Peter Grant

It is doubtful whether Led Zeppelin would have been as successful without Grant as their manager. He negotiated the group's sizeable five-year record contract with Atlantic Records, and his business philosophy would eventually pay off for the label. Grant strongly believed that bands could make more money, and have more artistic merit, by focusing their efforts on albums rather than singles. Live performances were deemed more important than television appearances – if one wanted to see Led Zeppelin, one had to experience their performances in person.

In 1996, the MMF (Music Managers Forum) award for outstanding achievement in management was renamed the Peter Grant Award, in his honour.

On the afternoon of 21 November 1995, while driving to his home at Eastbourne, Grant suffered a fatal heart attack, his son Warren by his side. He was 60 years old. Grant was buried on 4 December 1995 at Hellingly Cemetery, with the funeral service held at St Peter and St Paul's Church, Hellingly, East Sussex. His eulogy was read by longtime friend Alan Callan. Coincidentally, it was the 15th anniversary of Led Zeppelin's official breakup. His final public appearance had been at the final night of the Page and Plant tour at the Wembley Arena in July 1995.

Towards the end of his life, however, he conquered his addiction and lost a significant amount of weight. His first public appearance for many years was in 1989, when he and Jimmy Page both attended a Frank Sinatra concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Grant subsequently sold his estate and moved to nearby Eastbourne, where he was offered the civic position of local magistrate for the town council, but turned it down. In 1992, he appeared in the film Carry On Columbus as a cardinal. In his remaining years, Grant became a keynote speaker at music management conferences such as In the City, where he was lauded by latter-day peers.

Marital problems, diabetes, cocaine addiction and the death of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham all took their toll on Grant's health, and after the official breakup of Led Zeppelin in 1980, and the subsequent folding of the Swan Song label in 1983, he virtually retired from the music business to his private estate in Hellingly, East Sussex.

Grant was instrumental in setting up Led Zeppelin's publishing company, Superhype Music in 1968. He was also the driving force in establishing Swan Song Records in 1974, which gave Led Zeppelin further financial and artistic control over its products. Although initially he solely managed Led Zeppelin, in later years he additionally assumed management of other bands signed to Swan Song, such as Stone the Crows, Bad Company and Maggie Bell. In 1975 he turned down a lucrative offer to manage Queen. When he was once questioned on what was the single most important thing a manager could say, Grant's response was "Know when to say 'no'." In 1977, he was asked by Colonel Tom Parker to manage a proposed concert tour of Europe by Elvis Presley, but Elvis died on 16 August 1977, just as negotiations had commenced.

In January 1972, Bernard Chevry, manager of the Midem music business festival wrote to Grant, asking for "Led Zeppelin and his backing group" to appear. Grant was annoyed that Chevry did not realise Led Zeppelin were a group, and in response took out a full-page advertisement in the trade paper Record Retailer, showing the original Midem letter, captioned "Mr Zeppelin Regrets. ... ." The response was seen by most of the music industry, and humiliated Midem. Grant later described Chevry as "a prat".

Grant's determination to protect the financial interests of Led Zeppelin was also reflected by the sometimes extraordinary measures he took to combat the practice of unauthorized live bootleg recordings. He is reported to have visited record stores in London that were selling Led Zeppelin bootlegs and demanded all copies be handed over. He also monitored the crowd at Led Zeppelin concerts in order to locate anything which resembled bootleg recording equipment. At one concert at Vancouver in 1971, he saw what he thought was such equipment on the floor of the venue and ensured that it was destroyed, only to later learn that it was a noise pollution unit being operated by city officials to test the volume of the concert. On another occasion, at the Bath Festival in 1970, he threw a bucket of water over unauthorised recording equipment. Grant's famous dressing room scene in the film The Song Remains the Same (1976), where he demands an explanation from concert staff about the sale of illegal posters, was typical of his no-nonsense dealings with people who tried to profit at the band's expense.

The Yardbirds dissolved in 1968, all band members departing except guitarist Jimmy Page, who constructed a new group consisting of himself, Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones to fulfil a contractual agreement to tour Europe, and were allowed by the other Yardbird members to use the name "The New Yardbirds". After the tour, the agreement to use the name expired, and Chris Dreja wrote Page a "cease and desist" notice, so the group chose the name Led Zeppelin, with Grant assuming the role of their manager. His trust in and loyalty to Led Zeppelin was such that his managerial arrangement with the band was via a gentlemen's agreement.

In late 1966, Simon Napier-Bell asked Grant to take over management of the Yardbirds, who were constantly touring yet struggling financially. Mickie Most had suggested to Napier-Bell that Grant would be an asset to the Yardbirds, but as it happened his arrival was too late to save the band. The experience, however, did give him ideas which were put to good use later with Led Zeppelin. As he explained:

In 1963, Grant was hired by promoter Don Arden along with John Schatt to be the British tour manager for artists such as Bo Diddley, the Everly Brothers, Little Richard, Brian Hyland, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent and the Animals. By 1964, Grant had started to manage his own acts including the Nashville Teens, an all-girl group called She Trinity, the New Vaudeville Band, The Jeff Beck Group, Terry Reid and Stone the Crows. His management was established in the same 155 Oxford Street office used by his friend, record producer Mickie Most, who had previously worked with Grant at the 2i's Coffee Bar. Most and Grant together set up RAK Music Management, an offshoot of Most's Rak Records.

Between 1958 and 1963, Grant appeared in a number of films, including A Night to Remember (1958) as a crew member on the Titanic, The Guns of Navarone (1961) as a British commando and Cleopatra (1963) as a palace guard. He also appeared in television shows such as The Saint, Crackerjack, Dixon of Dock Green, and The Benny Hill Show. He was Robert Morley's double on many of the actor's films. The money he made from these ventures was invested in his own entertainment transport business. As the acting roles dried up, Grant made more money taking groups such as the Shadows to their concerts.

Peter Grant was born on January 31, 1955 in Denmark as Peter Henry Grant Larsen.

Grant was soon attracted to the entertainment industry, and worked as a stagehand for the Croydon Empire Theatre until 1953, when he was called up for national service in the RAOC, reaching the rank of corporal. He worked briefly as an entertainment manager at a hotel in Jersey before being employed as a bouncer and doorman at London's famous 2i's Coffee Bar, where Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, Tommy Steele and others got their start. Co-owner of the 2i's bar, professional wrestler Paul Lincoln, suggested and assisted Grant appear on television as a wrestler under the titles "Count Massimo" and "Count Bruno Alassio of Milan," using his 6 ft 2 in frame to good effect. This kindled his enthusiasm for acting, and he was hired by film studios as a bit part actor, stuntman and body double.

Peter Grant (5 April 1935 – 21 November 1995) was an English music manager, who is widely known as the manager of Led Zeppelin from their creation in 1968 to their breakup in 1980. With his intimidating size and weight, confrontational manner, and knowledge and experience, he procured strong, and unprecedented, deals for his band, and is widely credited with improving pay and conditions for all musicians in dealings with concert promoters. Grant has been described as "one of the shrewdest and most ruthless managers in rock history".