I saw the new Led Zeppelin doc, Becoming Led Zeppelin on Saturday at an IMAX theater and loved it. It was unseen footage of those early live performances that had me rapt. Their 1969 debut as The New Yardbirds is mesmerizing as they blaze through a face-melting rendition of “How Many More Times” to a room full of awestruck Danish teens. The call-and-response dynamic between Page and Plant that made early Zeppelin so powerful had never been put in front of my face so vividly. It was extremely impressive to witness.
While the documentary was excellent, it also stirred a lot of feelings and emotions within me related to my parents who told me so much about the band from their days of working at Swan Song and hanging out along the King’s Road. The affability of John Paul Jones who was so down to earth that my dad originally thought he was a member of Led Zeppelin’s Road Crew. Images of fat Peter Grant whom my mother so reviled as a boss that, upon learning of his death from a copy of the Boston Herald in the waiting room of my pediatrician in 1995, she looked down at the floor of Dr. Gaynor’s office and asked “Is it hot enough down there for you, Peter?”
However, It was seeing Led Zeppelin’s long time tour manager Richard Cole on screen that gave me the biggest jolt of emotion as he was my closest non-familial connection to the group. Cole was a longtime friend of my mother whom she first met when he was living across the street from her parent’s (my grandparents) in a flat with future Clash manager Bernie Rhodes in 1967 when my mum was still a teen.
Cole has shouldered much of the blame for Led Zeppelin’s antics considered problematic by today’s any standards. My wife and I had lunch with Mr. Cole every time we visited London as a married couple right up until he passed away in 2023. He was sweet, kind, thoughtful – mostly to my wife – but we got along very well. He sent us a Christmas card to our home in New York City every year. Richard Cole had a direct approach that I respected and admired.
I reflected on the conversation I had with Bob Spitz in 2019 as he was putting the final touches on his Led Zeppelin Biography. He asked me to put him in touch with Cole and, wanting to protect my friend, I refused. In hindsight, it’s not as if Spitz was going to harass Cole like a debt collector. It’s a conversation that may have allowed Mr. Cole an opportunity to push back against his portrayal in the book.
My wife is quick to point out that I did connect Richard Cole with my dear childhood friend John Policastro who wrote some great articles about him for Vice and Creem. He also wrote some nice things about my mum for an early blog post soon after Creem relaunched. Go read them and then check out Becoming Led Zeppelin in IMAX.
More to come.
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