Terry Reid’s remarkable singing voice ensured he stood out in a golden age of British rock vocalists. So much so that in the late 1960s both Jimmy Page and Ritchie Blackmore, the respective guitarists and leaders of the heavy rock bands Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, approached him to front their groups. That Reid, who has died of cancer aged 75, turned them both down, could have reduced him to a footnote in rock history, yet his singular talent continued to be recognised by musicians from Aretha Franklin to Dr Dre.
Reid’s lack of chart success – he would only release six studio albums in a career that spanned almost 60 years – should not detract from his achievements: alongside his powerful voice (his nickname was “Superlungs”), he was also a gifted guitarist and songwriter, while two of his albums, River (1973) and Seed of Memory (1976), would achieve retrospective critical acclaim and find, once reissued, a far wider audience than when first released.
Reid was also a valued collaborator: he performed and/or recorded with musicians from the Brazilian vocalist Gilberto Gil, through the Californian singer-songwriters Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt, to the rap producer Dr Dre. When declining Page, Reid recommended he seek out Robert Plant, a teenage vocalist that he had encountered in the Midlands, and his band’s drummer, John Bonham, and thus Led Zeppelin was born. “It’s good to check your ego and support other artists’ visions,” Reid told the Guardian in 2024, adding, “I’m part of a society of musicians and I love that I can go out there and sing.”
Born in Little Paxton, Cambridgeshire, to Grace (nee Barber) and Walter Reid, Terry was raised in the village of Bluntisham. Walter owned a tractor dealership while Grace managed a small orchard that grew apples for cider. Reid recalled that his mother would stand him on a crate so that he could sing to the women she worked alongside during the apple harvest. Attending St Ivo school in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, Reid formed the Redbeats with schoolmates, and regularly played local venues.
One evening in 1965 at the Palais in Peterborough, the Redbeats supported Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, an instrumental rock band. Jay was so impressed by the 15-year-old Terry that he approached his father to ask if he could join the Jaywalkers as vocalist. Parental permission granted, Reid left school and relocated with the Jaywalkers to London.
He then underwent an intensive apprenticeship singing R&B hits in pubs and clubs across Britain. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger witnessed a performance at the Marquee club in 1966 and invited the Jaywalkers to join the Rolling Stones’ UK tour alongside Ike and Tina Turner and the Yardbirds, featuring Page, who would later invite Reid to join his new band. Reid, however – with shout-outs from Franklin, who told the press on a 1968 visit to the UK that “there are only three things happening in England: the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Terry Reid” – was determined to go solo. The same year, Mickie Most, then one of Britain’s most successful pop producers, signed him.
While Most had launched such acts as Donovan and the Animals, he and Reid failed to gel; Reid’s somewhat overwrought vocals on his 1968 debut album, Bang, Bang You’re Terry Reid, met with public indifference. In 1969, after recording his eponymous second album, Reid was again invited by the Stones to join them on tour, this time across the US. Before the tour, however, he fell out irreparably with Most, yet found himself locked into a recording contract. The album was stronger than Reid’s debut, but Most declined to promote it.
Reid relocated to California and continued to tour, performing at Glastonbury festival in 1971 (so appearing in Glastonbury Fayre, a feature documentary co-directed by Nicolas Roeg), while litigation with Most continued. Atlantic Records finally resolved the dispute and signed Reid, releasing his 1973 album River. A beautifully meandering blend of rock, folk, blues, jazz and bossa nova that baffled many (including Atlantic) when initially released – its abstract textures did not attract radio play – it was appreciated by a new audience on its reissue in the early 2000s. Similarly Seed of Memory, on ABC, and produced by Reid’s friend Graham Nash, failed to reach listeners at the time, despite following more conventional song structures.
On Rogue Waves (1978), Reid performed uninspired rock versions of 60s-era pop hits and pleased no one. He retreated to working as a session musician, returning for the 1991 album The Driver. With a bombastic production by Trevor Horn, Reid appeared adrift on his own album.
Reid sat out much of the 90s until a Monday night residency at a Beverly Hills bar became a magnet for his fans – one of whom, Thomas Brooman, director of Womad festival, invited Reid to perform at the 2002 event. Chris Johnson, a film producer who had licensed one of Reid’s songs for the 1999 British feature The Criminal, organised some more UK dates, and Reid began regularly performing on this side of the Atlantic, returning to Womad and Glastonbury festivals alongside summer tours and residencies at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club. This led to the 2012 Live In London album, his final release.
The reissues of River and Seed of Memory brought renewed media attention and approaches from younger musicians such as Alabama 3 and DJ Shadow. His songs also began to be placed in Hollywood films, while the actor Johnny Depp funded new recordings by Reid (so far unreleased). A UK tour for this September was cancelled after Reid was diagnosed with cancer in June.
A 1976 marriage to Susan Johnson ended in divorce in 1982. Reid is survived by his second wife, Annette (nee Grady), whom he married in 2004, and two daughters, Kelly and Holly, from a previous relationship.
• Terry (Terrance James) Reid, singer, guitarist and songwriter, born 13 November 1949; died 4 August 2025
