super groovy delicious bite: physical graffiti

Led Zeppelin sailed across the sea of years to unfold a vagabond vandalism of brownstone boogie, progressive rock, wanton blues, and lilting acoustic grace into this masterful mélange.

With five uncompromising albums (Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, and Houses of the Holy) and nine tours behind them, the band began work on their next album in November of 1973 at Headley Grange in East Hampshire, England with Ronnie Lane's Mobile Studio; however, these sessions soon dissolved as exhaustion had taken its toll.

Producer and guitarist Jimmy Page would reveal: "It took a long time for this album mainly because when we originally went in to record it, John Paul Jones wasn't well and we had to cancel the time ... everything got messed up. It took three months to sort the situation out...I love playing. If it was down to just that, it would be utopia. But it's not. It's airplanes, hotel rooms, limousines and armed guards standing outside rooms. I don't get off on that part of it at all. But it's the price I'm willing to pay to get out and play. I was very restless over the last 18 months where we laid off and worked on the album."

Recording resumed in January of 1974 at Headley Grange, and by February they had several new songs fleshed out. Robert Plant recalled: "We got eight tracks off... and a lot of them were really raunchy. We did some real belters with live vocals, off-the-wall stuff that turned out really nice...Some of the tracks we assembled in our own fashioned way of running through a track and realising before we knew it that we had stumbled on something completely different."

With the wealth of new material, the project began to expand. Page relates: "Well, as usual, we had more material than the required 40-odd minutes for one album. We had enough material for one and a half LPs, so we figured let's put out a double and use some of the material we had done previously but never released. It seemed like a good time to do that sort of thing, release tracks like "Boogie With Stu" which we normally wouldn't be able to do..."Black Country Woman" and "The Rover" were both done at the same time we did "D'yer Mak'er." "Bron-Yr-Aur" was done for the third record. "Down By The Seaside," "Night Flight," and "Boogie With Stu" were all from the sessions for the fourth album. We had an album and a half of new material, and this time we figured it was better to stretch out than to leave off. I really fancied putting out a song called "Houses of the Holy" on the album."

'Physical Graffiti' features John Bonham on drums and percussion; John Paul Jones on bass guitar, organ, acoustic and electric piano, mellotron, guitar, mandolin, VCS3 synthesiser, Hohner clavinet, Hammond organ, and string arrangement; Jimmy Page on electric, acoustic, lap steel and slide guitar, mandolin, and production; and Robert Plant on lead vocals, harmonica, and acoustic guitar on "Boogie with Stu"; with Ian Stewart adding piano on "Boogie with Stu"; and George Chkiantz, Andy Johns, and Ron Nevison on engineering; Keith Harwood and Eddie Kramer on engineering and mixing; Peter Corriston and Mike Doud on artwork, design, and cover design; and executive producer Peter Grant.

In May of 1974, the band launched their own record label, Swan Song. Page relates: "We'd been thinking about it for a while and we knew if we formed a label there wouldn't be the kind of fuss and bother we'd been going through over album covers and things like that. Having gone through, ourselves, what appeared to be an interference, or at least an aggravation, on the artistic side by record companies, we wanted to form a label where the artists would be able to fulfill themselves without all of that hassle."

'Physical Graffiti' became the first release on Swan Song Records. It was the first album to go platinum on advance orders alone, going to number seventeen in Italy; thirteen in Japan; four in Norway; three in New Zealand; two in Australia, Austria, France, and Spain; and number one in the UK and the US. 'Physical Graffiti' would win a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package. It has sold more than eight million copies in the US alone, making it one of the best selling albums of all time.