Robert Plant is one of the most legendary
singers in rock music history, but his life hasn't been all hit records and world tours. In fact, you might be surprised to hear about
some of the rough experiences he's endured. Keep watching to discover his tragic true-life
story. Plant was born in Staffordshire, England and
grew up in a comfortably middle-class house. His father was an engineer, and his parents
pushed him to become an accountant. But Plant had discovered blues music, and
he was having trouble pretending to care about his education. As he told The Guardian in 1970, "It was really hard to combine the two and
keep a compatible relationship with schoolmasters and parents at the same time as doing what
I really wanted to do." Plant left school when he was 17 to pursue
his music dreams, which upset his parents. As he recalled, "I got in with this crew, which I'm afraid
upset my parents a bit, and the cleft between Mum and Dad and Robert got a bit wider and
a bit wider." Luckily for Plant, he managed to make a huge
success out of skipping out on that accounting degree, and he managed to eventually patch
things up with his folks. As he told Louder in 2020, "I had my moment of professional potential,
and because I didn't accept it I had to leave home when I was seventeen. So I toughened up pretty quickly. I made my peace with my parents a couple of
years later. But it was good, it was what it should be." Although Plant was Led Zeppelin's lead singer,
he wasn't the chief executive of the band. That role was filled by guitarist Jimmy Page. Four years older than Plant, Page was already
a seasoned professional musician when he formed the band in 1968. He also had a reputation for being a hard-nosed
businessman, so it's not really a surprise that he took the search for a lead singer
very seriously. At the time, Plant was a relatively unknown
and untested vocalist. Terry Reid, on the other hand, was an established
rock singer and songwriter. While he isn't especially famous today, back
in the 60s he was a big enough deal to matter to someone like Jimmy Page. So when Page began putting together the band
that would become Led Zeppelin, he invited Reid to be the lead. But Reid had already committed to being the
opening act on several tours. He suggested that if Page could wait a few
weeks, they could talk, but Page didn't want to wait. Reid actually ended up recommending Plant
to Page, and the rest is history. In 1970, life for Robert Plant was pretty
good. Led Zeppelin had become enormously successful. He was newly married to his wife Maureen Wilson
and he had a baby daughter named Carmen. They all lived happily on a farm in rural
England with their pet dog and some goats. But Plant was about to experience one of the
scariest tragedies of his life, one that still haunts him to this day. In 2016, when Plant was testifying in the
copyright infringement trial over the song "Stairway to Heaven," he was told that in
1970 he'd attended a concert by the American rock band Spirit and that he even played snooker
with one of Spirit's members. But Plant maintains that it's impossible that
he stole any aspects of Spirit's song because he doesn't remember any of it. The reason that he couldn't remember either
of those events was because he'd been involved in a terrible car crash immediately afterward. His wife suffered a fractured skull, while
part of the windshield ended up buried in the top of his head. As a result, he suffered memory loss and didn't
remember anything about the earlier events involving Spirit. Being a professional singer puts a lot of
strain on the body, especially the respiratory system, throat, and vocal cords. Inexperienced singers often strain their voices,
but the pros learn early on that taking care of themselves is vital to a long career. Even so, plenty of famous singers have had
vocal cord surgery to remove nodules, and Robert Plant is one of the most famous examples. The information about when that surgery happened
hasn't been publicized, but fans have theorized based on a noticeable change in Plant's vocals. The years 1972 and 1973 are the most common
guesses, as most fans believe the quality of his vocals changed after that. They also tend to believe that he became less
adventurous, shying away from the primal howls that marked much of his early work. What confuses things, though, is that Led
Zeppelin's 1975 album, Physical Graffiti, contains both contemporary recordings as well
as tracks that were recorded years earlier. So the answer to this mystery isn't as simple
as listening to one album and comparing it to earlier work. In 1975, Led Zeppelin were poised to start
a new tour and record a new album while enjoying their status as the biggest rock band in the
world. They'd just come off a huge tour that had
earned them plenty of money, and they had every intention of keeping that momentum going. And then came August 4. On that day, Plant was in the passenger seat
of a rented car on the Greek island of Rhodes. His wife Maureen was driving, while their
children Karac and Carmen were in the back seat with a friend. Then the car skidded off the road, sailed
over a ledge, and landed in a tree. Plant shattered his right leg in several places,
while Maureen ended up unconscious and bleeding. The children were also injured. It took hours for help to arrive, and when
Plant finally came out of the hospital, he was in a wheelchair. Karac had a broken leg and Maureen had a fractured
skull. It was a miracle that they all survived. A Led Zeppelin tour was out of the question,
of course. The band did at least manage to rally to record
