The old man carrying a bundle of sticks on his back depicted on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s smash album IV has been identified.
That is the rock band Led Zeppelin’s 1971 album that featured the megahit “Stairway to Heaven,” sold more than 37 million copies and is considered by some critics to be one of the greatest rock albums ever produced.
But it is the photo and the revelation of who the “stick man” was, not the music or the musicians, that has garnered heavyweight media attention of late.
Identity of “Stick Man”
The BBC reported that a University of the West of England researcher, Brian Edwards, found the same picture in a photo album titled “Reminiscences of a visit to Shaftesbury. Whitsuntide 1892. A present to Auntie from Ernest,” featuring the work of photographer Ernest Howard Farmer.
“I instantly recognized the man with the sticks — he’s often called the stick man,” Edwards told BBC Radio about his discovery.
The caption for the photo said the man was a Wiltshire thatcher. Edwards’ research of the area found that the man’s name was Lot Long (or Longyear), who was living in Mer, Wiltshire. He died in 1893, just a year after the photograph was taken.
More About the Photo
Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant had bought the photo in an antique shop, then had it colorized, framed and placed on the wall of a dilapidated home for the album cover photo.
“Led Zeppelin created the soundtrack that has accompanied me since my teenage years, so I really hope the discovery of this Victorian photograph pleases and entertains Robert, Jimmy and John Paul [Jones],” Edwards said in a statement about band members Plant, Guitarist Jimmy Page and bass and keyboard player Jones.
Edwards told The New York Times that he contacted the Wiltshire Museum, where he had curated a 2021 exhibition, about his photo find. The museum purchased the photo album for 420 British pounds (about $513 at today’s exchange rate.)
“It sounds like good detective work, but in truth there was a lot of luck involved,” Edwards told The Times. “I caught a few good breaks.”
Plant, who is 75, had jokingly said two years ago when living in the countryside that he was now that old guy on the IV cover.
“I pick up kindling everywhere I go and wrap it around with a piece of baling twine and shunt it on my back just in case anyone’s driving by, and they go, ‘There’s that guy from the Led Zeppelin IV album cover!’”
In 2010, Led Zeppelin IV was one of 10 classic album covers from British artists commemorated on a United Kingdom postage stamp issued by the Royal Mail.