Led Zeppelin – House Of The Holy

Biography
Led Zeppelin formed out of the ashes of The Yardbirds.  Jimmy Page had joined the band in its final days, playing a pivotal role on the group’s final album, 1967’s Little Games, which also featured string arrangements from John Paul Jones.  During 1967, the Yardbirds were fairly inactive.  Whilst the band members decided the group’s future, Page returned to session work in 1967. In the spring of 1968, he played on Jones’ arrangement of Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man.” During the sessions, Jones requested to be part of any future project Page would develop. Page would have to assemble a band sooner than he had planned. In the summer of 1968, the Yardbirds’ Keith Relf and Jim McCarty left, leaving Page and bassist Chris Dreja with the rights to the name, as well as the obligation of fulfilling an upcoming fall tour. Page set out to find a replacement vocalist and drummer. Initially, he wanted to enlist singer Terry Reid and Procol Harum’s drummer B.J. Wilson, but neither musician was able to join the group. Reid suggested that Page contact Robert Plant, who was singing with a band called Hobbstweedle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin
Inducted into Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

Album & Cover Art
Houses of the Holy is the fifth studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released on 28 March 1973 by Atlantic Records. It is their first album composed of entirely original material and it represents a turning point in musical direction for the band, who had begun to record songs with more layering and production techniques.Containing some of the band’s most famous songs, including “The Song Remains the Same”, “The Rain Song”, and “No Quarter”, Houses of the Holy became a commercial success, and was later certified 11x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1999. In 2012, the album was ranked at #148 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The title track was originally recorded for the album, but was delayed until the release of band’s next album Physical Graffiti in 1975.

The cover art for Houses of the Holy was inspired by the ending of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End. The cover is a collage of several photographs which were taken at the Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland, by Aubrey Powell.  The two children who modelled for the cover were siblings Stefan and Samantha Gates. The photoshoot was a frustrating affair over the course of ten days. Shooting was done first thing in the morning and at sunset in order to capture the light at dawn and dusk, but the desired effect was never achieved due to constant rain and clouds. The photos of the two children were taken in black and white and were multi-printed to create the effect of 11 individuals that can be seen on the album cover. The results of the shoot were less than satisfactory, but some accidental tinting effects in post-production created an unexpectedly striking album cover. The inner sleeve photograph was taken at Dunluce Castle near to the Causeway. Like Led Zeppelin’s fourth album, neither the band’s name nor the album title was printed on the sleeve. However, manager Peter Grant did allow Atlantic Records to add a wrap-around paper title band to US and UK copies of the sleeve that had to be broken or slid off to access the record. This hid the children’s buttocks from general display, but still the album was either banned or unavailable in some parts of the Southern United States for several years. In 1974, the album was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of best album package. The cover was rated 6 on VH1’s 50 Greatest Album Covers in 2003. Page has stated that the album cover was the second, the first featured an electric green tennis court with a tennis racquet on it. Furious that Thorgerson was implying their music sounded like a “racket”, the band fired him and hired Powell in his place. The album art was referenced towards the end of the movie Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure as the title characters used the album as a reference for the types of places they had visited during their travels in the story: “We visited many places that looked like the cover of the album “Houses of the Holy”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houses_of_the_Holy

Cover Location: The Giant’s Causeway, and Dunluce Castle, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
Who Did What: Photography – A. Powell. Hand Tinting – P. Crennell
Label: Atlantic SD7255(US), Atlantic K50014(UK)
Source: Vinyl. Album. Cover. Art, The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue: Aubrey Powell

Tracklist

Credits
Bass – John Paul Jones
Drums – John Bonham
Guitar – Jimmy Page
Producer – Jimmy Page
Vocals – Robert Plant
Engineer – Eddie Kramer, George Chkiantz, Keith Harwood
Executive-Producer – Peter Grant
Mastered By – RL
Written-By – Page, Bonham (tracks: A4, B2, B4), Jones (tracks: A4, B2 to B4), Plant