Excerpt
LED ZEPPELIN
It is rumored that Jimmy Page, formerly of The Yardbirds, wanted to keep that band name alive after the original group broke up for contractual reasons. So he recruited singer Robert Plant, keyboard player John Paul Jones, drummer John Bonham, and then began touring under the name of The New Yardbirds. They changed their name only after the late Keith Moon, of The Who (see their Rock Connection in section W), observed, “With that lineup you'll go down like a lead balloon.” Later, The Who’s bass player, John Entwhistle, claimed that it was he who made this observation so let’s give them both credit. Another rumor is that this observation was made by a newspaper, but that may have just been a reporter quoting either of these men. Incidentally, the band does know how to spell the word “lead”. They just dropped the “a” to avoid having people mispronounce their new name; they did not want it pronounced in the way you would pronounce Jimmy Page’s role in the band as the “lead guitarist”.