It was in the fall of 1966 when Tallmadge guitarist Ritch Underwood, 78, joined the Kent-based band The Measles and played alongside Joe Walsh.
Behind the scenes, Underwood had a passion for photography and videography, which led him to capture the early years of the band, as well as the iconic beginnings of Walsh’s career. Throughout the years, Underwood photographed and videotaped countless celebrities in his travels. And recently, some of his video footage was featured in a new documentary, “Becoming Led Zeppelin.”
That footage was a recording of Led Zeppelin on stage at the Atlanta International Pop Festival in 1969, when Led Zeppelin was just starting to get a name for themselves in the States. It was the second day of the two-day festival, and Underwood was on leave from Naval Air Station Whiting Field.
He had been using an Instamatic film camera and a video camera to record Led Zeppelin on stage, the same ones he’d previously used to photograph the early days of The Measles and local bar bands in Kent. But by the time he made it backstage, he had run out of camera film and was trying to borrow some from other photographers.
“This was the end of the second day when all this was going on. The last acts were Led Zeppelin; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Janis Joplin; Joe Cocker,” Underwood said. “I was out of [camera] film and I was looking around for film. There were some photographers there, but everybody had 35 mm film and I got an Instamatic, like a little, cheap camera.
Anyways, I was up by the stage and Blood, Sweat & Tears was setting up and I was looking at this guy and I thought, damn, he looks familiar.”
The guy turned out to be a bartender from JBs in Kent, who was working as a roadie for Blood, Sweat & Tears. The man told Underwood to talk to the soundman to get a backstage pass.
“The guy at the soundboard was Larry Waterman from Kent. He was a bar manager at JBs. He was the road manager for Blood, Sweat & Tears. We looked at each other, like, how’d this even happen? Anyway, I went backstage, talked to Jimmy Page, and during the conversation, I had mentioned to him about Joe Walsh. I said, ‘He’s a buddy of mine. We played in a band in Kent, Ohio, and he’s really became a name for himself now.’ And he [Page] showed me his guitar and said, ‘I just bought this guitar from Joe Walsh a short time ago.’ That’s the guitar he used on most of the Zeppelin stuff, from about ’69, there on out.”
Although Underwood wasn’t able to borrow film to shoot backstage, he did get to talk to Page. And he still had on-stage footage of Led Zeppelin that, now, after more than 56 years, has officially become part of rock and roll history and can be viewed internationally in theaters and rented through online streaming services, such as Amazon Prime Video and YouTube. The documentary, “Becoming Led Zeppelin,” was directed by Bernard MacMahon and released in February 2025.
Due to health issues, Underwood was unable to accept an invitation to see the film in Los Angeles, although he did get to go when it was released at the Cinemark in Valley View, Ohio.
Throughout the years, Underwood has captured hundreds of celebrities with his camera, including B.B. King, Paul Simon with Carrie Fisher, Gordon Lightfoot, Chuck Berry, The Kinks, Roy Orbison, Steve Martin, Dick Clark, George Burns and Stephen Stills, to name a few. Oftentimes, he’d hand his camera to someone nearby, to have them photograph him with a celebrity; other times, he shot performers while they were on stage, at a party, or wherever he could find them.
Underwood spent 1967-1971 in the Navy and eventually settled in the Kent area, helping to form the band Monopoly in 1970, which played around the area and beyond until 2022.
Former bassist for Monopoly, Chas Madonio, remembers Underwood’s infatuation with photography.
“He was like a real pain in the ass, because all he wanted to do was take pictures. We’d get done playing — in those days, a lot of gigs went on until 12 o’clock, 1 o’clock [in the morning] — but he always had a camera, and he always wanted to take pictures at the end of the night and we just, we wanted to go home, to go get something to eat, we didn’t want to hang around the bar and pose for pictures,” Madonio said. “It was kind of a big joke, like, what are you going to do with all these?”
But Madonio said if Underwood hadn’t been so hellbent on photographing the local rock scene of the ’60s and ’70s, there would be little record of it.
“Well, it turns out, that’s probably 90% of those days,” Madonio said. “I wrote a book about those days, the glory days back in the late ’60s, and most of the pictures that are in there are ones that he took. They’re the ones that I kept griping about in the old days, ’cause I didn’t want to hang around for pictures. It’s called ‘Bars, Bands and Rock and Roll.’ It’s been out for 2 and a half years. It’s locally released by the Kent Historical Society Press. The book cover is a picture of The Measles from 1966 with Joe Walsh. That’s kind of an iconic picture. There’s about 20 different people that have claimed to have taken that picture, but Ritch is the one that took it.”
Although much of what Underwood photographed was bands and musicians, when famous people came to the area, he found a way to get their picture and meet them. For instance, Muhammad Ali visited Cleveland around 1988 to promote his brand of cologne, and Underwood found him and took his picture.
On another occasion, he had an encounter with Vincent Price, and in an eerie setting, nonetheless.
“I used to go to Packard Music Hall [in Warren, Ohio] a lot on Tuesday nights. That was the cast night. That’s when they usually had a cast party. I would hang out with the cast. They had these outdoor pavilions, where they would cook out, and had a little party for them,” Underwood said. “Well, Vincent Price was at this thing and I went out, got together with him, was mingling with everybody, and stuff. While we’re there, this storm comes up and it’s just lightning, and the whole bit, and I’m standing and I said, ‘Can we get a picture together?’ And I said, ‘The coolest thing about this picture, Mr. Price, is it’s not only I’m standing next to you, but it’s storming. It’s like a scene from one of your movies. And he turns to me and says, ‘It is a wonderful night, isn’t it?,’ with that voice. It makes the hair on your arm stand up. It was a perfect surrounding.”
Madonio said it was nothing short of amazing how Underwood was able to put himself in the path of some of the most famous people on the planet, take a picture, and even get to know them.
“I went with him to a couple of concerts and we were backstage all the time,” Madonio said. “He’d bullshit the security people and they’d let him back. He carried a tape recorder and said he was going to interview these people. He had a lot of nerve to do that, but it worked.”
