Pela was my first TV memory...This photo really sums up the Mod/Greaser rivalry in New Orleans back then. "Cats vs Frats!"
The John Pela Show
John Pela, holding microphone, on a steamboat-themed
set of WWL's 'The John Pela Show,' a televised new Orleans dance
program that started in 1959 as 'Saturday Hop.'
Airing every Saturday
through 1972, the show featured a different set every week to serve as a
backdrop to the cast of teens who showed up to dance to the latest pop
tunes.
Today, the series continues with a look at
"The John Pela Show."
THEN:
Elsewhere, "American Bandstand" was the TV
dance show for teens to watch in the late 1950s and into the '60s. But
in New Orleans it was all about "The John Pela Show," named after the
WWL-TV staff announcer who in 1961 took over hosting duties of the show
originally titled "Saturday Hop" -- and on whose watch the show became
must-see TV for local kids. Featuring a studio full of New Orleans
teenagers dancing to the latest pop hits, and with groovy,
era-appropriate graphics setting the mood, the live, hour long dance
party originated from the WWL studios every Saturday for some 15 years
and, once Pela took over, was consistently No. 1, both in viewers'
hearts and in the ratings books.
NOW:
In the early 1970s, Pela became WWL's radio
programmer, which left little time to prepare for the dance show. That's
when the decision was made in 1973 to pull the plug.
"People don't
realize the tedium involved," Pela said in a 1976 interview with The
Times-Picayune. "... Standing under those lights, waiting for 'the
moment of truth.' I'm probably getting older; I just didn't want to put
up with that any longer."
Pela retired from WWL in 1992 and moved over
to local PBS affiliate WLAE. He retired for good once he hit 70 and
moved to Sarasota, Fla.
TRI-via
"Saturday Hop" started around 1958 and was originally hosted by the
husband-and-wife team of Jack and Ann Elliott, who appeared on-screen as
Jack the Cat and Jackie the Kitten. They left the show in 1961 and were
replaced briefly by Bill Barry before Pela took the reins.
Before hosting "The John Pela Show," Pela appeared on the New
Orleans airwaves as a host of "Popeye and Pals" -- succeeding the
popular "Uncle Henry" Dupre -- and as the title character in the kid's
show "Captain Mercury."
Early in its run, the show's set was populated each week by students
from a different area high school. One week, when a rained-out football
game was rescheduled for Saturday -- at the same time as "The John Pela
Show" -- producers found themselves scrambling when nobody from that
week's school showed up. "That's when we made the decision to open the
show up to couples," Pela said in 1976. "That's when things went from
the sublime to the ridiculous; enormous crowds showed up."
A noteworthy moment in the show's history came about five years into
Pela's run, when longtime WWL General Manager Mike Early told Pela he
wanted to integrate the show's cast of dancers. Remembering that moment
on a 1990 episode of "The Angela Hill Show," Pela said he called up a
local priest who served a mixed congregation and asked if he knew of any
black kids who might be willing to help. He did, and just like that the
show became a party for everyone.
Every week, "The John Pela Show" featured a new set, built by WWL
production designer Juozas Bakshis and his team to reflect various
themes, such as holidays and seasons of the year, according to Dominic
Massa's book "Images of New Orleans Television."
A number of regulars often showed up to dance on the show, as well
as performers with the Hazel Romano and Tony Bevinetto dance schools,
which performed weekly choreographed numbers.
Before heading to Hollywood, local actress and comedian Rhonda Shear appeared as a dancer on "The John Pela Show."
By: Mike Scott, staff writer
Sources:The Times-Picayune archive; "Images of New Orleans Television," by Dominic Mass
Rhonda Honey Shear (born November 12, 1954) is an American
television personality, comedian, actress, and entrepreneur. She is best
known for her role as a host of the USA Network's weekend B-movie show, USA Up All Night in the 1990s. In 2001, she started an intimate apparel business that was marketed on Home Shopping Network,
with one of her most successful products being the Ahh Bra in 2010. She
is a regular participant in Tampa Bay's annual Fashion Week events.[1][2]
Shear earned titles in several beauty contests, including holding the titles of Miss Louisiana USA 1975 for Miss USA and that of Miss Louisiana for both the Miss World and the Miss International pageants.[4] Among her other titles was Queen of the Floral Trail Society. While she sported the latter title, she posed for a picture in Playboy magazine; though she was fully clothed in the photo, the organizers were opposed to her appearance and rescinded her title.[citation needed] Shear is best known for her role as a host of the USA Network's 1980s and '90s weekend B-movie show, USA Up All Night.
