James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English guitarist, composer and record
producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds, from late 1966 to 1968, before founding English rock band
Led Zeppelin. Page has been described as "unquestionably one of the all-time most
influential, important, and versatile guitarists and songwriters in rock history."[1]
In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him #9 in their ranking of the
100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.[2] Page also has the distinction of having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice as a member of both The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin.[3][4]
Formative years
Page was born in the west London suburb of Heston, which today forms part of the
London Borough of Hounslow. His father was an industrial personnel manager
and his mother was a doctor's secretary. In 1952 they moved to Miles Road, Epsom. Jimmy Page first
picked up the guitar when he was 12 years old and although he took a few lessons in nearby Kingston, was largely self-taught. His early influences were rockabilly guitarists Connor Griffis and James
Burton, who both played on recordings made by Elvis Presley, and Johnny Day, who played guitar for The Everly Brothers. The
Presley song "Baby Let's Play House" was an early favourite on one of his first electric guitars, a second hand 1959 Futurama
Grazioso. Page's musical tastes also encompassed acoustic folk playing, particularly that of Bert
Jansch and John Renbourn, and the blues sounds of Elmore James and B.B. King. At the age of 14, Page appeared on
Huw Wheldon's All Your Own talent quest
programme in a skiffle band, a popular English music genre of the time. One performance was
televised[1]. Page said in an interview with Guitar Player magazine, "There was
a lot of busking in the early days, but as I say, I had to come to grips with it, and it was a
good schooling."[5]
Page would take a guitar to school each day and have it confiscated and handed back to him at 4.00 pm. He was interested in
science and had an interview for a job as a Laboratory Assistant, but he chose to leave school to pursue music instead [6] and after brief stints backing Beat poet Royston Ellis and singer Red E. Lewis, Page was asked by singer Neil
Christian to join his band The Crusaders. Page toured with Christian for approximately two years and later played on
several of his records, including the November 1962 single, "The Road to Love".
During his stint with Christian, Page fell seriously ill with glandular
fever and couldn't continue touring. While recovering, Page decided to put his musical career on the shelf and concentrate
on his other love, painting. He enrolled at Sutton Art College in Surrey.
Session player
While still a student, Page would often jam on stage at The Marquee with bands such as
Cyril Davies' All Stars, Alexis Korner's
Blues Incorporated and with guitarists Jeff Beck
and Eric Clapton. He was spotted one night by John Gibb of The Silhouettes, who asked him to help record a number of singles for EMI,
including "The Worrying Kind". It wasn't until an offer from Mike Leander of Decca Records
that Page was to receive regular studio work. His first session for the label was the recording "Diamonds" by Jet Harris & Tony Meehan which went to Number 1 on the singles chart
in early 1963.
After brief stints with Carter-Lewis and the Southerners,
Mike Hurst's group, and Mickey Finn and the Blue
Men, Page committed himself to full-time session work. As a session guitarist he
was known as 'Little Jim' so there was no confusion with Big Jim Sullivan i.e. 'Big
Jim'. Page was the favoured session guitarist of producer Shel Talmy, and therefore he ended
up doing session work on songs for The Who and The Kinks as a
direct result of the Talmy connection.[7]
Page's studio output in 1964 included Marianne Faithfull's "As Tears Go By", The Nashville Teens'
"Tobacco Road", The Rolling Stones'
"Heart of Stone" (alternate version), Van Morrison & Them's "Baby Please Don't Go" and "Here Comes the Night",
Dave Berry's "The Crying Game" and
"My Baby Left Me", and Brenda Lee's "Is It True". Under the auspices of producer Talmy, Page
contributed to The Kinks' 1964 debut album (although, despite rumours to the contrary, he did
not play any of the guitar solos); and he sat in on the sessions for The Who's first
single "I Can't Explain" (although his guitar parts may not appear on the final mix), but he played on the B-side "Bald Headed
Woman".
In 1965, Page was hired by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham to act as
house producer and A&R man for the newly-formed Immediate Records label, which
also allowed him to play on and/or produce tracks by John Mayall, Nico, Chris Farlowe and Eric Clapton.
Page also formed a brief songwriting partnership with then romantic interest, Jackie
DeShannon. He worked as session musician on the Al Stewart album Love Chronicles in 1969, and played guitar on five tracks of Joe
Cocker's debut album, With a Little Help from My
Friends.
When questioned about which songs he played on, especially ones where some controversy as to what his exact role was, Page
often points out that it is hard to remember exactly what he did given the huge amount of sessions he was playing at the time.
