Joan Hudson, the accountant who devotedly managed Led Zeppelin’s finances and business affairs for more than 50 years from the band’s heyday through to recent years, died on December 31 aged 87, LedZepNews has learned.
Hudson sold her London accountancy firm Joan Hudson & Co to SRLV in 2023, allowing her to finally retire after spending decades of her life managing the convoluted world of Led Zeppelin. News of Hudson’s death first emerged on the For Badgeholder’s Only email group earlier this week.
Hudson’s dedication to the members of Led Zeppelin continued until her death, with the accountant eschewing a public profile and never giving media interviews about her work. Her decades of service to Led Zeppelin means she was likely the band’s longest-serving employee.
Indeed, Hudson remained a key conduit between the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin in recent years. She helped to bring the three men together to participate in the film “Becoming Led Zeppelin” which was released last year, with her recent work leading to her being thanked in the film’s credits.
The members of Led Zeppelin remained fond of Hudson, with Jimmy Page inviting her as his guest to the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, resulting in her walking the event’s red carpet with the band members. Her employees planned to present her with a photo of the occasion for her birthday years later.
Born in Hackney, London in August 1938, Hudson was a lifelong resident of the area where she was born. She also chose to base her office, a diminutive, green-fronted building two doors down from a kebab shop in East London.
Hudson “was the classic accountant, with twinset and pearls and a tight skirt and high heels. Very, very straight. Pretty clever. You couldn’t get anything past her,” Led Zeppelin office manager Unity Maclean said in Barney Hoskyns’ 2012 book “Trampled Under Foot: The Power and Excess of Led Zeppelin”.
Originally intending to be an architectural accountant, 20-year-old Hudson returned from a week’s holiday in 1958 to find her job had been given to someone else. Instead, her managers at the London accountancy firm Maw, Ellis & Warne introduced her to an 18-year-old emerging pop singer named Cliff Richard.
Her ability to juggle the egos and convoluted finances of the entertainment industry soon led to Hudson running the first pop music accounting department. Her clients included The Shadows, Labi Siffre, U2, Chumbwumba and Bad Company but it was taking on the business of Led Zeppelin that transformed her small bookkeeping firm into the centre of a global business empire.
Hudson’s history with Led Zeppelin dates back to the earliest years of the band when she was personally poached by the group’s manager Peter Grant to become Led Zeppelin’s in-house accountant.
Instead of persuading Hudson to jump ship using evidence of the fledgling band’s careful finances, Grant instead handed the young accountant a box filled with press clippings praising the rock group.
“Joan was not the original accountant,” Phil Carson said in Hoskyns’ 2012 book. “That was Peter Parker, who worked for the firm that Joan worked for. They decided they wanted Joan to work for them full-time, so they took her out of the firm and set her up in her own business. And she’s been brilliant for them all of these years,” Carson continued.
Benji Lefevre agreed, saying in the same book: “As far as I am aware, they all trusted Joan absolutely. She was the legitimate face of Led Zeppelin. She had a very high, proper voice and they just loved her.”
Led Zeppelin’s reliance on Hudson was so absolute that the band paid to fly her to the US on the newly launched Concorde plane in 1977 as the group embarked on its expansive tour. As the band played to tens of thousands of people in stadiums, Hudson diligently audited Led Zeppelin’s accounts while on the road.
Executives at Atlantic Records, Led Zeppelin’s record label, also recognised Hudson’s dedication. Her hands-on involvement in managing Led Zeppelin’s business affairs likely saved both the band and its record label significant amounts of legal fees, building trust with both camps.
When Led Zeppelin’s contract with the label was due for renewal, label boss Ahmet Ertegun instructed his employees to give Hudson whatever terms she asked for. “She’ll never ask for a penny more or a penny less than what they deserve,” he told them.
While handling Led Zeppelin’s sprawling tour expenses, which included everything from renting a Boeing 720 plane named The Starship to spontaneous purchases of instruments, Hudson remained a dedicated churchgoer in Hackney.
She even held the position of church treasurer at St. John of Jerusalem Church in South Hackney, looking after the church’s finances while also managing Led Zeppelin’s excesses.
It was while volunteering as the church’s treasurer in 1977 that Hudson met her husband Doug Hiza. Hiza, a pastor visiting from Virginia who was researching a book on the Hospice movement, was an avid tennis fan and the ninth-seeded tennis player in the US.
The couple’s first date in 1977 took place after Hiza asked Hudson if he could watch the Wimbledon tennis tournament on her colour television. The pair married in Minnesota in 1978, then living together in London where they were married for more than 45 years.
Hiza has been an ordained priest for more than 60 years and officiated the funeral of John Paul Jones’ mother Margie Castle. Hudson and Hiza frequently attended church and charity events together.
Hudson’s dedication to her faith was a constant throughout her life. Even as her accountancy business boomed, she stepped in to save as many as five churches from bankruptcy by volunteering her time for free to manage their finances.
Hudson and Hiza’s tireless voluntary work led to them both receiving the Dean’s Cross award from the Virginia Theological Seminary on January 6, 2017. Previous recipients of the award include former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former First Lady Barbara Bush.
Hudson’s retirement and the sale of her accountancy firm to SRLV in 2023 marked the end of an era for both Led Zeppelin’s business and Hudson’s staff, who were encouraged to take home whatever music memorabilia they wanted from the office.
Even after her retirement, Hudson’s involvement in the world of Led Zeppelin continued. After playing a key role in corralling the band members to participate in “Becoming Led Zeppelin”, Hudson and her husband Doug Hiza attended a pre-release screening of the film at Sony Pictures’ London office on January 22, 2025.
Hudson is known to have enjoyed the film and its retelling of Led Zeppelin’s earliest years, events she knew intimately from her decades of quiet service to one of the world’s largest rock bands.
What a fine obituary for Joan. Indeed, among the very few life long employees of the band. Without her their affairs would’ve been less successful or worse. Her integrity & skills were revered.
Excellent, informative write-up on what seems to have been a wonderful life
She was an important part of the Led Zeppelin story. RIP Dear Lady.
It is rare that you get to see into the backstage and how things work. Condolenses to families and band.
A lovely story of loyalty,dedication – and discretion (she never confirmed they bought those fish….).
If its not on paper it didn’t happen
I am Brazilian, an accountant and treasurer of the Presbyterian Church, a church that originated from the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, and I am very fond of Led Zeppelin. I was very glad to learn this story, as a Protestant, as an accountant, as the treasurer of the church of which I am a member, and as a lover of the band’s music. May God keep her in a good place.
What a Remarkable Accountant indeed! 💯. Dedication & worthy. Nice to hear that she had a big account to handle in a World of the most Famous Rock n Roll Band ever! ✨ 🤩🌠. 🙏🏼