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Happy birthday, Jimmy Page, born on this day in 1944.
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Today is the 82nd birthday of British guitarist, songwriter and producer Jimmy Page, born in Heston (Middlesex). Allmusic describes him as ‘without a doubt, one of the most influential and versatile songwriters and guitarists in rock history’.
At age 12, Page got his first guitar, and although he took a few lessons, Jimmy was a self-taught musician. Among his early influences were Scotty Moore and James Burton – both guitarists for Elvis Presley – and Johnny Day, collaborator of The Everly Brothers. In 1957, when Page was 13 years old, he appeared for the first time on television on a young talent program, Huw Wheldon Show, touching on the theme‘Mama don’t wanna play no skiffle no more’.
Although Page was interested in science, even receiving a job offer as a laboratory assistant, he decided to leave his studies to start a musical career. After several attempts, Page managed to join The Crusaders, a rock band whose ranks included vocalist Neil Christian.
He stayed with them for more than two years, during which Page contracted mononucleosis that prevented him from continuing to give concerts. He enrolled in an art college to develop his other great passion, painting, and would meet at London”s Marquee Club with other guitarists to improvise, such as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Alexis Corner, where he received an offer to work as a session musician at EMI Records. His first work in that sense was accompanying Jet Harris and Tony Meeham on acoustic guitar on the hit ‘Diamonds’ (1963)
‘Little Jimmy’ soon gained fame as a session guitarist and, as a favorite of producer Shel Talmy, Page ended up working with groups such as The Who or The Kinks. Other artists Page worked with at that time were The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Marianne Faithfull, Dave Berry and Brenda Lee. In 1989 the first of two double albums ‘Jimmy Page: Session Man Vol1 and Vol2’ was released, which collected in 84 tracks a part of these works, including a couple of recordings of Jimmy as a soloist, ‘She just satisfies‘ y ‘Keep movin’, dating back to 1965.
In 1964, Page received an offer to replace his friend Eric Clapton on The Yardbirds, although he turned it down as a sign of loyalty to Eric. A year later, Clapton left of his own accord and Page received a new offer, which Page declined again to continue his lucrative career as a session musician. He was also not prepared to go on tour with a group, so he recommended his partner and friend Jeff Beck as Clapton’s replacement.
On May 16, 1966, drummer Keith Moon, bassist John Paul Jones, keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page recorded the song ‘Beck’s Bolero’ at IBC Studios in London. This gave Page the idea of forming a supergroup with Jeff Beck, along with the rhythmic base of the Who: John Entwistle on bass and Keith Moon on drums. The lack of a solo singer and other contractual issues put the project on hold, and Jimmy continued with his sessions for others.
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“There was a time when I did three sessions a day, six days a week! And I rarely knew in advance what or with whom I was going to play. But I learned a lot even in the worst sessions, and believe me, I played in horrendous spawns. I quit when they started calling me to do “muzak” (ambient music) and I understood that I couldn’t go on like this. I guess it was fate that determined Paul Samwell-Smith to leave the Yardbirds the following week, and I had a chance to step in his place. However, my experience as a session musician was magnificent, I liked the discipline of the recording studio. They just let the tape run and you couldn’t make mistakes”.
Page received another offer to be part of the Yardbirds that he did accept this time, replacing Paul Samwell-Smith on bass, an instrument that was finally taken over by Chris Dreja. Jimmy played the role of lead guitar along with Jeff Beck. However, the group”s great musical potential was interrupted by constant touring and a lack of musical success, as well as internal conflicts that led to the departure of Jeff Beck, leaving the group as a quartet. The Yardbirds” first (and only) album with Page as the sole lead guitarist was “Little Games”, which was received with indifference. Although their sound in the studio was intended to be more commercial, live performances were quite the opposite, becoming increasingly experimental and heavy. Page took good note of some scenic aspects that he would later perfect with Led Zeppelin.
