Peter Grant: The one who turned Robert Plant into a frontman
Becoming a great frontman isn’t always something that people are born with. It was clear that someone like Freddie Mercury was a natural talent that would be around for generations to come, but not everyone is the same kind of musical animal whenever they reach the lip of the stage. It takes a lot of training to build up a rapport with every audience, and Robert Plant knew that it was going to take a lot more than a few decent Led Zeppelin tracks for him to be ready for primetime suddenly.
Then again, people were already having reservations about Plant even joining the band after learning who they could have had instead. The entire conversation surrounding the singer of The New Yardbirds was a hot-button issue in the music community, and things were bound to get a bit more heated, knowing that Jimmy Page could have gone with Terry Reid but elected to have ‘Percy’ join them.
As soon as Plant let out his first screams on Zeppelin’s debut record, all of those sceptics shut the hell up real quick. This guy could sing well above anyone’s expectations, and while the next few years would see him twist his voice to suit different musical textures, it was always about trying to get the kind of sound people wanted to hear whenever they put a record on the turntable.
Page may have already started them off as an album-based outfit, but Plant knew the only way that it would work was by being able to reproduce the songs live. The guitarist may have already had the experience of The Yardbirds to fall back on, but playing to massive stadium crowds is not something anyone is necessarily ready for, let alone someone who had previously been in folk outfits like The Band of Joy.
A lot of those reservations over being a frontman was a mental game, but Plant always had someone in his corner with Peter Grant. Despite his reputation as being one of the most cutthroat managers any group has ever had, Grant was always interested in making the best rock band he ever saw, and if that meant working with Plant on what he did onstage, that was what he was going to do.
Percy may have been the one to achieve the ‘Golden God’ status, but he admitted that he would have never been the frontman he is without Grant’s help, saying, “We had twitchy times at the end, me and Peter, but I owe so much of my confidence and my pigheadedness to him because of the way he calmed and nurtured and pushed and cajoled all of us to make us who we are.”
And it’s not like Plant wasn’t a fast learner when it came to his rock star moves. There are plenty of artists that take years before they settle into their own skin onstage, but looking at any of the live footage from The Song Remains the Same, Plant was like a fish in water as long as he had the music behind him, almost like he was playing the audience like an instrument with every wave of his hand.
Grant may be only a part of Zeppelin’s story since his passing in the 1990s, but outside of being a great manager, every band member usually remembers the person behind it all. He was rough around the edges, and he might not have given everyone a pat on the back for everything, but he knew how to work with people until they achieved true greatness.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter
All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.