After his band Yardbirds suddenly disbanded, Jimmy Page was a rock star without a band. He had a mission, though, and it was to conquer America. He watched the Beatles and the Rolling Stones do it in their own way, and Page also knew exactly what he wanted to do and how to do it. But before he could head across the pond with his future band, he needed to create it first.
Photo by Nicholas Turpin, The Independent, Shutterstock / Globe Photos, Shutterstock
And so, Page recruited three guys for his New Yardbirds reboot, and, in the process, he made rock history. This is Led Zeppelin’s origin story, the story of Jimmy Page and Peter Grant, the manager that turned the band into a group that, over the years, has inspired as much myth and misinformation than any other.
Let’s begin in 1968…