Led Zeppelin mastermind Jimmy Page recently took part in a Q&A session with fans at a SiriusXM Town Hall as he promotes the band’s latest reissues, “Led Zeppelin IV” and “Houses Of The Holy.”
Page was asked why the band’s iconic fourth album went untitled.
“It was the right way to deal with things at that time,” said Page. “You wanted to do things a lot of other people hadn’t done. Although, there was a lot of friction with the record company ’cause the way they saw things was as things run normally. But the fact of having that album out and the old man with the sticks and the picture frame [on the album cover] is so iconic that it was the right thing to do.”
The guitarist also shared some of the creative process behind the album’s opening track, “Black Dog.”
“In effect, John Paul Jones had a riff, and that’s the sort of riff that you know of Black Dog,” revealed Page. “But that’s what it was, it was just a riff. He was sort of playing it over and over. It was tricky to play. Once I could play it with him, I said, ‘Okay, well let’s try this with a call and response.’ So with Robert [Plant] singing and then the riff. And then all the other bits outside of the riff – those are all the bits that I put into it. So really, if you’re asking me what my part of it was, it was actually taking it from a riff and making it into a piece of music.”
The expanded reissue of 1971’s “Led Zeppelin IV” recently debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 with opening week sale of 35,000 copies; 1973’s “Houses Of The Holy” entered the US chart at No. 12 with sales of 29,000.
Led Zeppelin had similar chart debuts in their native UK, with “IV” debuting at No. 6 and “Houses” at No. 14.
The band’s fourth album — which is officially untitled but is generally referred to as “Led Zeppelin IV” — features anthems such as "Stairway To Heaven", "Rock And Roll", "Black Dog" and "When The Levee Breaks". The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 1999 and has been certified 23x platinum by the RIAA.
Led Zeppelin kicked off their reissue series in June with the release of expanded editions of the band’s first three albums – “Led Zeppelin I”, “Led Zeppelin II” and “Led Zeppelin III” – each with a companion disc of bonus material.
See also:
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