From 1991 to 1998, she hosted in-studio and on-location segments that
typically aired on Friday nights, replacing comedian Caroline Schlitt
(the Friday night host for the show's first few years). She also
occasionally hosted the show with her Saturday counterpart, Gilbert Gottfried,
in addition to making cameos on his edition. Her trademark manner of
speaking the show's title, by raising her voice an octave when saying
the word "Up", became a catch phrase. Shear also briefly hosted a comedy program called Spotlight Cafe on WWOR-TV in Secaucus, NJ, hosted previously by comic Judy Tenuta. Shear made two subsequent nude appearances in Playboy:
First, in their "Funny Girls" pictorial in June 1991, then in her own
pictorial titled "Rhonda Is Up All Night" in October 1993.[5] Shear also co-starred in numerous sitcoms from playing the Fonz's girlfriend on Happy Days to the sexy neighbor on Married... with Children,
before making her mark as a comedian. She then made her way into
stand-up comedy, headlining as a successful comedian in Las Vegas, Los
Angeles and New York, and eventually touring across the country with Comedy PJ Party, an on-stage slumber party featuring a number of comedians.[citation needed]
Entrepreneur career
In
2001, Shear, with her husband Van Fagan, started Shear Enterprises.
Shear began designing from her home office in 2003 with three employees,
and launched the Rhonda Shear Intimates line at HSN. Her products were picked up on shopping networks around the world, including The Shopping Channel (Canada) and Ideal World Shopping
(U.K.). Rhonda Shear Intimates has continued to grow and is now
represented in over 40 countries with over 25 employees in her St.
Petersburg, Florida offices. In 2010, Shear designed the Ahh Bra, and the product was an overnight
success. The Ahh Bra was the number-one selling bra worldwide with over
25 million sold internationally. In 2011 the company had 72 million
dollars in sales.[5] As of 2013, she has added cosmetics, swim wear, fragrance, and Boomer Hottie.[6] In 2014 a line of "intimates, athleisure and loungewear" was announced that was co-designed with Crystal Hefner, 2009 PlayboyPlaymate and wife of Hugh Hefner, to be sold through Hefner's website.[7] Shear has written a book titled Up All Night: From Hollywood Bombshell to Lingerie Mogul, Life Lessons from an Accidental Feminist, released in October 2017.[8]
Charity work
In
2011, Shear was the event chair and a sponsor for American Cancer
Society's Making Strides: Put on Your Pink Bra Event. Between speaking
engagements, creating a giant flying bra for the RedBull Flugtag, and
helping with fundraising events, Shear got the chance to meet with women
struggling in treatment or following surgery who needed bras that were
affordable, feminine, and comfortable. She was struck by their stories,
strength, and sense of community. Shear stays connected by donating
product every month to women's shelters around the country and
continuing her work nationwide with various charitable organizations
that fund research and empower women.[5]
Personal life
Shear married her childhood sweetheart Van Fagen, who works as her business partner in the Shear Enterprises.[9] They live in St. Petersburg, Florida.
i
forgot to promote this 2008 post about Elvis impersonator/not really,
extraordinaire, Jimmy Ellis, or as the world knows him, Orion.
i
journeyed out in the LA country to see him live when i was 18, and he
changed my life.
this excavation all came about from a link which James
Barber posted to a podcast which i had never listened to before, called
Cocaine and Rhinestones, thoroughly researched by some young kid and
including a long photo-filled post like this: https://cocaineandrhinestones.com/shelby-singleton-harper-v…
anyway, here's my historacy of Orion--his violent death and unorthodox
life (including tons of weird pictures, most of which i made, no longer
supported online but still viable here).
