Despite setbacks, with John Paul Jones threatening to leave the band and Robert Plant under the knife, the English quartet, spurred making of Physical Graffiti started with just 50% of the band. Page and Bonham met at Headley Grange, the former workhouse converted into a country house where the band had previously recorded Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy. In truth, Page longed to recapture the spirit of IV, their magnum opus. Plant’s surgery went well, and after being unable to speak for a month, he began joining the sessions at Headley Grange. In Jimmy Page: The Definitive Biography, British writer Chris Salewicz provides insight into the change in Plant’s vocal cords: “His singing on Physical Graffiti is different from Zeppelin’s previous recordings: it sounds more comfortable, controlled, and accomplished, with much of the same raw power still present, but very rarely verging on the bitch-in-heat wails of yesteryear.” Still to be resolved was Jones’s departure, brought on by a nervous breakdown after the grueling pace of the previous years. Jones needed to spend time with his family, to disconnect from the lascivious life of rock, an environment his bandmates enjoyed much more than he did. The bassist considered his options and returned to Led Zeppelin, but not before receiving a promise from Page that the atmosphere would be more relaxed. That would never come to pass (it only took place after Bonham died, aged 32, as a result of a massive drunken binge in 1980), but the reunion of the four members was a done deal. Work on Physical Graffiti could begin.
