A Book Of Led Zeppelin

BEFORE LED ZEPPELIN: JIMMY PAGE

Title is self-explanatory. I find things like this really interesting; I've got to have spent hours searching the Internet for articles about various musicians. Even if this kind of thing doesn't interest you, like the first chapter you might learn something you never knew you needed to know.

Date of birth
9 January 1944

Family
- His father, James Patrick Page, was an industrial personnel manager
- His mother, Patricia Elizabeth Page (nee Gaffikin), was a doctor's secretary and of Irish descent
- His parents eventually divorced and his father remarried, giving him a half sister named Karen Page-Errington

Childhood
- Born in the London suburb of Heston.
- In 1952, the family moved to Miles Road in Epsom, Surrey
- His mother remembered that as a child, "Jimmy was fun, but quiet fun. He wasn't a screamer sort of boy,"

How he learnt to play the guitar
- His father bought him a Spanish acoustic guitar when he was 12. He has said his inspiration to take the instrument up was Elvis Presley's song "Baby Let's Play House"
- There weren't many other guitarists around, only one at his school, who showed him several chords, and he had a few basic lessons with a man in Kingston, but he was mostly self taught, learning to play from listening to records. As someone said, with no prior experience "He just picked it up and started to play it... It all seemed so natural,"
- He became so attached to the guitar, he took his guitar to school every day only to have it confiscated and returned to him after school was over.
- He got his first electric guitar in his teens, a secondhand 1949 Grazzioso.

Early Days
- In 1957, aged 13, Page appeared on a BBC1 programme in a skiffle quartet, playing two songs. When asked by the host what he wanted to do after schooling, Page said, "I want to do biological research, to find a cure for cancer, if it isn't discovered by then." In a much later interview, he said that this programme was something that always came back to haunt him. I'm just glad he made the career choices he did.
- In another interview, Page stated that "there was a lot of busking in the early days, but as they say, I had to come to grips with it and it was a good schooling."
- Although interviewed for a job as a laboratory assistant, he chose to leave school to pursue music.
- He had difficulty finding other musicians with whom he could play on a regular basis. "It wasn't as though there was an abundance. I used to play in many groups ... anyone who could get a gig together, really."

Touring
- He was asked by singer Neil Christian to join his band, the Crusaders, after Christian had seen a 15 year old Page playing in a local hall.
- Page toured with Christian for around two years and played on several of his records. However, he fell seriously ill with glandular fever and had to stop touring.
- While recovering, he decided to put his musical career on hold and concentrate on his other love, painting, and enrolled at art college.
- He never stopped playing though. During this time he often performed on stage with bands such as Cyril Davies' All Stars, as well as fellow guitarists Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, who he'd known for years.

Session Work
- He was spotted one night and asked to help record some singles for Columbia Graphophone Company.
- Mike Leander of Decca Records first offered Page regular studio work.
- After brief stints with several musicians, Page committed himself to full-time session work. He was mainly called into sessions as "insurance" in instances when a replacement or second guitarist was required by the recording artist. He stated that "In the initial stages they just said, play what you want, cos at that time I couldn't read music or anything."
- He was the favoured session guitarist of record producer Shel Talmy. As a result, he secured session work on songs for The Who and the Kinks.
- In 1965, Page was hired by Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham to act as house producer and A&R man for the newly formed Immediate Records label.
- When questioned about which songs he played on, especially ones where there exists 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 enormous number of sessions he was playing at the time. In a radio interview he explained that "I was doing three sessions a day, fifteen sessions a week. Sometimes I would be playing with a group, sometimes I could be doing film music, it could be a folk session ... I was able to fit all these different roles."

End Of Session Work
- Page left studio work when the increasing influence of Stax Records on popular music led to the greater incorporation of brass and orchestral arrangements into recordings at the expense of guitars.
- He stated that his time as a session player served as extremely good schooling: "My session work was invaluable. At one point I was playing at least three sessions a day, six days a week! And I rarely ever knew in advance what I was going to be playing. But I learned things even on my worst sessions - and believe me, I played on some horrendous things. I finally called it quits after I started getting calls to do Muzak. I decided I couldn't live that life any more; it was getting too silly. I guess it was destiny that a week after I quit doing sessions Paul Samwell-Smith left the Yardbirds and I was able to take his place. But being a session musician was good fun in the beginning - the studio discipline was great. They'd just count the song off and you couldn't make any mistakes."

The Yardbirds
- In late 1964, Page was approached about the possibility of replacing Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds, but he declined out of loyalty to his friend.
- In February 1965, Clapton quit the Yardbirds and Page was formally offered his spot, but unwilling to give up his then successful career as a session musician, he suggested his friend Jeff Beck.
- On 16 May 1966, drummer Keith Moon, bass player John Paul Jones, keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, 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 Moon on drums. However, the lack of a quality vocalist and contractual problems prevented the project from getting off the ground. During this time, Moon suggested the name "Lead Zeppelin" for the first time, after Entwistle commented that the proceedings would take to the air like a lead balloon.
- Within weeks, Page attended a Yardbirds concert at Oxford. After the show, he went backstage where bassist Paul Samwell-Smith announced that he was leaving the group. Page offered to replace him. He initially played bass with the Yardbirds before finally switching to twin lead guitar with Beck when Chris Dreja moved to bass.
- When Jeff Beck left the band, 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 number 80 on the Billboard 200.
- In 1968, Keith Relf and Jim McCarty both left the band. So Page reformed the group as 'The New Yardbirds' with a new line-up to play the scheduled Yardbirds tour dates in Scandinavia. This lineup comprised of Jimmy Page on lead guitar, vocalist Robert Plant, drummer John Bonham, and bassist John Paul Jones.

*

Picture: Jimmy Page holding a guitar probably in a studio