Gary and Kay at the premiere of the "Great Balls of Fire" movie in New York City.
Gary,
I feel bereft after 50+ years of friendship to lose you with no clue
that it would be over like this. We will miss your amazing humor and
warmth. We had some low points, but the high points far outweighed
those.
I hope the Rev. Gary Skala has been welcomed in heaven and that
you are reaping a vast reward for all your good deeds on Earth.
I've
always loved you and will miss you forever.
Kay Martin
November 23, 2012 | Brooklyn, NY
Kay Martin's
loving tribute to Jerry Lee Super-Fan and beautiful human being, Gary
Skala.
For those of you who may not have known him, Gary was traveling
the globe and collecting memorabilia (including at this pictured GBOF
premiere, where I now remember meeting him and Kay--i was there with
Linda Gail), eventually becoming family to the Lewis Family as well as
mentor to the other friends and fans like me until his untimely death in
2012.
Kay has just told me that he willed all of his JLL collection to
Phoebe where it will be safe, and for what we all should hope will be
the eventual archive and museum for Jerry Lee Lewis someday
soon.
Gary
SKALA passed away in Islip, New York. Funeral Home Services for Gary
are being provided by Overton Funeral Home, Inc.. The obituary was
featured in…
"The key to Led Zeppelin's longevity has always been change," Jimmy Page proclaimed in 1975.
This restless sprite enthralled some fans and infuriated others,
specifically the type who preferred that the band remain on one sonic
plane. Moving past the high-octane thunder of the gods found on their
early albums, the folksy Celtic mysticism of Led Zeppelin III and the megalithic rock of Led Zeppelin IV, 1973's Houses of the Holy sounds very much like a band gleefully pondering limitless possibilities.
Refusing to be cowed by global success, Zeppelin followed their muse
wherever it led them, experimenting with unfamiliar genres – as on the
reggae-influenced "D'Yer Mak'er" and the playfully funky "The Crunge" –
and even forging a few new ones (see: the unassailable "No Quarter").
It's the first Led Zeppelin album to consist solely of original
material, and it documented how their songwriting had graduated far
beyond aped-up blues retreads and guitar pyrotechnics. "Houses of the Holy was a very inspired time," Plant reflected in 1991. "There was a lot of imagination on that record."
On its 45th anniversary, here are 10 things you might not know about Led Zeppelin's fifth album.
1. "The Song Remains the Same" was originally an instrumental track called "The Overture."
The
album opens with a triumphant, Page-led processional befitting Led
Zeppelin's status as rock royalty. The guitarist structured the song as
an intricate mini-suite, contrasting bombastic slashes of suspended
chords (reminiscent of his 1967 Yardbirds cut "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier,
Sailor") with delicate acoustic elements. Presented to the band under
the working title of "Worcester And Plumpton Races" – an inside
reference to his and Plant's respective estates – "The Song Remains the
Same" was first performed during Zeppelin's tour of Japan in October
1972, when it was introduced from the stage
alternately as "The Campaign," "The Overture" and sometimes just "Zep."
Its final name would come from Plant's lyrics, distilling wisdom
acquired during the band's lengthy time on the road. "Every time I sing
['The Song Remains the Same'], I just picture the fact that I've been
round and round the world, and at the root of it all there's a common
denominator for everybody," he told NME in 1973. "The common denominator is what makes it good or bad, whether it's a Led Zeppelin or an Alice Cooper."
