“played the kind of music”: Mike Heron, quoted in Steven Brocklehurst, “An Incredible Journey with the Incredible String Band,” BBC Scotland News website, April 2, 2017.

  “I couldn’t really play”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 124.

  “sort of ‘Bali Ha’i’ melody line”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 115.

  “It made you think of Vikings”: RP, quoted in Lewis, Led Zeppelin: From a Whisper to a Scream, p. 41.

  “We knew it was”: JP, blind-quoted in Power, No Quarter, p. 225.

  “I went down to the site”: Peter Grant, quoted in Lewis, Led Zeppelin: Celebration II, p. 92.

  “suddenly became a free festival”: Wendy Bannister, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 188.

  “I remember standing there”: RP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 190.

  “They were in great spirits”: Chris Charlesworth, interview with the author, May 13, 2019.

  “Take care of those bastards”: Peter Grant, quoted in Cole, Stairway to Heaven, p. 150.

  “He told us to go”: Henry Smith interview.

  “Hey, we haven’t finished”: Chris Charlesworth, quoted in Welch, Peter Grant, p. 92.

  “Those guys blew my mind”: Chris Charlesworth interview.

  “There was no way”: Roy Harper, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 162.

  a few short months later: “Zeppelin Topple Beatles,” Winnepeg Free Press, September 17, 1970.

  “I couldn’t find Freddie Bannister”: “I had a hell of a battle at the Bath Festival.” Peter Grant, quoted in Paul Henderson, “If Somebody Had to Be Trod On, They Got Trod On,” Classic Rock, April 5, 2017.

  “I didn’t know exactly”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 125.

  “You really do need”: “When it comes to playing in the studio, my bottle goes. It’s the studio nerves.” JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, pp. 107–8.

  “How much would that cost?”: JP, quoted by Andy Johns in Popoff, Led Zeppelin, p. 104.

  “could find you anything”: “Headley Grange came through Willow Morel.” Carole Brown Woods, email to the author, April 22, 2020.

  “I’d been evacuated there”: Peter Grant, quoted in Lewis, Led Zeppelin: Celebration II, p. 92.

  “It was a pretty austere place”: JP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 58.

  “[It] had very large rooms”: JPJ, quoted in Popoff, Led Zeppelin, p. 104.

  “some amazing hard work”: JP, quoted in Michael Odell, “I Was Insatiable,” Uncut, November 2019, p. 68.

  “It can get a bit impersonal”: “[The truck] is a bit narrow like a corridor.” Andy Johns, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 78.

  “It seemed ideal”: “It was just so exciting to have all the facilities there.” JP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 79.

  “He would just get drunk”: JP, blind-quoted in Power, No Quarter, p. 228.

  “all riffs and rhythm track”: RP, quoted in Mat Snow, “Led Zeppelin,” Q, December 1990.

  “an old Folkways LP”: “I used his version as a basis and completely changed the arrangement.” JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 98.

  “going back to the studio days”: JP, quoted in Steven Rosen, “Jimmy Page,” Guitar Player, July 1977.

  “There was no conscious desire”: JPJ, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 60.

  “The acoustic stuff”: RP, quoted in Snow, “Led Zeppelin.”

  “album’s bucolic ambience”: Attributed to JP in Lois Wilson, “Sleevenotes,” Q Special Edition: Led Zeppelin, March 2003.

  “teenybopperish”: JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 101; Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 125.

  “there are different moods”: RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 103.

  “a rickety, erratic affair”: Phil Sutcliffe, “Back to Nature,” Q Special Edition: Led Zeppelin, March 2003, p. 36.

  “I, II, III . . . and Zeppelin Weakens”: “I, II, III . . . and Zeppelin Weakens,” Disc and Music Echo, October 10, 1970.

  “a definite hatchet job”: JP, interview with Paul Elliott, Classic Rock, n.d.

  “it remains to be seen”: Nick Logan, “Zeppelin Solid Gas, Solid Gold,” NME, October 10, 1970.

  “Zeppelin III Is Pure Magic”: Chris Welch, “Zeppelin III Is Pure Magic,” MM, October 10, 1970.

  He didn’t take criticism: “Jimmy was always touchy about reviews. The guy was thin-skinned.” Chris Charlesworth interview.

