Led Zeppelin’s “Houses Of The Holy” was released on March 28th, 1973 and quickly certified gold by the RIAA on April 10, 1973. It reach #1 on the Billboard charts. “It is the first Led Zeppelin album composed of entirely original material, and represents a musical turning point for the band, who had begun to record songs with more layering and production techniques.” – Wikipedia
As you can see from the full back and plate, this classic award is a first presentation (correct format for the date of certification, and first state (all original parts). It was presented to Led Zeppelin’s attorney Steve Weiss. In researching Steve (who passed away in 2008), and this award, I came across a most interesting story on anglefire.com that mentioned him and tells a story Led Zeppelin’s signing with Atlantic Records…
“While the four musicians had been launching their Led Zeppelin, Peter Grant had been preparing for his assault on New York to procure a record deal. Jimmy Page so far had only half of what he wanted. Jimmy wanted complete control of production, cover art, publishing, scheduling, concerts, promotion. Jimmy never wanted to be owned again. So Peter Grant left England in November 1968 with audition tapes, a rough mix, and cover art for Led zeppelin. His mission was to secure a world distribution deal from an American recording company that granted total artistic and commercial control to the musicians…
In New York Peter and his American lawyer, Steve Weiss, negotiated an awesome deal for the day, which reportedly gave Led Zeppelin a $200,000 advance and the highest royalty rate ever negotiated for a group of musicians (said later to be five times that of the Beatles) in return for worldwide distribution by Atlantic Records and its licensees. The contract gave complete artistic control to the band, and an added perquisite – demanded by Jimmy – that Led Zeppelin would be the first rock band on the hallowed Atlantic label. All the other white rock acts appeared on Atlantic’s declasse subsidiary, Atco Records.
Atlantic had given away a small chunk of the farm to Led Zeppelin. Peter Grant went back to the Plaza Hotel and called Jimmy to come to New York to sign the deal.
Then, perhaps with joy in their hearts, Grant and Weiss called on Clive Davis, then president of Columbia Records, whose Epic subsidiary had the rights for the Yardbirds (and Jeff Beck) in America. Jimmy of course felt that Epic was an inept and exploitative label, while Clive Davis had considered the Yardbirds one of his pet projects and was confident that Jimmy Page’s new band – the word on the street was they were hot – would be on Epic. It was the first time Peter and Clive Davis had met, and they talked friendly music gossip until Davis finally said, “Well, aren’t we going to talk about Jimmy Page?” And Grant said, “Oh no, we’ve already signed the Zeppelin to Atlantic.”
Silence. Then the meeting deteriorated into a shouting match. Davis tried to harangue Grant: The Yardbirds had been with EMI in England, with Epic owning North American rights. The Epic contract also covered the individual Yardbirds, and they assumed EMI’s contract did too. But part of Jimmy’s deal when he joined the band was that he retained his own recording rights. Grant explained that Jimmy had never been signed to EMI as an individual, and that Columbia therefore had no claim. The meeting ended with the Columbia executives in a rage.
Jimmy Page landed in New York a few days later, carrying the master tapes for Led Zeppelin. After meeting the Atlantic people and signing contracts, Jimmy and Peter joined the Jeff Beck tour in progress. Jimmy didn’t play; he just followed the tour through New York and Boston, staying at the same hotels, lurking quietly in the dressing rooms, closely observing this new, young, mostly male audience at the Fillmore East and the Boston Tea Party. Sergeant-Major Richard Cole mustered the troops and saw to it that they were well boozed and laid. At the Image club in Miami Jimmy did get up to jam with Beck and Rod Stewart. Then in New York, after one of Beck’s Fillmore East triumphs, Jimmy played Led Zeppelin’s demo of “You Shook Me” for Jeff, which of course was one of Beck’s show stoppers.
According to Beck, Jimmy said, “Listen to this, listen to Bonzo, this guy called John Bonham that I’ve got.” When Beck heard the version, his heart sank. “I looked at him and said, ‘Jim, what?’ and the tears were coming out with anger.” With Truth still in the stores, Beck assumed that Jimmy was out to upstage him again, just for the thrill. Why couldn’t he have come up with something on his own? When word of Led Zeppelin’s monumental deal with Atlantic hit the streets, the land was rife with accusations of “hype.” The musicians and fans of the late sixties were highly ambivalent about the unprecedented commercial success of rock music; young record company employees were known as “corporate freaks” and were ideologically suspect as agents of bourgeois capitalism. Any new band that hadn’t been through 1967 was suspected of the sin of corporate hype – being foisted upon the rich and gullible public by some big conglomerate without authentic atiarcho-hippie credentials. When rumors of huge advances and royalties began to spread, Led Zeppelin was smeared as a hype band. To counter these charges, Jimmy dropped by the Melody Maker office unannounced one day, ostensibly to correct the paper’s spelling of the group’s name. (They had spelled it Lead Zeppelin.) He was quoted on the topic of hype: “If somebody wants to hype a group they only suffer, because people know what’s going on now. People understand the economics of bands, especially in the States where it is the fashion to ask who is getting what out of what.” That same month in New York Columbia Records took out ads in the alternative and underground press (which was in turn heavily dependent on record advertising) which proclaimed straight-faced: “The Man Can’t Bust Our Music!”
Back in London in December Jimmy took his band through more low-paying trial runs. They played the Marquee, then Bath Pavilion for 75£, and Exeter City Hall for 125£, finishing at Fishmongers Hall, Wood Green, in London. With no album and the Yardbirds dead, Led Zeppelin couldn’t get arrested in England. Just before Christmas Jimmy and Peter decided to take the band to America and start to tour even before the album was out. The Jeff Beck Group had just canceled a tour with Vanilla Fudge, and Grant persuaded leery American promoters to take an unknown Led Zeppelin instead. “We couldn’t get work here in Britain,” Grant recalled. “It seemed to be a fucking laugh to people that we were getting the group together and working the way we were.”
And Jimmy was also bitter about what he perceived as his rejection by the music business in England. “It was a joke … we really had a bad time.” They just wouldn’t accept anything new…. We were given a chance in America.
Led Zeppelin left London on Christmas Day, 1968, bound for the subtropical splendor of Los Angeles. The Zeppelin had risen. A new era had begun.”
Thanks to Tony Fornaro for this spotlight award.
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