Terry Reid, the singer and musician often called “superlungs” who was initially selected by Jimmy Page to become the singer for Led Zeppelin, has reportedly died at the age of 75.
Reid was known to have been battling cancer and was forced to cancel his upcoming Autumn shows that were due to take place later this year. A fundraising campaign had been launched to help Reid and his family pay his medical bills.
“Over the past several months, Terry has been courageously battling cancer as well as numerous other serious health issues,” the fundraising campaign explained. “His fight has been quiet and brave, but it has also come at a great personal cost. He’s been in and out of the hospital, enduring rounds of treatment and uncertainty – and, most recently, was forced to cancel his long-anticipated six-week tour. The financial strain has become overwhelming, and the medical bills are mounting by the day.”
Robert Plant paid tribute to Reid following his death, writing on social media: “Terry Reid’s enthusiasm and encouragement were incredible back then … still teenagers we crashed each others’ gigs and crucified Season of the Witch time and time again … So much fun. So on it. He was all of everything … such charisma.”
“His voice, his range … his songs capturing that carefree era … Superlungs indeed,” Plant continued. “He catapulted me into an intense new world he chose to decline … I listen now to his album The River and shed a tear for my brother in arms.”
Writing in an On This Day post on his website, Page said he first heard Reid perform in Ipswich on October 2, 1966 when Page was a member of The Yardbirds. Reid was then a member of Peter Jay and the New Jaywalkers.
“He had an impressive gutsy delivery for a 16 year old and he made a marked impression on me. When The Yardbirds folded in July 1968, he was the first person that sprung to mind,” Page wrote.
Page was impressed by Reid’s vocal abilities and following the split of The Yardbirds, Page approached Reid in 1968 about becoming the singer in his new band, then tentatively known as The New Yardbirds.
At the time, Reid had comitted to touring in support of The Rolling Stones and Cream. He instead referred Page to Robert Plant and John Bonham, helping to form Led Zeppelin.
“I said to Jim, ‘Well, you know, I’ll just do this tour and be back in a minute,’ ” Reid told The Washington Post in 2016. “ ‘Oh, no,’ he says, ‘we have to do it right now or you’re out.’”
Speaking to Uncut Magazine in 2023, Reid said: “Jimmy [Page] asked me what he should do with the band. He needed a singer who could sing around those guitar licks, and not everybody could do that. I’d seen Robert with John Bonham, so I said to him, ‘Not only is Robert perfect, you’ve got to get the drummer – he’s an animal!'”
Reid later declined an offer from Ritchie Blackmore to become the singer in Deep Purple, replacing Rod Evans.
“The style of what he was doing, that kind of opening up, he had a flexibility and power and control. So he could go, as Esther Phillips said, from a whisper to a scream in split seconds,” Robert Plant said of Reid in the 2016 Washington Post article.
always remenber reading a articule in a music magazine i think it was the NME at the time of john bonhams death that the reason reid declined to join led zeppelin was something to do with jimmy pages occult interests