Trivia
» Many of the songs featured on the album were conceived in mid-1970 at Bron-Yr-Aur, an 18th century cottage in Gwynedd, Wales,
on a hilltop overlooking the Dyfi Valley, three miles north of the market town Machynlleth. There, Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant and guitarist
Jimmy Page spent some time after a concert tour of the United States to play and compose new music.
After the intense touring that had been taking place through the first two albums, working almost 24 hours a day, basically, we managed to stop
and have a proper break, a couple of months as opposed to a couple of weeks. We decided to go off and rent a cottage to provide a contrast to
motel rooms. Obviously, it had quite an effect on the material that was written ... It was the tranquility of the place that set the tone of the
album. Obviously, we weren't crashing away at 100 watt Marshall stacks. Having played acoustic and being interested in classical guitar, anyway,
being in a cottage without electricity, it was acoustic guitar time ... After all the heavy, intense vibe of touring which is reflected in the
raw energy of the second album, it was just a totally different feeling.
- Jimmy Page
[Bron-Yr-Aur] was a fantastic place in the middle of nowhere with no facilities at all-and it was a fantastic test of what we could do in that
environment. Because by that time we'd become obsessed with change, and the great thing was that we were also able to create a pastoral side of
Led Zep. Jimmy was listening to Davy Graham and Bert Jansch and was experimenting with different tunings, and I loved John Fahey. So it was a very
natural place for us to go to.
- Robert Plant
» After preparing the material that would emerge on the album, Page and Plant were joined by the other members of the band
(drummer John Bonham and bass player John Paul Jones) at Headley Grange, a run-down mansion in East Hampshire, to rehearse the songs. With its
relaxed atmosphere and rural surroundings, Headley Grange appealed to the band as the favoured alternative to the discipline of a conventional
studio.
» The album was then recorded in a series of sessions in May and June 1970 at both Headley Grange and at Olympic Studios,
London. Some additional work was put in at Island Records' new Basing Street Studios in Notting Hill, London, in July, then mixed at Ardent
Studios, Memphis in August 1970 during Led Zeppelin's sixth American concert tour. The album was produced by Page and engineered by Andy Johns
and Terry Manning.
» Led Zeppelin III was one of the most eagerly awaited albums of 1970.
» Advance orders in the United States alone were close to a million mark.
» Its release was trailered by a full page advertisement taken out in Melody Maker magazine at the end of September, which
simply said "
Thank you for making us the world's number one band."
» Led Zeppelin III's original vinyl edition was packaged in a gatefold sleeve with an innovative cover, designed by Zacron,
a multi-media artist whom Jimmy Page had met in 1963 whilst Zacron was a student at Kingston College of Art.[16] Zacron had recently resigned a
lectureship at Leeds Polytechnic to found Zacron Studios, and in 1970 Page contacted him and asked him to design the third album's cover.
The cover and interior gatefold art consisted of a surreal collection of seemingly random images on a white background, many of them connected
thematically with flight or aviation (as in "Zeppelin"). Behind the front cover was a rotatable laminated card disc, or volvelle, covered with
more images, including photos of the band members, which showed through holes in the cover. Moving an image into place behind one hole would
usually bring one or two others into place behind other holes. This could not be replicated on a conventional cassette or CD cover, but there have
been Japanese and British CDs packaged in miniature versions of the original sleeve. In France this album was released with a different album
cover, simply showing a photo of the four band members.
Thanks to Wikipedia
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