Various estimates have him playing on anything from 50% to 90% of the records that were produced in England between 1963 and
1965.[8]
Although Page recorded with many notable musicians, many of these early tracks are only available through bootlegged copies, several of which were released by the Led Zeppelin fan club in the late 1970s. The
records released by the fan club include many otherwise unreleased live Led
Zeppelin recordings. One of the rarest of these is the early jam session featuring Jimmy Page playing with
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards,
featuring a cover of "Little Queen of Spades" by the blues legend Robert Johnson.
The Yardbirds
-
In late 1964 Page was approached about the possibility of replacing Eric Clapton in
The Yardbirds, but he declined the offer out of loyalty to his friend, Clapton. In
February 1965 Clapton quit the Yardbirds, and Page was formally offered Clapton's spot, but because he was unwilling to give up
his lucrative career as a session musician, and because he was still worried about his health under touring conditions, he
suggested his friend, Jeff Beck, fill the position. On May 16,
1966, drummer Keith Moon, bass player John Paul Jones, keyboardist Nicky Hopkins,
Jeff Beck and Page recorded "Beck's Bolero" in London's IBC
Studios. The experience gave Page an idea to form a new supergroup featuring
Beck, along with The Who's John Entwistle on bass and
Keith Moon on drums, however the lack of a quality vocalist and contractual problems brought
the project to a halt.
Within weeks, Page was again offered a spot in the Yardbirds and at first played bass
guitar with the group after the departure of Paul Samwell-Smith, before
finally switching to twin lead guitar with Beck when Chris
Dreja moved to bass. The musical potential of the line-up however was scuttled by interpersonal conflicts caused by
constant touring and a lack of commercial success, although they released one single, "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago". (While Page and Jeff
Beck played together in The Yardbirds, the trio of Page, Beck and Eric Clapton never played in the original group all at the same
time. The three guitarists did appear on stage together at the ARMS charity concerts in
1983.)
After Beck's departure, the Yardbirds remained a quartet. They recorded one album with Page on lead guitar,
Little Games. The album received indifferent reviews and was not a commercial
success, peaking at only number 80 on the Billboard Music Charts. Though their studio
sound was fairly commercial at the time, the band's live performances were in total contrast with this, becoming heavier and more
experimental. These concerts featured musical aspects that Page would later perfect with Led Zeppelin, most notably performances
of Jake Holmes' version of "Dazed and
Confused".
Despite the departure of Keith Relf and Jim McCarty
in 1968, Page wished to continue the group with a new line-up to fulfill unfinished tour dates in Scandinavia. He recruited vocalist Robert Plant and drummer
John Bonham, and was contacted by John Paul Jones who asked to join, to which Page agreed.
During the Scandinavian tour the new group appeared as "The New Yardbirds", but Keith Moon, the drummer of The Who, suggested that Jimmy Page's new band would go over like a "Lead Zeppelin." Jimmy Page stuck with that
name to use for his new band. The band later changed it to "Led Zeppelin," to avoid a mispronounciation of "Leed
Zeppelin."
Led Zeppelin
-
Page (centre bottom) with a young Led Zeppelin, 1968.
Influence
Page's past experiences both in the studio and with the Yardbirds were very influential in contributing to the success of Led
Zeppelin in the 1970s. As a producer, composer, and guitarist he helped make Led
Zeppelin a prototype for many future rock bands, and was one of the major driving forces behind the rock sound of that era,
influencing a host of other guitarists. For example, his sped up, downstroke guitar riff in "Communication Breakdown" is cited as guitarist Johnny
Ramone's inspiration for his punk-defining, strictly downstroke guitar strumming, while Page's landmark guitar solo from the song "Heartbreaker" has been
credited by Eddie Van Halen as the inspiration for his two-hand tapping technique after he saw Led Zeppelin perform in 1972. Page's solo in the famous epic "Stairway to Heaven" has been voted by readers of various guitar magazines, including
Guitar World and Total Guitar as the
greatest guitar solo of all time, and he was named 'Guitarist of the Year' five years straight during the 1970s by
Creem magazine.
Music composition
For the composition of the bulk of Led Zeppelin songs, Page adopted his trademark Gibson Les
Paul guitar and Marshall amplification, although he also often used a
Supro amplifier and a Telecaster guitar in the
recording studio. His use of the Sola Sound Tone Bender Professional MKII
fuzzbox ("How Many More Times"), slide guitar ("You Shook Me", "Dancing
Days", "In My Time of Dying"), pedal
steel guitar ("Your Time Is Gonna Come", "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You", "Tangerine",
"That's the Way" and for effect at the very end of "Over the Hills and Far Away"), and acoustic guitar ("Gallows Pole", "Ramble On") also demonstrated his
versatility and creativity as a composer.
