Rock and roll is full of maybe moments. The sliding doors effect has made for a wonderful plot device over the years in Hollywood, but the world of music has had its fair share of ‘what ifs’ happen along the way, too, including the moment a pre-fame Robert Plant almost gave up his chance to be in Led Zeppelin.
There’s a certain camaraderie within the rock world that its patrons like to believe makes the groups and audiences who love the genre operate like some kind of marauding biker gang. Something about being entwined by culture can make us believe that those binds are forever. However, the truth is, a lot of your favourite bands have endured a bitter rivalry with both another group and even with each other. Culture, after all, can be a competitive sport from time to time.
Likewise, there was no love lost between members of The Who. Anyone who has paid attention to the band for a modicum of time will be able to tell you that. However, in 1966, the tensions between the quartet grew to an immeasurable level and threatened to derail their progress as a band just as it was getting going. Roger Daltrey’s behaviour had seen him become the walking talking target within the group, prompting another rock legend to chance his arm at taking his place.
At 17, Robert Plant—destined to become one of the most iconic voices of his generation as the lead singer of Led Zeppelin—expressed interest in taking over Roger Daltrey’s role in The Who. This tantalising “what if” moment in rock history sparks the imagination, leaving us to wonder about the blistering anthems Pete Townshend and Plant might have created together. For a guitarist who often found himself at odds with his frontman, one has to ask: could this have been the moment Townshend began to fall out of love with The Who?
If Keith Moon, John Entwistle, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend weren’t on stage smashing up their instruments and causing havoc, then they were probably fighting one another and with their fists, too. The Who were legendary for their inter-band fighting, but most groups left things at vicious words; The Who were always down for a dust-up with physical violence, only ever a hair’s breadth away.
Their first real punch-up came after Daltrey had flushed Moon’s pills down the toilet—even forcing the band to “sack” Daltrey for some time, clearly breaking a secret vow they had all made. But that tension quickly dissipated when the group realised ‘My Generation’ was topping the charts and suggesting that a career shrouded in pop stardom still lay ahead if they just paid attention.
It was a similar scenario for the other arguments, violent or otherwise, the group had over the years. Normally, they would run as such: verbal jousting, underlying tension that threatens to bubble up, hugely violent eruption, settle down, back on stage and repeat. But when Daltrey took off for “some extra shagging”, as he eloquently put it, leaving Townshend and Entwistle on vocal duty, tensions grew to an unbearable level and saw the group begin to see what their options were outside of Daltrey.
Having already cancelled a Worcester gig following Daltrey’s no-show, the trio left on stage faced a similar problem when they arrived in Kidderminster, once again without their frontman and the lead singer. On that night, however, in the audience was a fresh-faced teenage Plant who decided he should be the man to fill it after seeing the vacant spot behind the mic.
“[Plant] came to see us three nights in a row and offered himself for the job, as did Steve Gibbons when he came to see us and Roger wasn’t there,” Townshend recalled in 1990. “Obviously, none of them thought I was any good [at singing]!” Eventually, Townshend, a seriously controlling artist, decided to better the devil, you know and stuck with Daltrey.
In 1968, Plant became a founding member of Led Zeppelin and went on to become one of the biggest artists of the 20th century, outselling The Beatles and largely becoming a bonafide rock legend. Plant and Daltrey have even maintained a good friendship over the years despite sniping for his job.
“Robert’s got incredible courage,” Daltrey said in a radio interview acknowledging the power of the Led Zeppelin man. “I know a lot of people kind of say that well he copied you because you had the long, curly hair, and then he comes along with the long curly hair… That’s not true, because Robert is Robert,” he said. ” I just wish I could’ve been as tall.”
Of course, considering Pete Townshend’s relationship with Led Zeppelin, a band he has routinely hated for much of his career, we think our first wondering—the kind of songs he could have made with Robert Plant—may have equally ended up becoming a flurry of a rather different kind of hit.
