Houses Of The Holy - Wholly Different Yet Again

With its fifth album, Houses of the Holy, Led Zeppelin galloped madly off in many different directions. The music veered sharply away from the blues. Production techniques geed toward greater complexity. Perhaps oddest of all, the album was actively flogged!

Atlantic Records officially released it on March 28, 1973. It was Zeppelin’s last album with that label because, in 1974, Peter Grant established their own: Swan Song Records.

HOTH (the album’s frequent acronym) had been recorded almost a full year before its release. As a result, Zeppelin was already performing most of this new material live on concert tours of North America, Japan, Europe and the United Kingdom.

Sessions were recorded in England at Headley Grange, Island Studios and Olympic. While touring North America, the band recorded at Electric Ladyland in New York. However, producer Jimmy Page held to his previous stance of recording principally outside the sterile studio environment.

Thinking And Recording Outside The Box

Houses of the Holy was, for the most part, recorded at the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio at Stargroves, Mick Jagger’s Berkshire country estate in April/May 1972.

The band exulted in the unique ambience and alternative sounds they could achieve in old mansions like Headley Grange and secluded locales like Stargroves where they often recorded out of doors.

Sound engineer, Eddie Kramer, has said that the drone of an airplane made the final mix and they kept it in. Led Zeppelin’s sessions at Stargroves were so productive, they yielded songs that would be saved for future albums.

Among the recordings reserved from Stargroves and the Olympic sessions in May of 1972 that never made it onto HOTH? The title track, for one! Nor would they play it on their HOTH tour. Another example of Zeppelin breaking with traditional wisdom.

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The Title Track That Wasn’t

The title track for Houses of the Holy that would never be used on its namesake album would later turn up on Zeppelin’s 1975 record and first double album, Physical Graffiti. So would The Rover and Black Country Woman.

Walter’s Walk would eventually appear on Coda, an album of studio outtakes and material held in reserve that was ultimately released in 1982, two years after the death of drummer John Bonham.

Zeppelin virtually ignored the HOTH track. They didn’t even deign to play it on their 1973 HOTH tour! Robert Plant would introduce songs simply by saying the band would play something from their new album, often without naming the piece.Earlier, I mentioned this album would be rigorously promoted. With the possible exception of the debut Led Zeppelin, the band’s records were promoted mainly by word of mouth. Zeppelin’s musicians were not the media darlings The Beatles and Stones were.

“The Effect Is Shattering”

Led Zeppelin and Peter Grant hired Danny Goldberg to promote the Houses of the Holy album and tour. He created a huge advertising campaign that included radio spots and print ads based on the slogan “The Effect is Shattering”.

The tone recalls 1950s-style B-grade sci-fi movies and radio shows about Martians, like War of The Worlds. The background music woven throughout the spot is the album’s first track: The Song Remains the Same.

The (very straight-sounding) announcer declares, “It’s finally here! Led Zeppelin's long-awaited new album, Houses of the Holy. It does things to people. It’ll do things to you!”

Childhood’s End, a novel by sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke inspired the album cover’s design which created publicity on its own. In parts of the Southern US, the album was banned for showing children’s bare behinds. Naturally, people just wanted it more!

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Let’s Cut To The Cuts

Houses of the Holy was conceived and recorded at a point when Led Zeppelin was developing very quickly in terms of composition, instrumentation and lyrics. Fusing elements of reggae, jazz and funk expanded the band’s parameters ever further.

Robert Plant introduced a “new Zep song” to Japanese audiences in October 1972. Compositionally and technically, it was a sweeping, sophisticated piece, infused with a decidedly classical sensibility. It would be come to be called The Song Remains the Same.

It featured Jimmy Page playing the Gibson double-neck guitar he’d started using in 1971 and John Paul Jones performing in the orchestral-sounding mid-section on his new Mellotron – a keyboard synthesizer that mimics various instruments.

On Track Two, The Rain Song, Jones really gets a chance to show off what the Mellotron can do. His eerily beautiful solo work sounds like an orchestra of violins and cellos.

Fantastic Fusion, Folk And Funk!

Houses of the Holy is quite literally a permanent record of Led Zeppelin’s mastery of world music and fusion. In its composition, Over the Hills and Far Away, is reminiscent of what Jimmy Page accomplished on Stairway to Heaven.

In both cases, there’s an exciting mix of guitar styles progressing from that bucolic feeling of acoustic work evidenced on Led Zeppelin III and the untitled fourth album to Page’s trademark, hard-nosed electric attack mode.

Both John Bonham and John Paul Jones were huge jazz, swing and soul aficionados. Jones, especially, was heavily into Motown and funk. So it’s only natural that all four band members were actively involved in composing The Crunge.

It was an exploration of funk and a tribute to James Brown, the “father of soul”. Zeppelin even devised dance steps to put on the album so people could “do the Crunge”. Ultimately, they just stuck to the music!

Critics didn’t care for The Crunge, but the boys in the band had a ball with it!

Never Remaining The Same

Houses of the Holy’s flip side leads off with Dancing Days, a straight-ahead hard-rocking number so typical of Led Zeppelin. Just as typical, Page cranks his riffs up or down at will, going high-octane or hypnotic with an Eastern influence.

Track Two is infused with various elements of reggae. D’yer Maker is a tongue-in-cheek song based on an old joke that Robert Plant fancied and created lyrics for. Once again, the critics failed to see the humour.

They panned the song for having deviated from the group’s norm. Whatever that might be, because there really is no norm with Led Zeppelin. That’s the whole point. No matter – the fans loved it!

Tributes To Jazz And The Audience

On this exquisite track of Houses of the Holy, JP Jones explores his beloved jazz, tickling the ivories of his electric piano accompanied by Page’s theramin.

No Quarter is as close to pure jazz as Led Zeppelin ever got in the studio. When playing it live in concert, Jimmy and JP were extra jazzy!

The Ocean closes the album. It’s a rollicking rocker in the tradition of Zeppelin’s Black Dog. Plant penned the lyrics as a metaphor for Led Zeppelin’s audience because that’s how the gathered masses appeared when he looked out from stage.

It was appropriate also because “the ocean’s” number had continued to swell and wash away stadium attendance records.

When Zeppelin opened the North American HOTH Tour in Atlanta, Georgia on May 4, 1973, they drew 49,000 fans to Braves Stadium. The next day at Tampa Stadium in Florida, the effect was even more shattering!

56,800 fans made it the largest audience ever for a single act, drowning out the previous record set by The Beatles in 1965 at Shea Stadium in New York City.