2. George Harrison provided inspiration for "The Rain Song," after complaining about the band's repertoire.
George
Harrison was enormously supportive of Led Zeppelin, even putting in a
guest appearance at John Bonham's 25th birthday party in 1973 – where he
affectionately flung cake at the man of honor's head. (Bonzo flung him
into the pool for his troubles.) Following one of the band's marathon
three-hour concerts in Los Angeles, a suitably impressed Harrison warmly
greeted Zeppelin backstage by exclaiming, "Fuck me! With the Beatles we
were on for 25 minutes and could get off in 15!" But for all of his
compliments, the so-called quiet Beatle was apparently disappointed by
Zep's dearth of quiet numbers. "George was talking to Bonzo one evening
and said, 'The problem with you guys is that you never do ballads,'"
Page told biographer Brad Tolinski. "I said, 'I'll give him a ballad,'
and I wrote 'Rain Song,' which appears Houses of the Holy. In
fact, you'll notice I even quote 'Something' in the song's first two
chords." He fleshed the out the song in his Plumpton home studio, which
was partially comprised of the Pye Mobile Studio unit used for the Who's
Live at Leeds album in 1970. Aware that this new composition
didn't exactly live up to the console's hard rocking pedigree, he gave
it the sarcastic working title of "Slush."
For Plant, who
contributed lyrics, "The Rain Song" was emblematic of the "ethereal"
output yielded by his partnership with Page. "Sometimes we have backing
tapes of tracks worked out and somebody goes, 'Well, we got no bloody
lyrics,'" Plant told Rolling Stone.
"'The Rain Song' was just sort of a little infatuation I had. The next
morning I'd scribble it out. If I had done it the day after, it would
have been no good." He would retain a fondness for the track throughout
the years, citing it as one of his favorites in a 2005 interview.
"I'd say that on 'Rain Song' I sounded best. I'd reached a point where I
knew that to get good I couldn't repeat myself. The high falsetto
screams had become quite a kind of calling card."
3. Eddie Kramer was invited back as Director of Engineering, despite a nasty fight over Indian food.Though
Page is nominally listed as producer on all of the band's albums, his
partnership with virtuoso recording engineer Eddie Kramer on 1969's Led Zeppelin II helped forge a crucial component of the band's early sound. But relations became strained after the sessions for Led Zeppelin III the following year. "With Zeppelin, it became a battle, because they started to come into studio with such an attitude," Kramer recalled in 2003.
Things reached a breaking point at Electric Lady – the New York
creative lab he had designed with Jimi Hendrix – when Zeppelin trashed
the studio in quite possibly the least rock & roll way imaginable.
"The band ordered some Indian food and a whole bunch of it spilled on
the floor," Kramer said. "I asked the roadies to please clean it up. The
studio was brand new and I had a lot of pride in it. Suddenly [Led
Zeppelin] are yelling, 'You don't tell our roadies what to do!' And they
pulled out; they left, and I didn't speak to them for about a year!"
Kramer was not involved in 1971's Led Zeppelin IV,
but as work began on their fifth album, Page decided to bring him back
into the fold. According to the engineer, the prior confrontation was
water under the bridge: "They called back and asked me to record them
again as if nothing had happened."
4. The foundation of the album was recorded at Mick Jagger's country home, Stargroves.
Beginning
with their third release in 1970, Led Zeppelin sought to escape the
drab confines of traditional recording studios by spending a portion of
their album sessions holed up at an intimate rural estate. It was an
idea borrowed from the Band, who had a communal home near Bob Dylan's
upstate retreat in Woodstock, New York. "I didn't know exactly how the
Band had recorded their Music from Big Pink album or The Basement Tapes, but the rumor was they were done in a house they had rented," Page explained in Guitar World.
"I didn't know for sure if they had, but I liked the idea. I thought it
was definitely worth a shot to actually go someplace and really live
it, rather than visiting a studio and going home. I wanted to see what
would happen if all we did was have this one thing in sight – making
music and just really living the experience of it."
Page's getaway of choice had been Headley Grange, a country pile in Hampshire that had served the band well during sessions for LedZeppelin III and IV.
But finding it unavailable in the spring of 1972, the Zeppelin
contingent set up house at Stargroves, Mick Jagger's manor in nearby
East Woodhay. Purchased by the singer in 1970 for £55,000 from a local
aristocrat, the home had been used by the Rolling Stones to record
tracks for Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers, and recently rented by the Who during sessions for Who's Next.
When Zep unloaded in May 1972, they aimed to fully utilize the diverse
spaces. "It sounded wonderful because you could get this amazing
variable acoustic in each room with drums in the conservatory, which is
where we put Bonham," remembered Kramer.
