Today in 1971, the release of the fourth Led Zeppelin album, the one that’s technically untitled but everyone calls it Led Zeppelin IV anyway.
The opening track on the record is one that still gets played and shared a lot today, and it got its name from a very unusual visitor to the studio.
That studio was actually not quite a studio; it was a house in southern England called Headley Grange.
The band wanted a place where it could live as well as work during the sessions, so in January 1971 Led Zeppelin moved in and set up a mobile recording unit.
They described Headley Grange as cold and run down, but while they were there, they hit creative peak after creative peak.
One day, bassist John Paul Jones came up with a twisting, turning riff that was inspired by the late 60s albums where blues stars like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters did psychedelic remakes of their best known songs.
Guitarist Jimmy Page structured the song with a stop and start pattern similar to the one Fleetwood Mac had used in its song “Oh Well.”
Singer Robert Plant came up with suitable lyrics, and John Bonham pulled it all together with a thunderous but still groovy drum pattern.
And then there was the title, “Black Dog.”
According to the band, there was an actual black dog that used to wander around the grounds of Headley Grange, and would even sometimes drop by the kitchen.
Jimmy Page said it became a running joke with the band that the old black dog slept in the kitchen all day long because it had been out partying all night.
(Or maybe it was because this was England in January and it was cold out?)
Anyway, the band used “Black Dog” as the working title of the song, and just never changed it.
Around this time in 2023, researcher Brian Edwards was looking through an old photo album when he spotted something familiar.
It was the original version of the photo on the Led Zeppelin IV cover, with the older man carrying a big bundle of sticks on his back.
The man’s name was Lot Long and he used those sticks to build roofs for thatched roof cottages.
Headley Grange Led Zeppelin at Headley Grange (BBC)
Lucky Find at Auction Identifies Man on Cover of ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ (New York Times)
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Photo by Atlantic Records via Wikicommons