Page is famous for playing his guitar with a cello bow, as on the songs "Dazed and Confused", "How Many More Times" and in the interlude of "Whole Lotta Love". This was a technique he developed during his session days, although strictly
speaking he was not the first guitarist to use a violin bow, since Eddie Phillips of
The Creation had done so prior to Page. The Creation was one of the bands managed by
Shel Talmy, whom Page had worked for as a session musician.[9] On MTV's Led Zeppelin Rockumentary, Page said that he obtained the idea of playing the guitar with a bow from David McCallum, Sr. who was also a session musician. Page used his Fender Telecaster and later his
Gibson Les Paul for his bow solos.
On a number of Led Zeppelin songs Page experimented with feedback devices and a theremin. He
used a Wah-wah pedal but not always in the traditional way of rocking it back and forth as
done by Jimi Hendrix and other contemporaries; instead, he put it fully forward in the
treble position to get a sharper tone.
Music production techniques
Page is widely credited for the innovations in sound recording he brought to the studio during the years he was a member of
Led Zeppelin.[citation needed] During the late 1960s, most British music producers placed microphones directly in front of amplifiers and drums, resulting in the sometimes "tinny" sound of the recordings of the era. Page commented to Guitar
World magazine that he felt the drum sounds of the day in particular "sounded like cardboard boxes."[10] Instead, Page was a fan of 1950s recording techniques;
Sun Studios being a particular favourite. In the same Guitar World interview, Page
remarked, "Recording used to be a science," and "[engineers] used to have a maxim: distance equals depth." Taking this maxim to
heart, Page developed the idea of placing an additional microphone some distance from the amplifier (as much as twenty feet) and
then recording the balance between the two. By adopting this technique, Page became one of the first British producers to record a band's "ambient sound" - the distance of a note's time-lag from one end of
the room to the other. This technique was constantly adapted and developed, to the point where he placed microphones in hallways,
which is how he achieved the distinctive drum sound for "When the Levee
Breaks".
For the recording of several Led Zeppelin tracks, such as "Whole Lotta Love" and
"You Shook Me", Page additionally utilised "backward
echo" - a technique which he is widely believed to have invented himself whilst with The Yardbirds (he had originally
developed the method when recording the 1967 single "Ten Little Indians").[10] This production technique involved hearing the echo
before the main sound instead of after it, achieved by turning the tape over and employing the echo on a spare track, then
turning the tape back over again to get the echo preceding the signal.
Page has stated that, as producer, he deliberately changed the audio engineers on
Led Zeppelin albums, from Glyn Johns for the first album, to Eddie Kramer for Led Zeppelin II, to Andy Johns for Led Zeppelin III and later albums. He
explained that "I consciously kept changing engineers because I didn't want people to think that they were responsible for our
sound. I wanted people to know it was me."[11]
Post-Led Zeppelin career
Led Zeppelin disbanded in 1980 following the death of drummer John Bonham at Page's home,
The Old Mill House at Clewer in Berkshire. Page made a
successful return to the stage with the A.R.M.S. (Action Research for Multiple
Sclerosis) charity series of concerts in 1983 which honoured Small Faces bass player
Ronnie Lane, who suffered from the disease. A 1984 video of a London A.R.M.S. concert was
released featuring two songs from Page's work on the Death Wish II soundtrack,
featuring Steve Winwood on vocals, and an onstage jam of "Layla" reunited Page with Yardbirds guitarists Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. During the tour Page looked extremely thin
and frail. According to the book Hammer of the Gods, Page reportedly told friends that he'd just given up heroin after seven years of use.
Page next linked up with Roy Harper for an album (Whatever Happened to Jugula?) and occasional concerts, performing a predominantly
acoustic set at folk festivals under various guises such as the MacGregors, and Themselves. In 1984, Page recorded with former
Zeppelin vocalist, Robert Plant as The Honeydrippers. He also teamed up with
Paul Rodgers of Bad Company and
Free fame to record two albums under the name The
Firm. The first album was the self-titled The Firm, followed by
Mean Business in 1986. Popular songs included the commercially successful
"Radioactive", and "Closer", which employs a horn section to subtle effect. The cover version of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" featured vocals by Paul Rodgers but was never released
as a single. The album peaked at #17 on the Billboard's Pop Albums chart. Various other
projects soon followed such as session work for Graham Nash, Box of Frogs, the Rolling Stones (on their 1986 single
"One Hit (to the Body)"), and Robert Plant,
a solo album Outrider, a collaboration with David Coverdale in Coverdale-Page. In addition, he also
collaborated with director Michael Winner to record the Death Wish II and subsequent Death Wish 3
soundtrack, released in 1982 and 1985 respectively.
