A great, early retrospective of this legendary guitarists career.
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The Page memoirs
Session work, The Yardbirds, and now – Led Zeppelin`s Jimmy Page talking to Nick Kent
JIMMY PAGE is as wary of discussing his formidable past as he is talking to the press in the first place.
The latter state of affairs has been alleviated somewhat but exists as a reminder of the consciously anti-Zeppelin bias that became popular amongst certain periodicals (particularly one famous U.S. publication who never missed an opportunity to pull their guns on the Zep whenever an appropriate situation occured) and Page’s own awareness that facts and statements can so easily be twisted and perverted into something else again when splashed across the printed page.
Still, looking almost obscenely calm and healthy after an exceptionally gruelling American tour, the dapper Mr. Page genially acquiesed to being plugged with questions about his pre-Zeppelin work.
“God knows what the others must think when I start talking about my old days. They must say ‘Oh Christ, he’s off again on his Yardbirds stories’.” Similarly, he prefaces a recounting of his session work experiences — which stretch from working in the studio with P. J. Proby and Dave Berry to playing on the Who’s “Can’t Explain” and Them’s immortal “Gloria” — thus:
“The thing is, these days, nobody even knows about those old things anymore, and a lot of that really ancient stuff, I’m sure nobody gives a toss about anyway.
“The Kinks’ tracks and things like that are a bit more interesting, credibility-wise or whatever. Or the Who’s first single, `Can’t Explain’, that I played rhythm guitar on – actually I wasn’t really needed, but I was fortunate enough to find myself there. Just strengthening up riffs, that’s all — just two guitars doing it instead of one.
“Concerning the Kinks’ work, my presence there was to enable — I gather, looking at it in retrospect — Ray Davies to walk around and virtually control everything without having to be down in the studio all the time, because he was really producing those things as much as Shel Talmy. A lot more so, actually, because he was directing it and everything. At one point there were even three guitars playing the same riff.”
Page’s rise to working as a session musician is the archetypal story of the early ’60s Eel Pie Island/Art School/Marquee clique of posthumous beginnings for aspiring rockers.
I joined Neil Christian’s Crusaders when I first left school, and I was just sort of gigging with the band – driving round the country and getting glandular fever and everything. I remember one night walking outside a gig, and the next point waking up and I was laying on the floor in some sort of dressing room. I just collapsed and couldn’t keep going, and it was just fatigue and exhaustion. I was remembering the other day all those breakdowns on the M l which were great in their own way but after a while it starts knocking you out. I was getting ill, and I really thought ‘I just can’t carry on’.
“I was doing a lot of painting and drawing in what free time I had, and so I thought I’d go to Art college, because a number of my friends had gone to Art college anyway, and I thought… maybe this is it, maybe this is my vocation. So I went — but of course I couldn’t stop tinkering around with my guitar and I was still playing at the Marquee in a sort of interval band.
“I was involved in the old Richmond and Eel Pie Island sets — well, I used to play at those jazz clubs where the Kinks played and I’d always been in groups around the Kingston area. Kingston and Richmond were the two key places, really, but by that time I was well into the Marquee. It was a good scene then because everyone had this same upbringing and had been locked away with their records, and there was something really new to offer. It just exploded from there.”
While working at the Marquee, Page was invited to play on a session. “It was a nothing song, but the record was a minor hit. They started using me quite a bit after that and then suddenly I became a new name, y’know, appearing on what was then a very, very tight session scene. Big Jim Sullivan was carrying the whole weight on his shoulders — he was the only other young face there.”
Visions of Art school success vanished. “Well, at that particular point all the sessions that I was being invited to were really good ones and I was doing the solos — really constructive work — and it wasn’t too hard a decision to make. Then, about two years later, when guitars were almost becoming out of vogue and people were always trying to do something new — using sax sections and all that — and we used to play just fuck-all on guitar, I thought it was time to get out.”
AS A MATTER of historical trivia, Page released a solo single during 1965. “There’s nothing to be said for that record except it was very tongue-in-cheek at the time. I played all the instruments on it except for the drums and sang on it too, which is quite, uh… unique. `She Just Satisfies’, that’s what it was called. It’s better forgotten.”
So, on to the Yardbirds, of whom it is stated Page was the first to be asked to join after Clapton’s departure.
“Well, you see this is all very touchy. Beck would probably say a lot of things. I could tell you a whole story about that but it’s not really on the cards. What actually was going on was all cloak-and-dagger stuff, and I didn’t want to be part of it at all really. And I just don’t want it to be printed.”
Long pause.
“You know, Jeff (Beck) must wince every time he reads any of this, but I’ve never put him down. I’ve always said that he’s a brilliant musician and I defy anyone to show me anything I’ve said against him in the press. I can certainly think of a lot of times when he’s put me down — but he’s the one who’s probably a bit paranoid about that. I don’t care. Actually, there was a possibility that he and I were going to get to see each other again but…
“Things like the ‘Beck’s Bolero’ dispute, for instance, which he’d claim was his own, which is just not right. Certain parts of it, like the steel part, that was his work over the chords which I worked out in the studio. He put the other parts on afterwards. Again those sort of things look like you’re bitching in the press so in a way it’s better to leave them out. Nicky Hopkins was another one who said something about some Immediate tapes — some `grievance against Jimmy Page’ thing which again wasn’t on at all. Things just get printed and people seem to latch onto them and they don’t know the full circumstances.” Back on the Yardbirds trail, Page explained how he was invited to join the band. “Beck and I had known each other for ages. I’d gone to see quite a few of their gigs because they were a good band to go and see, and there was this great night when (Keith) Relf was thoroughly pissed. “I forget whether it was at an Oxford or Cambridge Union dance, but he was shouting “fuck” at the audience and eventually fell back into the drum-kit. Instead of everybody seeing the humour of it, as three of the group and myself did, Paul Samwell-Smith (who was then the Yardbirds’ bassist) just blew up and said `I can’t stand this anymore. I’m going to leave the group — and if I was you Keith, I’d do the same thing’. And that was when he left.