"Then, of course, Jimmy's amp could be stuck in a fireplace and stick a
microphone down it, all that sort of thing. It was just the ability to
be able to change the sound without going anywhere."
The engineer
oversaw proceedings from his vantage point in the Rolling Stones' very
own mobile recording truck, which was parked in the driveway.
Occasionally he would throw open the back doors and treat the band to an
alfresco playback. "I can remember, Bonzo, Plant, Page and Jones out on
the lawn listening to playbacks of 'D'yer Mak'er and 'Dancing Days' all
walking like Groucho Marx in sync, with back steps and forward steps in
time to the music, just like kids." While many of the tracks were
completed at Electric Lady and London's Olympic Studios, the time at
Stargroves captured the freewheeling creativity found on the final
album. "When we first went down there, we had no set ideas," Page told
biographer Ritchie Yorke. "We just recorded the ideas each one of us had
at that particular time. It was simply a matter of getting together and
letting it come out."
5. The title of "D'Yer Mak'er" is derived from an old music-hall joke.
Few songs in the Led Zeppelin canon are as divisive –
even within the band itself – as this reggae-esque romp. Equally
divisive is the pronunciation of the title, which many of the
uninitiated (much to Robert Plant's amusement) articulate as "Dear
Maker," believing it to have quasi-spiritual overtones. Instead, the
playful track takes its name from an old British music-hall joke with a
groan-worthy punch line. "My wife's gone to the West Indies," begins the
exchange. "D'you make her?" (Rendered "Jamaica?" by a thick Cockney
accent.) "No, she went of her own accord." Pause for laughter.
The
song formed during a lighthearted moment at the end of the session that
produced the album's opener. "We had just laid down 'The Song Remains
the Same,' which is a real belter," Plant told Zig Zag in 1973.
"It was about 5 a.m. and I had been hoping for a long time to do
something like ['D'yer Mak'er']. ... It was born then and there." The
original intent had to been to do a reggae pastiche mixed with
early-Sixties pop melodrama, but Bonham's colossal drums steered the
song in another direction entirely. "John was interested in everything
except jazz and reggae," Jones explained.
"He didn't hate jazz but he hated playing reggae – he thought it was
really boring. When we did 'D'yer Mak'er' he wouldn't play anything but
the same shuffle beat all the way through it. He hated it, and so did I.
It would have been all right if he had worked at the part – the whole
point of reggae is that the drums and bass really have to be very strict
about what they play. And he wouldn't, so it sounded dreadful."
Despite
the rhythm section's obvious dislike of the song, Plant's enthusiasm
resulted in the decision to release "D'yer Mak'er" as a U.S. single in
September 1973, paired with "The Crunge." Though Page later admitted
that it was a "self-indulgent" move to release tracks he described as
"send-ups" and "a giggle," he was wholly unprepared for the outpouring
of antipathy towards the tune. Even a liner-note shout-out to Rosie and
the Originals, who recorded the slow ballad "Angel Baby" in 1960, failed
to point fans in the right stylistic direction. "I didn't expect people
not to get it," a bemused Page told writer Dave Schulps. "I thought it
was pretty obvious. The song itself was a cross between reggae and a
Fifties number; 'Poor Little Fool,' Ben E. King's things, stuff like
that."
But Jones' view of the number failed to improve with time.
He tactfully described it as "not my favorite song" in a 1991 interview
with Alan di Perna. "It makes me cringe a bit. It started off as a
joke, really ... but I wasn't happy with the way it turned out. Robert
really liked it, [but] even in a band, people have different opinions
about the songs."
6. "The Crunge" offers a loving parody of James Brown.
