Today is the 75th birthday of a Rock God.
Born on 9th January 1944, Jimmy Page has influenced more guitarists than maybe anyone else ever.
Inspired by Elvis and having found his first ever guitar in an old house in the woods, the self-taught Page became a magician of his instrument.
Early in his career as a session guitarist, he played on tracks by The Who, The Kinks, Rolling Stones, Van Morrison and Marianne Faithful as well as on Shirley Bassey's Bond track, "Goldfinger" and background music on the Beatles film A Hard Days Night. While still a student he played live in bands with other prolific artists like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.
All this, remarkably, happened before the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin.
When The Yardbirds split, Jimmy recruited Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones to be in The New Yardbirds. They soon changed their name to Led Zeppelin and Page paved the way for a new rock n roll sound “I wanted Zeppelin to be a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses – a combination that had never been done before. Lots of light and shade in the music.”
Mission accomplished. Led Zeppelin is one of the most successful, innovative, and influential rock groups of all time. They are also one of the best-selling music artists in the history of audio recording; various sources estimate the group's record sales at 200 to 300 million worldwide. Each of their nine studio albums placed in the top 10 of the Billboard album chart and six reached the #1 spot. They achieved eight consecutive UK number-one albums. Rolling Stone magazine described them as "the heaviest band of all time", "the biggest band of the Seventies", and "unquestionably one of the most enduring bands in rock history". They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
So much can be said about Jimmy Page but instead of going too deep into his biography, let's just listen to the riffs and the solos that changed the course of classic rock forever.
