Nineteen years ago on this day, one of rock n rolls biggest characters (literally, 6 5 & once a professional wrestler) died. A bold, intimidating, sometimes vicious man & business savvy band manager, who steered the careers of Led Zeppelin Official, Chuck Berry & The Yardbirds. His name was Peter Grant. It was Grant who negotiated Zeppelin’s unprecedented contract with Atlantic Records, zealously guarded the band’s interests (hed go into record shops & demand any bootleg copies of his artists records be destroyed) & changed the relationship between concert promoter & artist forever. Heres a great story: In 79, Knebworth Festival promoters reportedly claimed that only 100,000 tickets had been sold. Grant thought the crowd was much bigger, so he hired a helicopter to take aerial photographs. And he was right! The crowd turned out to be more than double what Knebworth had claimed & Led Zeppelin got their money. Grant was a complicated man, but he loved his bands, loved their music, & he fought tirelessly for them. Despite his fierce methods, in the end, his tactics worked: Led Zeppelin became one of the most successful rock ‘n’ roll bands in history.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 02:30:01 +0000