Zeppelin's funky diversion on Houses of the Holy
rivals "D'yer Ma'ker" as a top argument-starter among the band's
faithful. The two songs share a similar backstory: Each was born from an
impromptu studio jam and kicked into a new direction by Bonham's
distinctive drum patterns. "Bonzo would dictate an unusual time
signature when we'd be writing, or in a jam he would come up with
something," Jones told Musician's Matt Resnicoff. "Or again, he
would start a riff that was strange, unusual, or just interesting. 'The
Crunge' was like that." In this case, the drummer chose a
far-from-standard 9/8 time signature. "It's got that extra half beat,
which was a brilliant, brilliant thing," said Page. The syncopated pulse
brought to mind a stiffly wound guitar lick that Page had been toying
with since 1970. "Bonzo started the groove on 'The Crunge', then Jonesy
started playing that descending bass line and I just came in on the
rhythm," he told Guitar World. "I played a Strat on that one – I wanted to get that tight James Brown feel."
When
it came time to add the vocals, Plant took a further cue from the
Godfather of Soul. Since many of Brown's sessions were recorded with few
rehearsals, his mid-song instructions to the band became something of a
trademark. With this in mind, the Zeppelin singer initially sought to
do his own distinctly British take on these spoken-word breakdowns.
"Bonzo and I were going to go in the studio and talk 'Black Country'
through the whole thing," Plant said.
"Like, 'Aah bloody hell, how you doin' you all right mate?'" The idea
was ultimately elbowed, as was a plan to include steps to a non-existent
dance (called "The Crunge," naturally) in the liner notes. The final
track still maintained its JB flair, from the loose studio vérité
opening (Page can be heard conversing with engineer George Chkiantz) to
Plant's patter. "I love all that James Brown stuff Robert does about
taking it to the bridge, because of course there is no bridge in this
track," Kramer tells Team Rock. "Hence the in-joke ending: 'Where's that confounded bridge?'"
The
band performed a special version of the song during dates at the L.A.
Forum in March 1975, coupling it with a cover of Brown's "Sex Machine."
In contrast to "D'yer Mak'er," Jones maintains a strong affection for
the Houses of the Holy Side One closer. "'The Crunge' is brilliant – very tight, really, when you think about it. It's one of my favorites."
7. The cover shoot was a 10-day slog for two young siblings.The striking cover photo for Houses of the Holy
depicts a horde of unnaturally hued feral children making their way up
an ancient incline of geometric stones, evoking the band's fascination
with the supernatural and science fiction in equal measure. Inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey author Arthur C. Clarke's book Childhood's End,
in which children climb off the edge of the world, the surreal image
was created by the design team Hipgnosis, whose instantly memorable art
for the likes of Pink Floyd, T. Rex and ELO made them a favorite among
the early Seventies rock elite.
"One day, the phone rang, and it's Jimmy Page," Hipgnosis co-founder Aubrey "Po" Powell told Rolling Stone in 2017. "He said, 'I've seen an album cover that you've done for a band called Wishbone Ash,' which was Argus.
'Would you like to do something for Led Zeppelin?'" The guitarist would
not make it easy on them, refusing to offer a proposed title, a hint of
their music, or even a glimpse of a lyric. "Very Jimmy – very esoteric
and weird. He said, 'Meet me in three weeks, and come up with some
ideas. You know the kind of band we are.'" Unfortunately, the
collaboration got off to a bumpy start when Powell's partner, Storm
Thorgerson, accidentally offended Page with one of his cover concepts.
"[He] came in carrying this picture of an electric green tennis court
with a tennis racquet on it," Page recalled in Guitar World. "I
said, 'What the hell does that have to do with anything?' And he said,
'Racket – don't you get it?' I said, 'Are you trying to imply that our
music is a racket? Get out!' We never saw him again. ... That was a
total insult – racket. He had some balls!"
Luckily Powell was able
to smooth things over and present other ideas. One involved carving the
band's "ZoSo" symbols into the Nazca lines in Peru ("Which I don't
think would have gone down too well with the Peruvian authorities,"
Powell would later admit). Instead they opted to shoot at the geological
formation known as Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. Rather than
flying in a crush of children, Hipgnosis brought just two – a pair of
young siblings named Samantha and Stefan Gates, aged seven and five
respectively. "We stayed in this little guesthouse near the Giant's
Causeway," remembered Stefan,
who grew up to become a popular television personality in the UK. "I've
heard people saying they put wigs on several children. But there was
only me and my sister and that's our real hair. I used to love being
naked when I was that age so I didn't mind. I'd whip off my clothes at
the drop of a hat and run around having a great time, so I was in my
element." His sister's memories of the 10-day excursion were markedly
less sunny. "I remember the shoot really clearly, mainly because it was
freezing cold and rained the whole time," she told The Daily Mail in
2007. "We were naked in a lot of the modeling shoots we did, nothing
was thought of it back then. You probably couldn't get away with that
now."
