Notes

---

Released 31 March 1976
Recorded November 1975, Musicland Studios, Munich, Germany

Singles from Presence

1. "Candy Store Rock/Royal Orleans"
Released: 18 June 1976

Background

This album was conceived after singer Robert Plant sustained serious injuries from a car accident on the Greek island of Rhodes on 5 August 1975, which forced the band to cancel a proposed world tour which was due to commence on 23 August 1975. At this point, Led Zeppelin were arguably at the height of their popularity. Plant recalled: "I was lying there in some pain trying to get cockroaches off the bed and the guy next to me, this drunken soldier, started singing "The Ocean" from Houses of the Holy."

During a convalescent period on the Channel Island of Jersey and in Malibu, California, Plant wrote some lyrics, and when guitarist Jimmy Page joined him at Malibu, these compositions were fleshed out. The two prepared enough material for rehearsals to begin at Hollywood's SIR Studio, where drummer John Bonham and bass player John Paul Jones joined them.

After a month of rehearsals, the album was recorded in just eighteen days at Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany, with Plant in a wheelchair. This was the fastest recording turnaround time achieved by the band since their début album. The rushed recording sessions were in part a result of Led Zeppelin having booked the studio immediately prior to The Rolling Stones, who were shortly to record songs for their album Black and Blue. Upon their arrival, the Rolling Stones were amazed that Led Zeppelin's album had indeed been completed (both recorded and mixed) in a mere eighteen days. Jimmy Page had simply stayed awake for two days straight to perform all of the guitar overdubs.

In an interview he gave to Guitar World magazine in 1998, Page stated that he worked an average of 18 to 20 hours a day during the mixing period at Musicland Studios: "[A]fter the band finished recording all its parts, me and the engineer, Keith Harwood, just started mixing until we would fall asleep. Then whoever would wake up first would call the other and we'd go back in and continue to work until we passed out again."

The recording sessions for Presence were also particularly challenging for Plant. The studio was in a basement of an old hotel, and the singer felt claustrophobic. He also experienced physical difficulties as a result of his car accident, and missed his family. He later explained: "I spent the whole process in a wheelchair, so physically I was really frustrated. I think my vocal performance on it is pretty poor. It sounds tired and strained. The saving grace of the album was "Candy Store Rock" and "Achilles Last Stand". The rhythm section on that it was so inspired ... I was furious with Page and [band manager] Peter Grant. I was just furious that I couldn't get back to the woman and the children that I loved. And I was thinking, is all this rock'n'roll worth anything at all?"


Composition

Six of the seven songs on the album are Page and Plant compositions; the remaining song being credited to all four band members. This can be explained by the fact that the majority of the songs were formulated at Malibu, where Page (but not Bonham and Jones) had initially joined a recuperating Plant.[1] With Plant at less than full fitness, Page took responsibility for the album's completion, and his playing and production dominate the album's tracks.

Both Page and Plant had planned this album's recording session as a return to hard rock, much like their debut album, except at a new level of complexity. It marked a change in the Led Zeppelin sound towards more straightforward, guitar-based jams. Whereas their previous albums contain electric hard rock anthems balanced with acoustic ballads and intricate arrangements, Presence was seen to include more simplified riffs, and is Led Zeppelin's only studio album that features neither acoustic tracks nor keyboards (almost buried in the mix, a lone acoustic guitar can be heard on "Candy Store Rock").

The changed stylistic emphasis on this album was a direct result of the troubled circumstances experienced by the band around the time of its recording. As Page said at the time: "I think it was just a reflection of the total anxiety and emotion of that period. There's a hell of a lot of spontaneity about that album. We went in with virtually nothing and everything just came pouring out."

Plant expressed similar views, stating: "It was really like a cry of survival. There won't be another album like it, put it like that. It was a cry from the depths, the only thing that we could do."

In contrast to earlier albums which contained several tracks that the band chose to play live at Led Zeppelin concerts, only two tracks from Presence were played in full on stage while the band was active. "Achilles Last Stand" and "Nobody's Fault but Mine" were added to the setlist for the 1977 tour of the United States and stayed through the band's final concerts in 1980. Some of the guitar solo from "Tea for One" was also incorporated into "Since I've Been Loving You" in these shows, but the actual song was never performed live until the Page and Plant tour of Japan in 1996, where it received three airings backed by an orchestra. "For Your Life" was played in full by Led Zeppelin for the first time at the Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert on 10 December 2007.

The lack of live interpretations of the Presence material is perhaps understandable given that it would be a full year before they would return to the road.

According to Dave Lewis, "the direct-hard hitting nature of the seven recordings failed to connect with a fan base more accustomed to the diversity and experimental edge of their previous work. Indeed, Page later himself acknowledged that, because the album conveys a sense of urgency resulting from the troubled circumstances in which it was recorded, "it's not an easy album for a lot of people to access ...It's not an easy album for a lot of people to listen to."

However, despite its initially subdued reception, Lewis considers that Presence has become a much underrated element of their catalogue. The basic drums-bass-guitars formula may lack the diversity of previous Zeppelin sets, but in terms of sheer energy, 'Presence' packs a considerable punch, and has emerged as one of their most potent performances ... This album is also a triumph for Jimmy Page. His production and dominant guitar style has an urgency and passion that reflects the troubled period that the group were going through at the time. 'Presence' is Led Zeppelin with their backs against the wall.


Additional personnel


* Peter Grant – executive producer
* Jeremy Gee – tape engineering
* George Hardie – sleeve design
* Keith Harwood – engineering, mixing
* Hipgnosis – sleeve design