Album Of The Month For March: Presence

After Zeppelin's quick rise to the top in the late 1960s, the band continued to grow their empire through their 1975 release Physical Graffiti.  At this point the band had it all.  Each of their albums were highly successful and continued to blow away young minds across the globe.  Then disaster struck when the band needed to leave England to avoid heavy taxes on their hard earned money.  During Robert's vacation, he crashed the car with his wife and children (and Jimmy's daughter).  Robert broke his ankle and his wife was seriously injured.  Soon, the band decided to record another album fast to follow up their previous album even with Robert confined to a wheelchair.  Presence became a turning point for the band.  For the first time ever they completed an album with limited outside influence.  The songs were pure rock and left behind a few of their blues roots.  Even while rushing to complete the album and with Robert in his wheelchair, the band completed one of their most unique albums and sent the band in a new direction.

Release Date: March 31, 1976
Highest Billboard Position: 1
Sales Status: 3x Platinum

Track Listing:
1. Achilles Last Stand
The album starts with a slow guitar strum from Jimmy, then explodes into utter chaos to launch into one of Zeppelin's longest songs in their catalog.  The lyrics were inspired by a trip Robert and Jimmy took to Morocco and the folklore they loved to bring up time and time again.  The band, known for being stingy to film makers, allowed the makers of Dogtown And Z-Boys to use it in their movie.

2. For Your Life
For a band well known for their incredible amount of drug use you wouldn't expect them to criticize it.  With this song they went after the Los Angeles music scene for using far too much cocaine and ruining the music scene there.  This would be the first of many songs that detailed the band's personal experiences, something they rarely did in their early years.

3. Royal Orleans
The third track detailed one of the more interesting tales from Zeppelin's wild road adventures.  It described how John Paul Jones took what appeared to be a woman up to his hotel room from the bar.  They smoked weed and fell asleep on top of each other.  The joint, still lit as they entered their slumber, lit the room on fire.  In the commotion, everyone discovered that the person Jones brought to his room was in fact a transvestite.  The story became legendary and is one of few that includes Jones as a part of the band's escapades.

4. Nobody's Fault But Mine
The band never shied away from deep subject and returned to the devil once again on this song that starts with a sharp line from Jimmy.  The only song with source material outside of the band (no one has been credited with writing it, however it dates back to the earliest days of the blues), it sounded much more like the older tracks from Zeppelin.  With one of the more driving harmonica tunes by Robert, the song really feels alive as he describes being introduced to gong, having a monkey on his back, and the devil telling him to roll.  This is the highlight track of the album and one of the few they used regularly in their later shows.

5. Candy Store Rock
Robert's rockabilly style comes out strong as Jimmy pushes the song along with his strong blues riff.  Robert tries out his best Elvis impersonation and really shows how much song writing prowess he owns.  This song rarely hit the stage with Zeppelin, however Robert and Jimmy would use it during their tours in the 1990s.

6. Hots On For Nowhere
This is the most underrated Zeppelin song ever.  I mean it.  No one knows it.  Jimmy's groovy guitar with Jones' bass combine well with Robert's strong singing.  It rambles along well and is easy to rock out too.  I'm still confused why no one picked up.

7. Tea For One
This is a tough song to get in to.  I needed a few years to really give it a good listen.  It follows the guidelines of their normal ballads and lengthier song.  It builds up slowly, has a fairly good riff, and blues structure as a base.  Truthfully, Robert's voice doesn't cut through like it once did and it lacks the same punch it did on songs like "Dazed And Confused" and "Since I've Been Loving You".  If they recorded this before Robert's voice weakened, maybe it could sound better.

Random Fact:
The band finished recording the album in a mere 18 days.  They originally had two weeks, which included poor Robert confined to a wheelchair.  As their time started to run out, mainly because the Rolling Stones needed the studio next, Jimmy took on a heavy load of working on his overdubs.  He spent two straight days without sleep making sure the album was perfect.  When the Stones arrived, they were shocked to find that they actually finished the album.