The surviving members of Led Zeppelin re-formed in 1985 for the Live Aid concert with both
Phil Collins and Tony Thompson filling drum
duties. However, the band considered their performance to be sub-standard, and were one of the few Live Aid acts to refuse
permission for their segment to be included in the 20th anniversary DVD release of the concert. In 1986, Page reunited
temporarily with his Yardbirds bandmates to play on several tracks of the Box of Frogs
album Strange Land. The band also re-formed for the Atlantic Records 40th
Anniversary show on 14 May, 1988. Page, Plant and Jones, as well as John Bonham's son
Jason Bonham closed the 12-hour show. The band have also played together at various private
family functions.
In 1990, a Knebworth concert to aid the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy
Centre and the British School for Performing Arts and Technolog saw Plant unexpectedly joined by Page to perform
"Misty Mountain Hop", "Wearing and
Tearing" and "Rock and Roll".
In 1994, Page reunited with Plant for the penultimate performance in MTV's
"Unplugged" series. The 90-minute special, dubbed Unledded, premiered to the
highest ratings in MTV's history. In October of the same year, the session was released as the CD No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, and in 2004 as
the DVD No Quarter Unledded. Following a highly
successful mid-90s tour to support No Quarter, Page and Plant recorded 1998's Walking into Clarksdale.
Since 1990, Page has been heavily involved in remastering the entire Led Zeppelin back
catalogue and is currently participating in various charity concerts and charity work, particularly the Action for Brazil's
Children Trust (ABC Trust), founded by his wife Jimena Gomez-Paratcha in 1998. In the same year, Page played guitar for
rap singer/producer Puff Daddy's song
"Come with Me," which heavily samples Led Zeppelin's
"Kashmir" and was included in the soundtrack of Godzilla. The two later performed the song on Saturday
Night Live. A live album and tour with The Black Crowes follow in 1999. In
2001 he made an appearance on stage with Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst and Wes Scantlin of Puddle
of Mudd at the MTV Europe Video Music Awards in Frankfurt, where they performed a
version of Led Zeppelin's "Thank You".[12]
In 2005, Page was awarded the Order of the British Empire in recognition
of his Brazilian charity work,[13] made an honorary citizen of Rio de Janeiro later that year,
and was awarded a Grammy award.[14]
In November 2006, Led Zeppelin were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame.
The television broadcasting of the event consisted of an introduction to the band by various
famous admirers, a presentation of an award to Jimmy Page and then a short speech by the guitarist. After this, rock group
Wolfmother played a tribute to Led Zeppelin, playing the song "Communication Breakdown".[15][16]
On 6 January 2007, Page was featured at #19 on
Channel 4's The Ultimate Hellraiser, a countdown of music's top 25 who "lived the rock 'n'
roll lifestyle". The show's reason for featuring Page was almost exclusively attributed to the groupies who toured with Led
Zeppelin. In addition, many of John Bonham's shenanigans (for example driving a motorcycle down a hotel corridor) were blamed on
Page.
New album
In 2006, Page attended the induction of Led Zeppelin to the UK Music Hall of
Fame. During an interview for the BBC for said event, he expressed plans to record new material in 2007, saying "It's an
album that I really need to get out of my system... there's a good album in there and it's ready to come out" and "Also there
will be some Zeppelin things on the horizon".[17]
Personal life
Page is a fan of Chelsea FC.[18]
Page's daughter, Scarlet Page, is a respected photographer. Her mother, Charlotte Martin, is
an ex-girlfriend of Eric Clapton.
In 1972 Page bought, from Richard Harris, the home which William Burges designed for himself in London, The Tower
House. "I had an interest going back to my teens in the pre-Raphaelite movement and the architecture of Burges," he said.
"What a wonderful world to discover." The reputation of William Burges (1827-1881) rests on his extravagant designs and his
contribution to the Gothic revival in architecture in the nineteenth century.[19]
From the mid 1970s to 2004 Jimmy owned 'The Mill House', Mill Lane, Windsor, UK - formerly the home of actor Michael Caine. Fellow Led Zeppelin band member John Bonham died at
the house in 1980.
From the early 1970s to well into the 1980s, Jimmy Page owned the Boleskine House,
the former residence of occultist Aleister Crowley. Sections of Page's fantasy sequence
in The Song Remains the Same were filmed at night on the mountain side directly behind Boleskine House.
Occult Connections
In the early 1970s, Jimmy Page owned an occult bookshop and publishing house, "The Equinox Booksellers and Publishers" in
Kensington High Street, London, eventually closing it as the increasing success of Led Zeppelin resulted in his having
insufficient time to devote to it. The company published a facsimile of Crowley's 1904 edition of "The Goetia". The seriousness of Page's intent was demonstrated by the dust wrapper being printed on the
notoriously fragile camel hair paper of the original.