The inclement weather created more problems than just
discomfort. "It poured rain for a week, and I couldn't shoot the
photograph," Powell explains. "So I said, 'OK, I'm going to create a
collage in black and white, all made out of children.'" The original
plan had been for their bodies to be colored gold and silver, but the
grey sky made them appear as washed-out white figures, making it
necessary to hand tint the photo. The painstaking retouching process
took two months, forcing the band to push the album's release date back
from January to March. With Zeppelin's formidable manager Peter Grant
breathing down their neck, Hipgnosis couldn't afford to delay when the
airbrush artist accidentally gave the children a purple tinge. "I first
saw it, I said, 'Oh, my God.' Then we looked at it, and I said, 'Hang on
a minute, this has an otherworldly quality,'" says Powell.
"So we left it as it was." He presented the final product to Page and
Grant in the trunk of his car following a Zeppelin concert. "We're
standing there, and Jimmy's Jimmy, cigarette in his mouth, smoking
profusely, long hair everywhere, still dressed in his stage outfit.
About 200 people had gathered around the car looking at the artwork. It
was surreal. And I got a round of applause from all the people in the
station."
8.A title track was originally recorded, but ultimately bumped from the album.
Bucking the style of their previous albums, Led Zeppelin
gave their fifth full-length a name consisting of more than roman
numerals and/or cryptic symbols. Houses of the Holy took its
title from a song Page had composed, with lyrics that honor both
"sacred" places of teenage communion – including movie theaters,
drive-ins and even concert arenas – as well as the expanse of the human
soul. "It's about all of us being houses of the Holy Spirit, in a
sense," he revealed in a 2014 interview on Sirius XM.
The track had been recorded and mixed during sessions at Electric Lady
Studios in June 1972, but ironically it was cut from the album that bore
its name. Apparently the group felt the number too closely resembled
the mid-tempo strut of "Dancing Days" and instead held the song for
their next album, the 1975 double disc Physical Graffiti.
9. The accompanying tour saw the band hiring their famed private jet, the Starship.
Led Zeppelin's 1973 North American tour smashed
attendance records, even besting the Beatles' legendary Shea Stadium gig
after 56,800 fans crammed into Tampa Stadium on May 5th to watch Page,
Plant, Jones and Bonham perform selections of their latest work. Now the
undisputed conquering heroes of rock, the band needed a ride to match.
To avoid the hassle of changing hotels daily, they decided to base
themselves in a handful of major cities and charter a plane to ferry
them to and from their nightly gigs. Journalist Chris Charlesworth, a
member of the touring entourage, recalls watching roadies meet the band
with "big red bathrobes ready to wear as they came offstage. They'd
scoop 'em up after the encore and whisk them away to the airport while
the crowd were still at the stadium cheering for more." Never the most
enthusiastic flyers, Zeppelin found their first craft, a Falcon 20
business jet, cramped and uncomfortable. When a bad bout of turbulence
threatened to knock the plane out of the sky following the penultimate
show of the tour's first leg, they decided to jettison the Falcon for
good. Peter Grant tasked tour manager Richard Cole with finding a new
plane, demanding he spare no expense for opulence and safety – in that
order.
The
Starship met that brief a thousand times over. A former United Airlines
Boeing 720B, the vehicle had been purchased by teen idol Bobby Sherman
and his manager Ward Sylvester earlier in the decade, and the pair had
spent more than $200,000 transforming the 138-seat passenger jet into
what Cole aptly described as "a fucking flying gin palace." The
amenities included an overstuffed couch that ran the length of the
plane, a fully-loaded brass bar boasting a built in electric organ, a
state of the art Sony U-matic video player stocked with everything from
Marx Brothers' comedies to the latest porn, a separate drawing room with
a faux baronial fireplace, and a private master suite complete with
shower and a waterbed bedecked in white fur. ("There was a placard
saying the bed couldn't be occupied during takeoff or landing," Sylvester remembered.)
