Untitled Zeppelin post (take 9)

Welcome to the Columbus Day weekend installment of my temporarily recurring feature here at the Licorice Pizza: The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Sessions disks.

Back to the entire band with this post: Music dating from the January and February 1974 Physical Graffiti sessions. As I mentioned in Zep post number eight, recording for Physical Graffiti began in November 1973. However, according to Dave Marsh’s “The Complete Guide to the Music of Led Zeppelin,” John Paul Jones “had wanted to quit the band and take up a position as choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral.” Ultimately Jones would return after the holidays and the band would reconvene in January at Headley Grange Studios.

At Headley Grange, the band recorded eight new songs. Robert Plant later referred to these eight tracks as “the belters.” “We got eight tracks off,” Plant said, “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.”

The decision to record at the informal surroundings of Headley Grange provided an opportunity for Zeppelin to improvise and develop material along the way. Plant is quoted in Marsh’s book as saying, “Some of the tracks we assembled in our...way of running through a track and realizing before we knew it that we had stumbled on something completely different.”

You’ll notice this in the song titled “In the Morning,” which would evolve into “In the Light.” Some other notes: Check out track 7, which is mainly studio chatter and noodling, but at about the 1:01 mark, Bonzo plays around with starting “Trampled Underfoot” with the “Rock and Roll” intro. Zeppelin also exeriment with a version (track 11) of the song that’s much funkier than what would finally appear on the album.

This disk (number nine of 12 if you’re keeping score) is right up there with the best of what I’ve posted so far. With that in mind, I’ve pulled more songs to post, but, for your listening convenience, I’ve also zipped up the whole thing for you.

Track List
1. The Wanton Song.mp3
2. The Wanton Song
3. Take Me Home
4. Take Me Home.mp3
5. In the Morning.mp3
6. Trampled Under Foot
7. Trampled Under Foot.mp3
8-10. Trampled Under Foot
11. Trampled Under Foot.mp3
12-14. Trampled Under Foot
15. In The Light
16. Sick Again
17. The Rover
18. untitled instrumental
19-25. In My Time of Dying
26. The Wanton Song.mp3 (w/count-in)
27. Trampled Underfoot.mp3 (w/long ending)

Unzip it all here

Labels: classic rock, guitar heroes, Led Zeppelin, outtakes

posted by aikin @ 12:14 PM