What made people particularly curious about Page's connection with the occult was the appearance of four symbols on the jacket
of Led Zeppelin's fourth album. It was generally accepted that the four symbols represented each member of the band. During tours
and performances after the release of Led Zeppelin IV, he often had
zodiac symbols embroidered on his clothes (referred to as his "Dragon Suit", it included the
signs for Capricorn, Scorpio and Cancer which are Page's Sun, Ascendant and Moon signs, respectively) along with the so-called
"ZoSo" symbol. This fueled the curiosity of many fans who went to great lengths to find out what the symbols meant. The source of
the ZoSo symbol itself is no longer a mystery but the meaning of it still is; it originated in 'Ars Magica Arteficii' (1557) by J
Cardan, an old alchemical grimoire, where it has been identified as a sigil consisting of zodiac signs. The sigil is reproduced in "Dictionary of Occult, Hermetic and
Alchemical Sigils" by Fred Gettings, published in 1982 by Routledge & Kegan Paul (see here). It had previously been
conjectured that the symbol was derived from various occult and mystical sources, most notably The Kabbalah, a stylised "666" from Aleister Crowley's Equinox publication or from Austin Osman
Spare's "Zos Speaks"' but these are now considered to be probably incorrect. It has also been alleged that the symbol is
merely a doodle that Page scribbled while on the telephone. Page will still not comment on the symbol's meaning.
The artwork inside the album cover of Led Zeppelin IV is from the traditional Rider/Waite Tarot card design for the card
called "The Hermit". Page transforms into this character during his segment of the movie "The Song Remains the Same".
The artwork for the Swan Song Records label (see here), which
was a record label launched by Led Zeppelin on May 10, 1974, as a vehicle for the band to promote its own products. The Swan Song
company logo, depicting a writhing winged man (sans genitalia) in the sky, was based on Evening, Fall of
Day (1869) by painter William Rimmer, featuring a picture of the mythological
Greek god of light and reason, Apollo, although often it is misinterpreted as the classical Greek
hero Icarus, who flew too close to the Sun, or Lucifer, a fallen angel who was cast out of heaven and then became Satan.
During the time of the PMRC hearing of the 1980s there were some
accusations claiming the song "Stairway to Heaven" had satanic reverse-audio messages (known at the time as "backwards masking")
in the verse that starts with the line 'If there's a bustle in your hedgerow'.
Page was commissioned to write the soundtrack music for the film Lucifer
Rising by another occultist and Crowley admirer, underground movie director Kenneth
Anger. Page even allowed Anger to film a portion of this movie in the basement of Tower House (Page's London residence).
In the end Page only produced 23 minutes of music which Anger felt were useless. Anger claimed Page took three years to deliver
the music, and the final product was only 23 minutes of droning. On top of that, the director slammed the guitarist in the press
by calling him a "dabbler" in the occult and an addict. Anger accused Page of "having an affair with the White Lady" and being
too strung out on drugs to complete the project. Page countered claiming he had fulfilled all his obligations, even going so far
as to lend Anger his own film editing equipment to help him finish the project. Page's music was dumped eventually and replaced
by a version completed in 1980 from prison by Bobby Beausoleil, a Charles Manson family member and convicted murderer. Bootlegs of Page's soundtrack for the project exist
and were highly prized by Page's fans until an album also titled "Lucifer Rising" was released by Boleskine House Records on June
19, 1987. The blue vinyl disc contains all 23 minutes of the soundtrack music that Page provided for the movie. The introduction
to Led Zeppelin's song "In the Evening" is said to be taken from the unfinished soundtrack, most of which was recorded by running
a guitar through a synthesiser.
Cocaine and heroin abuse
Page himself has admitted to heavy use of drugs throughout the 1970s. In an interview he gave to Guitar World magazine in 2003, he stated that:
| “ |
I can't speak for the [other members of the band], but for me drugs were an integral
part of the whole thing, right from the beginning, right to the end.[20] |
” |
In 1973 Led Zeppelin's main choice of drug was cocaine,[21] with Page, drummer
John Bonham along with manager Peter
Grant and tour manager Richard Cole, becoming regular users.[22] After the band's concert
tour of the United States in that year, Page told Nick Kent:
| “ |
Oh, everyone went over the top a few times. I know I did and, to be honest with you, I
don't really remember much of what happened.[23] |
” |
In 1976, Page began to use heroin, a fact attributed to Richard
Cole, who st