“I had a lot of ideas that came up in performances with the Yardbirds. With them I had the opportunity to improvise live and began to collect ideas that I would use in Led Zeppelin. I also wanted to add acoustic textures. In short, I wanted the band to be a mix of blues, hard rock and acoustic music, all wrapped in a powerful voice, a combination that no one had done before. A music full of lights and shadows.”
When Relf and McCarty left the group in 1968, Page reformed the band by recruiting vocalist Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham. Bassist and arranger John Paul Jones – whom Page knew from their session man jobs – joined them and Led Zeppelin was born, who in their first performances together were still called the New Yardbirds. Page”s experience as a session musician and as a member of The Yardbirds was noticeable from the get-go. As a songwriter, producer, and guitarist, Page helped lead Zeppelin become one of the most influential bands of the 1970s and rock music history, as well as single-handedly influencing numerous later guitarists.
The heavy metal-oriented riff of ‘Communication breakdown’, was considered by Johnny Ramone, guitarist of the extinct and early punk band The Ramones, as inspiring the accelerated and powerful sound of his band’s music. For its part, the guitar solo of ‘Heartbreaker’, played with both hands on the neck of the guitar, definitely influenced Eddie Van Halen to popularize this guitar technique in the eighties. The solo of ‘Stairway to heaven’, is considered by many fans to be the best solo in history, while Page himself was named guitarist of the year five times in a row by Creem magazine during the 1970s.
After Bonham”s death and the dissolution of Led Zeppelin, Page continued on his own and collaborated, among others, with David Coverdale. Ephemeral was his experience in 1981 with Chris Squire and Alan White in the group XYZ (eX-Yes-Zeppelin), which Plant did not want to join, who found the proposed songs “complicated and lacking in feeling”, so the project was parked. In 1984, having overcome his long addiction to heroin, he released “The Honeydrippers”, a project together with Jeff Beck and Robert Plant, whose album of only five songs obtained some success, especially the single “Sea of Love”.
That same year Page formed The Firm with Tony Franklin on bass, Chris Slade on drums and Paul Rodgers on lead vocals. Page actually wanted to hire Bill Bruford and Pino Balladino as drummer and bassist, but both were under contract at another label. The Firm released two albums, “The Firm” and “Mean Business” and in 1986 they broke up.
Two years later Jimmy Page released his first (and to date only) solo album, “Outrider”, strongly impregnated by his passion for the blues, in which he took up sounds from his time in the Yardbirds and in whose recording John Bonham”s son, Jason, participated for the first time on drums. In May, Led Zeppelin reunited, again with Jason taking over from his father, to play only at Atlantic Records” 40th anniversary celebration concert.
In 1994, Page and Plant reunited to record a concert for the MTV series “Unplugged”. The special, renamed “Unledded”, did not feature John Paul Jones and was one of the network”s most successful shows. In October of the same year, the recording was released under the name “No Quarter”, and due to the success of their presentation tour, Page and Plant recorded a new album together in 1998, “Walking into Clarksdale”.
On December 10, 2007, Page and Plant resumed contact with John Paul Jones and, as part of a tribute concert to Ahmet Ertegün -founder of Atlantic Records-the legendary super band of the 70s performed again at the O2 Arena in London. In 2009, Davis Guggenheim”s documentary “It might get loud” was released on TV, which brings Jimmy Page together with two other guitar virtuosos – The Edge of U2 and Jack White of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs – and in which each guitarist reveals the influences that marked their respective styles. Presented at the Toronto Film Festival, the documentary includes previously unreleased songs and a jam session by the guitarists.
In December 2012, Page, Plant and Jones received the annual Kennedy Center Honors from President Obama in a ceremony held at the White House. It is the country”s highest distinction for those who have influenced American culture through the arts. During the ceremony, the Wilson sisters of Heart, with Jason Bonham on drums, performed a magnificent version of “Stairway to heaven”. Plant, in one of the boxes, could not hold back tears of emotion. Since 2014, Page has tried unsuccessfully to convince Robert Plant for a meeting of Led Zeppelin.