“It was just unbelievable”: when John Paul Jones blew Jimmy Page’s mind in the studio
For years, fans have been puzzled, divided, and enraged regarding the inquiry into the best Led Zeppelin album. The group constantly evolved in their time, edging ever closer to guitarist Jimmy Page’s ultimate creative vision of putting a towering spin on rock. This continuous movement means it is inherently tough to pin down when the band were at their best.
Some state that it is the unfettered attitude of 1969’s Led Zeppelin II, with other longtime fans claiming that it is 1971’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’-spawning Led Zeppelin IV, in the face of aghast fans who claim that it is either Houses of the Holy or its follow-up, Physical Graffiti. There are even a select few who maintain that 1970’s Led Zeppelin III is the one, as it acts as a stylistic bridge between the raw passion of their early years and the refinement that was to come, as typified by ‘Immigrant Song’. Still, listening to the album in full, it becomes clear that their oeuvre has more full-bodied opuses.
Physical Graffiti is a record that makes a strong claim, and generally, it is between it and Led Zeppelin IV in the ultimate tussle for the crown. While it appears very of its time when listening from the comfort of contemporary hindsight, in many ways, it is the most concentrated distillation of Page’s blueprint for the band. An exciting fusion of hard-rock and prog, with the esoteric essence at a fever pitch, the band went truly expansive on the record, as evidenced on ‘Trampled Under Foot’ and, more significantly, the titanic ‘Kashmir’.
At the time of making the record, Led Zeppelin were in a strange position. They were the biggest band on earth and had just released two masterpieces. Still, before going to Headley Grange to record it, their first attempt in November 1973 at the same location fell flat, with bassist and multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones telling manager Peter Grant he’d had enough and wanted to quit. However, Grant instructed him to take a year off and rethink.
Before too long, the group reconvened in the early stages of the following year, with the informal atmosphere allowing them to experiment. Famously, drummer John Bonham was instrumental in the sessions, and conceived ideas, and aided with arrangments, leading to him receiving several lead songwriting credits. During January and February, they recorded eight tracks.
One of the highlights of the album is ‘In the Light’. Opening with the ominous drone of Jimmy Page’s bowed guitar showed that Jones still had much left to give the group, with him heightening the former’s work with an equally scintillating keyboard part. A resounding showcase of his nouse, Page recalled that Jones’ efforts in the studio on the song were “just unbelievable”.
Recalling what went down in the book The Guitar Greats, Page explained: “Once the vocal lines and phrasing were sorted out, you’d know where not to play, which was as important as knowing when you should play.”
He continued: “With ‘In The Light,’ for instance, we knew exactly what its construction was going to be, but nevertheless, I had no idea at the time that John Paul Jones was going to come up with such an amazing synthesiser intro, plus there’s all the bowed guitars at the beginning as well, to give the overall drone effect. We did quite a few things with drones on, like ‘In The Evening’ and all that, but when he did that start for ‘In The Light’, it was just unbelievable.”