  “I got really brought down”: JP, quoted in Pete Frame, “Getting to the Bottom of the Page,” ZigZag, December 1972.

  “We were so far ahead”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 117.

  “I felt a lot better”: JP, quoted in Dave Schulps, Trouser Press interview, Part 3, p. 18.

  “squirming fans and frustrated musicians”: Pete Cain, “New Acoustic Material Disappoints Led Zep Freaks,” Rock, October 11, 1970.

  “Some places, it’s been a bit”: JP, quoted in Allan Rinde, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Jimmy Page (but Were Afraid to Ask),” Rock, October 11, 1970.

  “Zep had to plug back in”: Rinde, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know.”

  “He was not a guy”: Janine Safer Whitney, interview with the author, April 2, 2019.

  “I’d go abroad on these tours”: JP, quoted in Nick Kent, “Bring It On Home,” Q Special Edition: Led Zeppelin, March 2003, p. 139.

  “Bonzo was getting drunk”: Henry Smith interview.

  “You do that again”: Peter Grant, quoted in Henry Smith interview.

  “This bloke has invited us”: JB, quoted in Dave Pegg, interview with the author, November 28, 2018.

  Chapter Ten: Invoking and Being Invocative

  by November 1, 1970: “Top LPs,” Billboard, October 31, 1970.

  “It was a pretty extreme change”: JP, quoted in Mylett, Jimmy Page, p. 24.

  “great misunderstood genius”: John Ingham, Sounds, March 13, 1976.

  “I read Magick”: “It wasn’t for some years till I understood what it was all about.” JP, quoted in Mylett, Jimmy Page, p. 70.

  “The thing is to come”: Mick Houghton, “Zeus of Zeppelin: An Interview with Jimmy Page,” Circus, October 12, 1976. “He encouraged people to ask what they really want out of life and encouraged them to do it.” JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 170.

  “there would be nothing”: Aleister Crowley, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (Waccabuc, NY: Appledore Books, 1969), p. 82.

  “a male child of perfect innocence”: Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice by the Master Therion (Paris: Lecram, 1929), p. 166.

  “Jimmy was obsessed”: Jim McCarty, interview with the author, September 12, 2019.

  On early tours with Led Zeppelin: Joe Wright, interview with the author, November 28, 2018.

  “bad vibes . . . suicides”: JP, quoted in Cameron Crowe, “The Durable Led Zeppelin,” Rolling Stone, March 13, 1975.

  “find black swans”: Carole Brown Woods, email to the author, November 19, 2019.

  “There’s really no format”: JPJ, quoted in Caroline Boucher, “Zeppelin Shoots at the Gasbags,” Disc, December 12, 1970.

  “we were drained”: “We had done so much in such a short space of time.” JB, blind-quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 179.

  His weight had ballooned: “Peter was twenty-seven stone.” Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 179.

  His ungainly size: Welch, Peter Grant, p. 93.

  “We were in this luxury estate”: Sherry Coulson, quoted in Blake, Bring It On Home, p. 96.

  “A London record distributor”: Richard Williams, “Led Zeppelin Hammer Bootlegs,” MM, October 3, 1970.

  “radio transmitters that picked up”: Peter Grant, quoted in 24 Hours, BBC-TV, August 4, 1971, broadcast, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6EwxH1hrcM.

  “the Bootleg King”: 24 Hours.

  “Have you got the Led Zeppelin”: Peter Grant, quoted by Mickie Most in Welch, Peter Grant, p. 98.

  “threw the records all over”: Peter Grant, quoted in Blake, Bring It On Home, p. 93.

  “I would step on anyone”: Peter Grant, quoted in Phil Sutcliffe, “Trampled Underfoot,” Q Special Edition: Led Zeppelin, March 2003, p. 40.

  “between $150,000 and $200,000”: Peter Grant, quoted in 24 Hours.

  “In Germany, the situation is terrible”: Chris Charlesworth, “Bootlegs,” MM, October 1970.

  “for inspiration”: Henry Smith, interview with the author, October 25, 2019.

  “He was my senior”: RP, quoted in Nigel Williamson, “Good Times, Bad Times,” Uncut, May 2005, p. 56.

