Recently it came to light that, when early sales of Led Zeppelin IV failed to meet Atlantic Records’ expectations, label boss Ahmet Ertegun urged the group to consider a new musical direction. He is said to have been worried that America’s record buyers had had their fill frantic guitar-playing and high-pitched shrieking, and longed for something rather mellower to listen to while ingesting Quaaludes.
Group leader Jimmy Page’s idea, with which his former professional wrestler manager, Peter Grunt, avidly concurred, was to revive the idea of a close harmony group he’d toyed with briefly during the making of Led Zeppelin II. The idea had come briefly to fruition in the iconic Whole Lotta Love, on whose title line Page, bassist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham pretended, when they were able to stop giggling, to be Crosby, Stills & Nash.
The piglet-in-agony vocal style that Plant favoured at the time wasn’t compatible with the other three’s velvety baritones, and Grunt and Ertegun agreed that the project should be seen as distinct from Zeppelin, so Plant wasn't invited to participate. Moreover, Zeppelin’s hectic schedule precluded Page’s devoting much thought to the project until the conclusion of the group’s record-smashing 1973 world tour, on which they grossed $4.1 billion and set attendance records that still stand, or, in the presence of orthopaedic complications, sit.
Only after retiring to Bron-Yr-Aur, a decrepit Welsh cottage in which he and Plant were going to compose material, or decide on which other artists’ material to plagiarise, for their next album, was Page finally able to compile a proposed song list while “Percy”, in his own bedroom, played video games and chatted with fans on Facebook and Instagram. Page’s proposed track listing included The Hi-Lo’s’ Everything's Ducky, Moonlight Music, and The Scuttlebutt Walk, The Andrews Sisters’ arrangements of Beer Barrel Polka, Shortenin’ Bread, and Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, The Ink Spots’ I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire and If I Didn’t Care, The Fleetwoods’ Mister Blue, and, perhaps, most surprisingly Patience and Prudence’s Tonight You Belong to Me (thought to be the most Caucasian record ever recorded), though it required Page to compose a third vocal line.
At one point, insiders believe that Page toyed with the idea of inviting the two guitarists who’d preceded him in The Yardbirds — Jeff Back and Eric Clapton — into the group, in which case it would have been rechristened Jimmy, Jonesy, John & Jeff, if only the former joined, or Jimmy, Jonesy, John, Jeff & Junkie if both musicians liked the idea. The Jeff Beck Group, which had provided the template for Led Zeppelin, was in disarray by that point, with lead singer Rod Stewart having quit music to play for Arsenal's youth team, and Page knew that Beck had been secretly proud of the UK chart showing of his solo single Hi Ho Silver Lining, on which he had sung lead. Both musicians declined, though, Beck because he wanted to study Buddhism and change the oil on his collection of American hot rods, and Clapton because there were no Robert Johnson or Sight-impaired Persimmon Williams songs in the set list.
Recorded at London’s Olympia Studios in July 1976, with former Cliff Richard priducer Norrie Paramour at the mixing desk, the album was shelved at the last minute when, motivated by offers of cocaine and concubines, American radio program directors put LZIV’s It’s Not Paedophilia If She Looks 18 into heavy rotation en masse. Ahmet Ertegun, who was said by his publicists to embody eastern European charm and decorum, but who I understand to have been Harvey Weinstein-ish, decided against releasing two Zeppelin-linked projects simultaneously.
Cassette copies of rough mixes of the album sell today for up to $4.1 billion.
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