Led Zeppelin - "Boogie With Stu"

4 months ago
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From the 1975 Album "Physical Graffiti"

"Stu" is Ian Stewart, the Rolling Stones' road manager and piano player. The song was recorded when Led Zeppelin were set up in the Headley Grange mansion using the Rolling Stones' mobile recording unit and Stu stopped in. There was an old piano in the main room that was slightly out of tune. Stu was playing it and Jimmy Page was tuning his guitar to how the piano was out of tune. Tape was rolling and everything was pretty much improvised from Bonzo's drumming to the lyrics Robert Plant was singing.
Stewart was considered the "6th Stone." Stones management felt he didn't fit the image and kept him behind the scenes. He died of a heart attack in 1985.
"Boogie With Stu" was recorded in 1971 but wasn't released until 1975 when it was used on Physical Graffiti to fill the double album.
Lead singer Robert Plant played guitar on this track, while guitarist Jimmy Page played mandolin.
The lyrics were taken from the Ritchie Valens song "Ooh My Head." Since Valens was dead, his mom was given a composer credit so she would get some royalties. That's why "Mrs. Valens" is listed on the album. The composer credit reads: Page/Plant/Jones/Bonham/Ian Stewart/Mrs. Valens.
While "Mrs. Valens" has always been listed as a composer of this song, the Valens estate sued the band in 1979 over the amount of royalties they were owed.
Jimmy Page pushed to include "Boogie With Stu" on the Physical Graffiti album.

"There was a piano at Headley, it was totally unplayable," Page told Uncut magazine. "But Ian came in and started rolling out this incredible stuff.

We were doing something else and I said, 'Let's just stop what we're doing.' So we end up with Ian playing the piano, me playing the acoustic, Robert singing and John Bonham and John Paul Jones doing handclaps in the big hall with all the reverberation. Stu was incredible. He could play anything. He wanted to make a solo album, but he was quite shy. So I thought, 'Let's do something that features Stu.'"

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