  “It was the first time”: JP, quoted in Phil Sutcliffe, “Back to Nature,” Q Special Edition: Led Zeppelin, March 2003, p. 35.

  “We were like a marriage”: JP, quoted in Nigel Williamson, “Forget the Myths,” Uncut, May 2005, p. 70.

  Jimmy had been struggling: “I’d written the music over a long period, the first part coming at Bron-yr-Aur one night.” JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 115.

  He’d been compiling demos: “I’d been recording demos on a home unit called a New Vista, the deck from the Pye [Records] mobile.” JP, quoted in Lewis, Led Zeppelin: Celebration II, p. 25.

  “I’d been fooling around”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 146.

  “To have a piece”: JP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 237.

  “Something that would have drums”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 147.

  “this great sort of orgasm”: JP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 237.

  just drums, acoustic guitar: Andy Johns, quoted in Popoff, Led Zeppelin, p. 105.

  “an immediate imposition”: RP, quoted in Caroline Boucher, “Robert Plant Interview,” Disc, February 1970.

  “We’ve done a good deal”: JPJ, interviewed in Disc, 1970, blind-quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 69.

  “It seemed ideal”: JP, blind-quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 79.

  “The idea was to create”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 142.

  fresh from its sessions: “I had just done Sticky Fingers with the Stones, and we’d used the mobile unit on that.” Andy Johns, interviewed in Guitar World, July 1986.

  “develop material and record it”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 144.

  “It was cold and damp”: JPJ, blind-quoted in Lewis, Led Zeppelin: Celebration II, p. 21.

  “There was stuffing coming out”: Andy Johns, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 158.

  During an early jam: Transcript of recorded outtakes, Dave Lewis, Led Zeppelin: A Celebration (London: Omnibus Press, 1991), p. 20.

  “One track is a long”: “I recall Page and I listening to Electric Mud at the time.” JPJ, quoted in Dave Lewis, “Anchor Man: The Ultimate John Paul Jones Interview,” Tight but Loose, December 2003.

  “didn’t end when you thought”: JPJ, quoted in Mat Snow, “John Paul Jones: The Quiet One,” Mojo, December 2007.

  “I then suggested that we build”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 145.

  “was actually phrased as three”: JPJ, quoted in Susan Fast, In the Houses of the Holy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 123.

  “You know, they just played it”: RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 114.

  “Bonzo was playing”: JP, quoted in Tobler and Grundy, Guitar Greats, p. 105.

  “it didn’t come off”: “We tried approaching it different ways.” JP, quoted in Lewis, Led Zeppelin: From a Whisper to a Scream, p. 86.

  “If the track isn’t happening”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 144.

  “playing this right-handed”: Don Brewer, quoted in Jon Bream, Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin (Minneapolis: Voyageur, 2008), p. 103.

  “It actually ground to a halt”: JP, quoted in Dave Schulps, Trouser Press interview, Part 3, p. 19.

  “the most intuitive player”: Glyn Johns, interview with the author, May 18, 2018.

  “just started improvising”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 145.

  “It wasn’t an intellectual thing”: RP, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 182.

  “If you chaps bring cocaine”: “I thought cocaine was the drug of the devil.” Andy Johns, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 163.

  “led him down that path”: Glyn Johns interview.

  “One night I came downstairs”: “He always had loads of different instruments lying around.” JP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 239; Lewis, Led Zeppelin: Celebration II, p. 22.

  “started moving my fingers”: JP, quoted in Schulps, Trouser Press interview, Part 3, p. 19.

  “a dance around the maypole”: JP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 114.

  Andy Johns slapped a microphone: “I put a microphone on him, Robert started singing, and we had this amazing track out of nothing.” Andy Johns, interviewed in Guitar World, 1993.

  “I’d been reading a book”: RP, quoted in Guitar World, 1993.

  They’d both listened incessantly: “That’s the music I play at home all the time, Joni Mitchell.” JP, quoted in Crowe, “Durable Led Zeppelin.”

  “When you’re in love”: RP, quoted in Crowe, “Durable Led Zeppelin,” pp. 115–16.

  “There are so many classics”: RP, quoted in Chris Charlesworth, “Robert Plant: Recording’s No Race for Us,” MM, February 8, 1975.

