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Friday, May 25, 2012 1:15 PM UTC

Ill. man who renamed himself Led Zeppelin II dies

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Topics: From the Wires,

BETHALTO, Ill. (AP) — He was known as George Blackburn for most of his life, but after his divorce last fall he wanted to start life over. So Blackburn changed his name to Led Zeppelin II.

Zeppelin’s daughter, Mindy Baker, says he saw the iconic British rock band about 20 times in the 60s and 70s and had talked about changing his name for years before the divorce. Baker, of Seattle, says Zeppelin died of a heart attack on May 18, aged 64.

“Led Zeppelin II,” released in 1969, was the band’s first album to reach No. 1 in the U.S

The Chicago Tribune reports (http://trib.in/MH2iyN ) that Zeppelin, of Bethalto in southern Illinois, was born in Milwaukee in 1947 and raised in Chicago. He worked 32 years for TWA and retired in 1997.

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