The Secret Of Led Zeppelin IV aka The “Zoso” Album Cover Revealed!
Well, this was a fun surprise! As a lifelong fan of Led Zeppelin, I loved reading about how one of their most enduring mysteries has been solved!
You see, one of their iconic albums had a mystery man on the cover. As reported today on Deadline.com:
“His image is familiar to millions, iconic to a generation of rock fans and a 52-year mystery finally solved: The old, bearded, hunched-over man toting a big bundle of sticks as seen on the cover of the 1971 album known as Led Zeppelin IV is none other than…”
Meet “Lot Long!”
Yes, the man holding the thatched tree branches was named Lot Long, a Wiltshire England cottage roof thatcher back in the 1890s!
Deadline.com posted this:
“In a story of coincidence and happenstance, the identity of the Victorian-era roof-thatcher has finally been established, more than a half-century since a colorized copy of the original black-and-white photo captured the attention of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant. Neither of them knew who the man was when they came across the color copy while browsing an antique shop outside London way back when.”
The story was first reported by The NY Times London correspondent Claire Moses.
She published the piece yesterday, exactly 52 years to the day after the album was released. The story goes on to explain how random the discovery was!
“The most recent chapter of the story begins with Brian Edwards, a visiting research fellow at the University of the West of England who was, as the Times reports, “scouring the internet for new releases at auction houses that might be interesting for his research, which includes the area’s well-known landmark Stonehenge.”
While web surfing, Edwards came across a Victorian photo album of landscapes and houses. Flipping through, he came across something he first saw when he bought Led Zeppelin IV the year it was released.
By the way, take a moment to look at that track list – some of their greatest songs of all time!
The story continues:
“There was something familiar about it straight away,” Edwards told the Times. He made a quick phone call to his wife – for a “sanity check,” he says – and concluded that yes, the photo was the guy on the cover, albeit a black-and-white version as opposed to the colorized version on the album (sometimes mistakenly thought to be a painting).
As they were the world’s great rock band, he continued to dig. The story goes on:
“Edwards’ next call was to the Wiltshire Museum, where the Victorian album was up for auction. Edwards, who had curated an exhibit at the museum in 2021, learned that the photo album, titled Reminiscences of a visit to Shaftesbury, was the work of a man named Ernest Howard Farmer, who had taken, compiled and inscribed the photo album sometime during the Victorian Era as a gift for his “Auntie.”
The man in the photo was identified as Lot Long, a 69-year-old man who thatched roofs for cottages in rural Wiltshire, a county in southwestern England, in the 1890s.
“As for how the image ended up on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV, apparently Page and Plant were browsing an antique shop in Pangbourne, a village about 50 miles west of London along the River Thames, when they spotted a colorized version of the photo. Edwards theorizes that the photographer, who also taught photography, had used a black and white print of the image to teach students how colorize. (The colorized print purchased by Page and Plant apparently has long since been lost).”
Talk about random! I love this story as much as I love the album, which is from start to finish a masterpiece!
I saw the band multiple times when I was young, and I still listen to them today!
While I saw them at the Seattle Center Coliseum, did you know they played an Amphitheater in Seattle?
Yes, the band rocked Seattle’s Green Lake – where I grew up!
See that wild story here!
Also on this album was the classic song “Rock ‘n’ Roll” – one of many that used that phrase in the title of songs…click here to see that video and more!
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Categories: 70's Music, Art, Classic Rock, Led Zeppelin, Music, Pop Culture, Talent/Celebrities, Uncategorized
johnrieber 
What a great story! Thank you, John.
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that is such a crazy coincidence that the researcher came across this and happened to be a fan who remembered the image also.
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Right?!?!?!? Thanks for commenting!
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Fascinating – I love it!
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I saw this too. An interesting story. That must be an American track listing: here side one went in the order of your 2, 3, 4, 1. Why do record companies do that? A great album, however you look at it.
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Clive, that image isn’t the proper track listing in the US either…it’s always been Black Dog into Rock n Roll then battle of evermore and of course Stairway to Heaven….I used the pic because it listed some of the songs but it is confusing I think I will change it!
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Sorry, I just thought it was the actual listing. Yours was the same as ours, then 👍
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Clive, I fixed it!
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Clive, I fixed it
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I read about this on the BBC website. The tradition of Thatching is stil going here because of the numbers of thatched roofs on old houses, but there are not that many companies operating now.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks for sharing that Pete! Some vocations certainly can stand the passage of time and the changes to our world!
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