The
dutiful road manager shelled out $30,000 for a three-week lease of the
Starship, plus flight costs of $2,500 an hour. After some crucial
customizations were made – like having "Led Zeppelin" painted on the
fuselage – the craft was presented to the band at Chicago's O'Hare
airport on July 6th. Even Hugh Hefner's private jet, parked nearby,
paled in comparison. "We weren't the only band that had its own plane," noted Page, "but we were the only ones that had a grown-up plane."
While
the Starship later played host to Elton John, the Allman Brothers, the
Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, and Peter Frampton, tales of
Zeppelin's inflight debauchery set the standard. Hanger-ons were content
to sprawl on revolving armchairs in the clubroom, sometimes serenaded
by Jones playing pub favorites like "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of
Coconuts" on the organ, but members of the inner circle were permitted
access to the bedroom in the aft-quarters for "horizontal takeoff."
(Plant once claimed his favorite memory of the plane was "oral sex during turbulence.")
Food and booze were served by two young flight attendants, Bianca and
Suzee, who took their tips in the form of rolled-up hundred-dollar bills
coated in white powder. They certainly deserved a little extra for
keeping some of the more rambunctious band members in line. "John Bonham
once tried to open the plane's door over Kansas City because he had to
pee," Suzee told the New York Times in 2003. The drummer also
developed a passion for riding in cockpit, where the line between
passenger and pilot became blurred. "He flew us all the way from New
York to L.A. once," Grant once related to Charlesworth, "He ain't got a license, mind ..."
10. Rolling Stone was not kind to the album upon its release.Contemporary critics were unsure what to make of Houses of the Holy
when it was issued in March 1973. The album was met with middling
reviews, many of which claimed that Zeppelin had strayed too far from
the full throttle rock of their earlier albums. "Plant and Page are
strangely sluggish and vacant, exploding only occasionally on 'Dancing
Days' and 'The Rain Song,'" read an article in the Disc & Echo. "On two or three listens, Houses of the Holy comes over as an inconsistent work." Even Chris Welch, representing the ordinarily pro-Zep outlet Melody Maker, gave the thumbs down, trumpeting "Zeppelin lose their way."
However, it was Rolling Stone that delivered some of the most brutal blows. The magazine's critics were never the most fervent supporters of the band, but Gordon Fletcher's review in the June 7th, 1973, issue reached new levels of verbal savagery. "Houses of the Holy
is one of the dullest and most confusing albums I've heard this year,"
he declared – a stunning admission from the glory days of prog rock. He
then moved on to target each band member individually for their
perceived shortcomings. "Jimmy Page's guitar spits jagged fireballs with
John Paul Jones and John Bonham riffing along behind him, but the
effect is destroyed by ridiculous backup cooings and an overbearing
'killer' coda that's so blatant it can only be taken as a mock of
straight rock & roll." He reserves special scorn for the pair of
"naked imitations" – "The Crunge" and "D'yer Mak'er" – which he
dismisses as "easily the worst things this band has ever attempted."
Even the tracks that manage to avoid chasing "rock's latest fad" serve
only to highlight the "songwriting deficiencies" of Page & Co.
"Their earliest successes came when they literally stole blues licks
note for note, so I guess it should have been expected that there was
something drastically wrong with their own material." In closing, he
urges the band to stick to their "blues-rock" roots. "Until they do, Led
Zeppelin will remain Limp Blimp."
Four decades later, Rolling Stone’s Kory Grow
had a chance to revisit the album for the deluxe reissue in 2014. He
proved more tolerant of the band's desire to expand their creative
palette. "Decades of classic-rock radio saturation have made some of
these songs canon," he writes, "but when put in the context between Led
Zeppelin's fourth record and the double-LP deep dive that was Physical Graffiti, they reveal a band eager for change."
