Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

Jerry Greenberg has had a close relationship with Led Zeppelin.

After seeing the band reunite at Atlantic Records’ 40th anniversary he signed John Bohman‘s son Jason to the label.

But his relationship goes back much further.

Starting his career as a drummer in a pickup band which backed many of the popular acts of the ’50s and 1960s, Greenberg joined future Zeppelin record label Atlantic as a radio promoter.

It was him who infamously went against the band’s wished and edited Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love‘ down from five minutes to three in 1969, then released it in North America single.

While the act irritated Zeppelin, many would contend it cemented their success.

The way Greenberg tells, according to Phoenix newspaper New Times, is this: “I kept calling Jimmy [Page] and saying, ‘Do an edit on this song, I can get radio to play it!’ And he’d say, ‘We’re not a singles band!’ and hang up on me.”

Unperturbed Jerry gave the edit the go-ahead anyway and ‘Whole Lotta Love’ gave Led Zeppelin a Top 10 hit.

Greenberg also has future plans.

“It’s going to be the next Hamilton,” he enthuses to his interviewer, comparing his nascent idea to multi-million-dollar Broadway musical about historical American figure Alexander Hamilton. “I’ve got the Peter Grant story.”

Grant is, of course, Led Zeppelin’s manager, whose appetite for drugs, debauchery, and violence rivaled if not exceeded the Zeppelin’s own.

This prolific drug use would lead Grant, whose business deals rewrote industry-standards in favorite of the artist, to become a recluse and contributed to several health issues in later life.

“We’re talking to some investors,” Jerry shares.

A musical about Grant would, of course, necessarily a musical about Zeppelin.

Peter’s pathological commitment to Zeppelin and above all Jimmy Page is the stuff of legend.

The ups and downs of Grant’s life paralleled the group’s own rapid ascent and decline into drugs, death, and disillusion.

“When Peter Grant was laying down the law to people,” Led Zeppelin press agent Bill Harry told Classic Rock Magazine in 2016, “they would be visibly shaking. People were terrified of him. He had this immense power to project strength.”

“When Zeppelin started, he would kill for those guys,” Mickie Most told the same publication, “Their relationship was unique, and so tight it eventually became claustrophobic.”

After exiting the music industry post-Zeppelin, Grant lived a more subdued life before dying from a heart attack in 1995.

You can read Greenberg’s full interview here.