their 1976 album Presence, though Plant had to lay down his vocals from a wheelchair. He also went through a bout with depression,
which is reflected in the album's dark lyrics. In 1977, Led Zeppelin was a band trying to
get its groove back. They'd been forced to slow down in the wake
of the Plant family's car crash. Over the next two years, the music world changed
around them with the arrival of punk rock, and their album Presence came to be regarded
as a relatively minor work in their catalog. As the group embarked on a world tour, they
intended to prove that they were still the biggest band in the world. Things got off to a rough start, though, when
Plant lost his voice for several weeks, and tour dates had to be postponed. Zeppelin finally got on the road in April. But then on July 26, 1977, Robert Plant received
two phone calls. The first informed him that his five-year
old son Karac was ill. The second call came shortly after, giving
him the devastating news that Karac had died. Just a week earlier, Plant's daughter Carmen
had been sick with a stomach virus, though she'd gotten better. When Karac fell ill, it was thought to be
the same virus, but he was hit much harder. Plant left the tour and immediately flew home. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the tour was canceled. Plant has had one of the most successful careers
in rock music history. Not only was he the lead singer of one of
the most iconic rock bands of all time, he's also enjoyed spectacular success as a solo
artist. In fact, the four decades of his solo work
dwarf the 12 years he spent in Led Zeppelin. So it's kind of shocking to hear that there
was a time when he seriously considered leaving music behind and training to become a teacher. But that's exactly what happened in 1977 when
his son Karac passed away. As he told Louder in 2020, "I was thinking about the merit of my life
at that time, and whether or not I needed to put a lot more into the reality of the
people that I loved and cared for – my daughter and my family generally. So yeah, I was ready to jack it in." "You know, time is swallowed by every move,
you know." In 2007, Plant told Rolling Stone, "I lost my boy. I didn't want to be in Led Zeppelin. I wanted to be with my family." Ultimately, Plant was convinced to carry on
with music and Led Zeppelin by his friend, Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. Plant and John Bonham knew each other long
before they were in Led Zeppelin together. They met in 1965, when they were both just
17 years old. Over the next few years, they played in two
bands together, the Crawling King Snakes and the Band of Joy. When Plant was offered the lead singer position
for Led Zeppelin in 1968, he recommended Bonham for the drums, which allowed the two friends
to work together on a much bigger stage. Bonham had his demons, including a propensity
for alcohol. On September 24, 1980, he went to sleep after
drinking heavily and choked in his sleep. Plant was devastated. In 2012, Bonham's son Jason revealed that
Plant told him, "We shared something very, very special. I struggle sometimes, just thinking about
trying to create some magic again when he's not there. He was a very, very dear friend of mine, that
I miss every day." In fact, Plant's devastation over his friend's
death is a big reason why Led Zeppelin have never reunited for a full tour, even though
such a reunion would make headlines everywhere. In 2018, Jason Bonham told Billboard that
Plant told him, "I loved your dad way too much...When your
father left us, left the world, that was it for Led Zeppelin." "I thought all those years later, you know,
it was just one ridiculous loss." Robert Plant married his wife Maureen Wilson
in 1968, just as Led Zeppelin was taking off. They met in 1966, and she supported them with
her nursing work when he was a struggling, unknown musician. He loved her very much, and he even dedicated
the Led Zeppelin song "Thank You" to her. Maureen accompanied her husband on the first
Led Zeppelin tour, but shortly after the birth of their first child, she began staying home
with the kids while Plant toured. The singer has admitted that while he tried
to be a good father and husband, he was distracted. In 2020, he told Louder, "I'd spent so much time trying to be a decent
dad, but at the same time I was really attracted to what I was doing in Zeppelin." The couple had another son, Logan, in 1979,
but Plant's career continued to take its toll on their marriage. In 1983, the couple divorced. Afterwards, Plant dated around for a bit. There are rumors that he even dated Maureen's
sister Shirley for a while. But he never came close to the level of commitment
he'd enjoyed with Maureen, and he's never remarried. In 2010, Plant decided to reform one of his
early groups, Band of Joy. He recruited some new members, including folk
singer-songwriter Patty Griffin. He hired her as a backing singer, and the
two began a relationship that proved to be very serious. In fact, he moved in with her and they lived
together in Austin, Texas, for several years. He also collaborated with her on the band's
self-titled 2010 album. Sadly, in 2014, the couple ended their relationship,
and Plant moved back to England after several years in America. Griffin has refused to comment on the relationship
or its ending, but it's clear that the breakup affected Plant deeply. In 2017, while talking with Louder about his
2017 solo album Carry Fire, he noted, "If you listen to the album you can hear me
pouring out my heart to whoever's interested. Cause that's what I do. And it's not easy to do that, believe me." Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite
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