Read Robert Plant: A Life Online
Authors: Paul Rees
Dave “Rowdy” Yeats, proprietor of the Groove Record Shop in Stourbridge, a regular haunt of Plant’s during the mid ’60s.
(© David Yeats)
Plant, top left, with Listen in 1966. “He was very popular with the girls,” said guitarist John Crutchley, top right.
(© John Crutchley)
Plant on his ill-starred Legalise Pot march, August 1967. Shirley Wilson is to his immediate left.
(© Redferns)
Plant and John Bonham (with moustache) with the third incarnation of the Band of Joy, circa 1968. “A number could go on for 10, 15 minutes—God help the poor audience.”
(© Redferns)
Plant and Jimmy Page on stage at the New Yardbirds’ first gig at Teen-Clubs in Gladsaxe, Denmark, September 7, 1968. “Straight away, we could see the power of it,” said Page.
(© Redferns)
Plant at the time of his joining the New Yardbirds. “He seemed sort of God-like.”
(© Redferns)
Led Zeppelin come together in London, 1968: from left—John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Bonham.
(© Redferns)
On stage at London’s Royal Albert Hall, June 29, 1969. “It was like a rocket going up their fucking arses!”
(© Mirrorpix)
Plant somewhere in America during the heady days of 1969. “All around me galaxies were going, ‘Boom! Boom! Boom!’ I absorbed it all like moon dust.”
(© Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Zeppelin arriving in Hawaii in May 1969 with the Led Zeppelin II master tapes.
(© Redferns)
Shelter from the storm: Plant at home with his wife Maureen and their daughter Carmen, 1969.
(© Camera Press/© Randolph)
Plant and friend at his sanctuary, Jennings Farm. “I was incredibly fortunate to have the decompression chamber of that and my family.”
(© Camera Press/© Randolph)
The proverbial hippy and his bird at the Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, June 2, 1973. “It was like walking into the lion’s den.”
(© James Fortune/Rex Features)