Led Zeppelin Cover Artwork Part 2
Led Zeppelin II
Welcome to part 2 of the Cover Art work history of the Led Zeppelin albums. Led Zeppelin II is the next album we are looking at. The album was released on 22nd October 1969 with advance orders of 400β²000 copies. The slogans for the advertising campaign were Led Zeppelin - The Only Way to Fly and Led Zeppelin II - Now Flying.
The album sleeve design was from a poster by David Juniper who was a fellow student of Jimmyβs at Sutton Art College, Surrey. The band just told him to come up with something interesting. So he had every creative freedom!
The picture we see on the sleeve is based on a photograph of the Jagdstaffel 11, Division of the German Air Force during WWI. They were called Flying Circus and was led by the Red Baron, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von RichthofenΒ who was a famous pilot during WWI.Β
(Source: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2004-0430-501, shot 23rd April 1917) This is the original photograph, Richthofen is sitting in the airplane, an Albatros D.III
Juniper pasted the faces of the band members from other photographs and added faces from other photographs as well. The only women you see on the pic is actress Delphine Seyring. Also you can see a outline of a Zeppelin on a brown background. Because of this the album got the nickname Brown Bomber.
The making of Led Zeppelin II, in the words of the artist, David Juniper Β (Source)
βIn the late sixties in London, anything seemed possible!! I was employed at the time in a boring Art Directorβs job, so I got a lot of satisfaction out of moonlighting on speculative stuff.
The music of βLed Zeppelin Iβ had blown me away and so, on spec, I mocked up a fold-out design for the second album and took it to (Zeppelinβs manager) Peter Grant and Micky Most at Rak Records. I had a few friends starting to get into the music industry and they helped to point me in their direction.
The combination of collage/photography and airbrush illustration was groundbreaking for me, because the traditional airbrush technique was very tricky, especially when compared to todayβs digital equivalents. The cover imagery was completely experimental and I liked the combination of the abstract ghostly Zeppelin shape along with a faded sepia WW1 photo of German Aviators.
All the faces were replaced or altered (sunglasses & beards on some of the pilots!). In amongst the four band members (airbrushed in from a publicity photograph) are Miles Davis (or was it Blind Willie Johnson?), a girlfriend/muse of Andy Warhol (perhaps Mary Woronov) and the astronaut Neil Armstrong. The original photo of the Jasta Division of the WW1 German Air Force came from an old book about the βSopwith Camelβ, which was a famous British bi-plane from WW1.
I used bright inks to make the illustration parts really pop. I just presented it to the group and they went for it, with only a few changes to the inside spread (see below). The outside cover went through as it was proposed.
The inside image is full-on psychedelia, in contrast to the original idea discussed, which had a Zeppelin flying past the Statue of Liberty. They did not want something on the inside with a similar feel to the outside, so I just went for a colourful painting as a complete contrast to the outside. I remembered a documentary film of 1920/30βs German architecture and thought this approach would give the image a heavy rock/blues feel.
Anyway, from that point forward, the groupβs management was all very friendly and used me on other covers for some of their other artists, including Donovan and Lulu. Another great treat was to be asked down to Olympic Studios in Barnes while they worked on the recording, but what pleased me the most was that cover was nominated at the 68β Grammy Awards!
The photograph of the boys which Juniper used (by Michael Ochs, 1969):
Hope you enjoyed this - tell me your favorite song of the album! Mine is Thank you but I love the other songs as much!