  “it sounded really labored”: “We tried ‘Levee’ in just an ordinary studio.” JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 205.

  “We’d been working on another song”: JPJ, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 107.

  “Bonzo has to stay behind”: “You’re always moaning about your drum sound.” Andy Johns, quoted in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 181.

  “Whoa! That’s it,”: JB, quoted in Lewis, Led Zeppelin: Celebration II, p. 24.

  “let’s do ‘Levee Breaks’”: JP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 247. “Hold on! Let’s try this one again.” JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 205.

  “Page had a few things”: JPJ, quoted in Popoff, Led Zeppelin, p. 104.

  “Both Jimmy and I”: JPJ, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 94.

  “a hysterical trill”: “There’s everything flying at that point.” JP, quoted in Salewicz, Jimmy Page, p. 234.

  “I was sitting with Jimmy”: RP, quoted in Stephen Demorest, “The Circus Magazine Interview—Robert Plant,” Circus, June 1975.

  “I was holding a pencil”: RP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 94.

  “as if I were being guided”: RP, quoted in Davis, LZ-75, p. 146.

  “While we were doing it”: JP, quoted in Schulps, Trouser Press interview, Part 3, p. 19.

  “Nobody’s quite sure”: JPJ, quoted in Popoff, Led Zeppelin, p. 104.

  “The lyrics were a cynical thing”: RP, quoted in Chris Welch, Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused (New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 2001), p. 66.

  “It’s like she can have”: RP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 96.

  “Somebody would start something”: JPJ, quoted in Popoff, Led Zeppelin, p. 104.

  “We really couldn’t have done”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 146.

  “I couldn’t get that to work”: “We probably would have kicked the track out.” JP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 112.

  “He had been to see”: JP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 242.

  Double Diamond pale ale: “He had a Double Diamond, picked up four sticks and we did it again.” JP, quoted in Tobler and Grundy, Guitar Greats, p. 105.

  “totally different tone color”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 146.

  “out of all the British girls”: RP, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 113.

  “there was never a struggle”: Andy Johns, quoted in Popoff, Led Zeppelin, p. 104.

  “Even in rehearsals, Jim”: Phil Carlo, interview with the author, May 12, 2019.

  “Sounds wonderful”: JB, quoted by Richard Digby-Smith in Hoskyns, Trampled, p. 183.

  “When he finally comes in”: Richard Digby-Smith, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 101.

  “I had the first phase”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, Light & Shade, p. 147.

  “He just leaned up against”: Richard Digby-Smith, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 100.

  “Robert, it’s your turn”: Andy Johns, quoted in Popoff, Led Zeppelin, p. 105.

  Not if Jimmy had anything: “The next album won’t be called LZIV. We’ll think of something else.” JP, interviewed by Caroline Boucher, Disc, February 1971.

  “a real dingy second-hand shop”: JP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 257.

  “the old being knocked down”: JP, quoted in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 257.

  “would make the whole thing”: JP, quoted in James Jackson, “JP on Led Zeppelin’s Good Times, Bad Times and Reunion Rumors,” The Times, January 8, 2010.

  “pretty bold”: “Things like releasing records with no information and no writing on the cover. I mean, that’s pretty bold.” Jack White, quoted in Hoskyns, Led Zeppelin IV, p. 124.

  “It actually comes from the idea”: JP, quoted in Brad Tolinski, “The Fab IV,” Guitar World, January 2002.

  “We wanted to demonstrate”: JP, quoted in Tolinski, “Fab IV.”

  “Each of us decided”: RP, quoted in Yorke, Led Zep, p. 111.

  “it represents courage”: JP quoted in ZigZag, Issue 28, February 1973.

  John Paul and Bonzo selected: Their signs appear on pp. 32 and 33, respectively, of Rudolph Koch, The Book of Signs (London: Limited Editions Club, 1930).

  “It’s just a doodle”: JP, quoted in Tobler and Grundy, Guitar Greats, p. 104.

  “My symbol was about invoking”: JP, quoted, in Wall, When Giants Walked the Earth, p. 262.

  “a graven image of energy”: Erik Davis, Led Zeppelin IV, (New York: Continuum, 2005), p. 44.