The man who turned down Led Zeppelin

The history of rock music could have been very different if Terry Reid had joined Led Zeppelin, says Laura Thompson.  On Wednesday and Thursday this week, the Terry Reid Band is playing Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Soho. How different might the history of rock music have been if, 45 years ago, Reid had accepted the offer of becoming lead singer in the New Yardbirds, later renamed Led Zeppelin?

In 1968, the then 19-year-old Reid was one of the first names approached by Jimmy Page. His sweet, shimmery voice, whose strength contains an intriguing delicacy, had made him a force to be reckoned with from the age of 16. As a vocalist and guitarist he joined a band called Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, and was praised by Aretha Franklin, no less.

Then, at around the time of Page’s offer, he was signed by the powerful producer Mickie Most, who gave him the soubriquet of “Superlungs”. So, Terry Reid turned down Led Zeppelin, and instead suggested that Page check out a prodigious young hippie from West Bromwich, whom he described as looking “like a Greek god”. With Robert Plant came his friend John Bonham, and there you have it: rock history.

What Reid thought, thereafter, as Led Zeppelin went on to conquer worlds in the manner of Alexander the Great can only be imagined. And whether they would have conquered in quite the same way without the Greek god Plant and his sublime screams is an unanswerable question. Meanwhile Reid’s own career has been a chequered one, although he became a cult figure in America and – as is the way with such under-the-radar figures – has enjoyed something of an autumnal resurgence, playing Glastonbury in 2009 and 2011. If his voice still sounds anything like it does on his gorgeous, addictive version of Stay with Me Baby, then his Ronnie Scott’s gigs will be something special.

Source: The Telegraph