On Nov. 8, 1971, Led Zeppelin released its iconic fourth studio album, which was untitled but is widely known as “Led Zeppelin IV.” It features the band’s major hit “Stairway to Heaven,” and the wordless cover shows the image of a bearded, older man with a large bundle of sticks on his back against the backdrop of a decaying wall.
Now, 52 years later to the day, a minor mystery about that cover has been solved.
Sometimes thought to be a painting, the image, it turns out, was a Victorian-era photograph of a man who made thatched roofs for cottages in Wiltshire, a rural county in southwestern England.
His name was Lot Long and he was 69 at the time, according to Brian Edwards, a researcher who found the photo.
As he was looking through a Victorian photo album full of landscapes and houses, Mr. Edwards noticed a photo he had seemingly seen before.
Persons:
Lot Long, Brian Edwards, Edwards
Organizations:
Zeppelin, University of the
Locations:
Victorian, Wiltshire, England