,
to identify it. No credits, no title, nothing.
The
record company executives considered this career suicide. All the members of
the band had confidence in their abilities, and having gained full control over all artistic elements of their work during
their tenure with Atlantic Records they went forward with the idea.
A
symbol was considered. Then Page said, since it’s our fourth album and
there are four of us, let’s come up with four symbols. so each member of
the band was given the assignment of finding an existing, or creating a new symbol, to represent themselves.
Looking at the album cover, assuming you can see it, and going from left to right…
Jimmy Page Jimmy says he designed this himself. At first glance, the symbol looks like the word Zoso. It is in fact a symbol representing Saturn, the ruling planet over Jimmy’s astrological sign, Capricorn. The symbol has been in existence for around four hundred and fifty years, dating back to circa 1557. It should be noted Jimmy Page has never changed his original contention.
John Paul Jones Taken from Rudolf Koch Book of signs. It’s a single circle intersecting three vesica pisces triquetra). It is intended to symbolize a person who possesses both confidence and competence.
John Bonham Three interlocking circles, the symbol was taken from the same book as Jones. It represents the trinity of mother, father and child. It is also the logo for Ballantine Beer.
Robert Plan Designed by Robert, the symbol is based on a symbol representing the ancient Mu civilization.
There is a fifth symbol on the album representing singer Sandy Denny and her contribution on the song “Battle of Evermore”. It appears on the albums inner sleeve liner notes and serves as an asterisk. The symbol is of three triangles with points touching.
It should be noted, finally, that the fourth album was considered by many to be the best, artistically speaking, of all ten of Led Zeppelin’s albums from 1969 to 1979. And commercially, it ranking as the top Led Zeppelin album is supported by the number of units sold. It’s one of my favorites, for sure, but personally, I put “In Through the Out door” at the top of the list. That’s mostly because of the song “Hot dog”, which I think is the best song… EVER!
| The Hermit |
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| The gatefold of the fourth album |
In Through the Out door Album Notes
Recorded November and December 1978
Released August 15, 1979 On the Swan Song Label and Produced by Jimmy Page All Songs written by Led Zeppelin
This was the last Led Zeppelin album, technically speaking. John Bonham died in 1980. The album “Coda”, released in 1982, is a compilation of out takes and previously unreleased material the band had recorded from 1969 – 1979.
I have often said this is my favorite Led Zeppelin record, and that is more or less true, with one little disclaimer. Whichever Led Zeppelin album I happen to be listening to when someone asks me that question could very likely be the answer. Usually though, if we are away from a sound system, or someone else is playing and I get asked which is my favorite Led Zeppelin album, I will most likely answer “In Through the Out door”. Why?
There are a couple of reasons. First is the music. Specifically the song “Hot Dog” a lively little ditty that is very reminiscent of Elvis in his early days. And the rest of the songs on the album are incredibly deep in everything that makes up the Led Zeppelin sound.. “All of My Love” always struck me as a little too “soft pop” for Led Zeppelin, but it’s a great love song none the less.
And, there is the album cover design. The band had us guessing with the cover of the fourth album. This one though really had us tripped up. There on the “new release” rack was the new Led Zeppelin album, wrapped of all things, in a brown paper bag. So you bought it, took it home, opened it up, removed the brown paper bag and there was this picture on the front of a man in a bar burning a “Dear John” letter with several other people in the bar looking on. Cool, you may have thought. You put the album on, dug the sound Or didn’t. and went on. Next time you were at your friends house, you asked if they had picked up the new Zep album yet. They answered yes, and handed you the sleeve as the went to put on the record. You looked at it thinking, something is different. And for the next few weeks, everywhere you went you saw a slightly different album cover.
There were in fact, six different album covers. And the brown paper bag wrapping prevented you from knowing which one you would get. It’s the perspective that changes with each cover. Here’s a table showing each of the covers and the intended perspective.
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| Led Zeppelin Live in Chicago |
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| Playing my fav tune, "Hot Dog" |
And
if that wasn't enough, the album also had another bit of magic up it's sleeve (pun intended!)... The album covers were
done in black and white line art. If you wiped the cover with a damp wash cloth, it would turn to color!
The
album concept and design were done by Hypnosis and in 1981 they were nominated for a Grammy in the category best album cover
design.
According to Storm Thorgerson, in his book “Eye of the Storm” in which he writes about his days with Hypnosis and the album covers they designed not only for Led Zeppelin, but also Pink floyd, Genesis, Wishbone Ash, and others “The sepia quality was meant to evoke a non-specific past and to allow the brushstroke across the middle to be better rendered in color and so make a contrast. This self same brushstroke was like the swish of a wiper across a wet windscreen, like a lick of fresh paint across a faded surface, a new look to an old scene, which was what Led Zeppelin told us about their album. A lick of fresh paint, as per Led Zeppelin, and the music on this album... It somehow grew in proportion and became six viewpoints…”
| Led Zeppelin |
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| Right to left: John Bonham,Robert Plant,Jimmy Page,John Paul Jones |
Before you do the following, if you are at work or in some other public place, you might want to make sure the volume on the computer’s speakers is turned down. When I tested this link just now, it worked. Real good. Including The Zep doing “Good Times, Bad Times” at a volume level consistent with their music!
For more on Led Zeppelin, click here to cruise on over to their official web site at http://www.ledzeppelin.com
I hope you have
enjoyed this week’s featured artist as much as I did!
lease tell your
friends about Music for Sight!
Love an luck
to all of you from Don and Lucky
The Studio On
the Back Porch
Lake Alfred,
Florida
Rocktober 2009
