Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Zep's fifth member checks out

On this day in 1995, Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant died from a heart attack. The 60-year-old was in a car with his son when he suffered from a fatal heart attack.

Many considered Peter Grant to be the fifth member of Led Zeppelin, among them author Chris Welch, who closely followed the band while he was a music journalist for the Melody Maker. In a 2009 interview for the U.S. radio show "Get the Led Out," Welch said:
"Peter Grant was the fifth member of the band in the sense that he traveled with them everywhere. There was a very small team behind Zeppelin. They didn't have many people with them. Most bands nowadays have a huge entourage of hangers-on, assistants and technicians, and ... In Zeppelin's case, it was just them and Peter Grant really. It was just the band."