“They were stuck, of course, so I said ‘well I’ll play’. I started out at the Marquee playing bass — an instrument I’d never played before, and that was how it came about.”
PAGE’S BASS-PLAYING days were not un-naturally short and he quickly took over as second lead guitarist to Beck. The results of such a potentially explosive union were short-lived but nontheless fruitful.
“It was good. Unfortunately there is very little of it that was recorded, but for the amount of time that it was working it was really fabulous. It could have led to so many good things except that there was a personality conflict within the group that wasn’t coming from Beck and me and that’s why things started to bubble up.
“There were a lot of incidents that led up to the final break-up – something that had been there long before I joined the group. But while it worked it was good.
“Like on the Rolling Stones ’66 tour which was more or less its debut. I can remember one great gig at the Fillmore, but really there’s so little of it left. ‘Stroll On’ from the soundtrack of `Blow-Up’ was one thing. It was funny because it had dual lead guitars and I think I was playing bass in the film. The single we made, `Happenings Ten Years Time Ago’, failed miserably in England.”
The Yardbirds continued — without Beck – but with the questionable assistance of Mickie Most. An album “Little Games” was recorded “at a bloody fast pace. We weren’t even allowed to hear playbacks” and released in America but not in England. “Mickie was far more into a commercial singles consciousness then, right up to the point where he was recording Beck and Rod – when his whole attitude obviously changed.”
Some `commercially consciousness’ singles exist (inadequately) to testify to the power of Page’s Yardbirds. A live album recorded at the Anderson Theatre was released by Epic after Page had hit his stride again with Zep, but was banned by Page himself. “We had the right to state all along whether it be released or not, and the whole thing was that it had been recorded by Epic at a particularly bad gig; engineered by some character who was strictly into Muzak and the concert itself was bad. So the guy said “Listen, wonders can be done in the studio” and he worked on the live tape for three days or more. “We came down to hear it and found he’d overdubbed bull-fight cheers and stuff. There was one number where there was supposed to be utter silence in the audience, and there was clinking cocktail glasses, and sort of mumbling like a club atmosphere which destroyed the whole thing. Everytime you took a solo you got a sort of `raaaah’ coming at you.
Apart from the aforementioned heinous package, Page has not been as dogged as some with vultures vamping old work of his. “Well, maybe they don’t know what I’ve done and maybe as well that they don’t. I didn’t really do anything of great importance that they could package anything out of. Only a fool would re-issue “She Just Satisfies”.”
Anyway, the next step after the Yardbirds was the formation of Led Zeppelin. John Paul Jones was an old session ally — “he seemed to appear on that scene some time after I did. I remember seeing him but we never really knew each other. We just used to bump into each other and say hello” — so he joined on bass.
Terry Reid was Page’s first choice as vocalist. “He was the only vocalist I knew, but he’d just signed up with Mickie Most so he was out of the question. He did suggest Robert Plant — said he lived in Birmingham and that we should try and track him down. So we went to see him at a college gig and I had a chat with him and said I was trying to get something together and would he be interested to come down and have a chat?
“He came down and stayed for a couple of nights and it just went on from there.” John Bonham was an old buddy of Plant’s, having played in the Band of Joy, and was then residing in the drum-seat of Tim Rose’s band. He quickly joined.
A tour, using the name the “New Yardbirds” was undertaken — “purely to fulfill old engagements” through Scandinavia — and, that completed, the band promptly became Led Zeppelin, and recorded an album in suprisingly quick time.
“We had all the songs thoroughly rehearsed at that point and it was just a case of getting our stage act down in the studio.”
A first American tour was set up with the band playing second to the Vanilla Fudge — whom they promptly blew right off stages throughout the country.
“I can’t really comment on just why we broke so big in the States. I can only think that we were aware of dynamics at a time when everyone was into that drawn-out West Coast style of playing.
“I can tell you when I knew we’d broken through, which was at San Fransisco. There were other gigs, like the Boston Tea Party and the Kinetic Circus in Chicago which have unfortunately disappeared as venues, where the response was so incredible we knew we’d made our impression – but after the San Francisco gig it was just — bang!”
SINCE THEN, one hardly need contemplate the scale of success the band has attained — particularly in America. “I think we’re just lucky in that we’ve always remained a very tight unit. I think it’s incredibly sad to see good bands break up and splinter off into vastly inferior projects.” Still, Zeppelin and the Press remain uncomfortable in each other’s company. A classic example of the sort of mutual disregard which seems to exist between the two factors occured in 1972 during Led Zeppelin’s annual mammoth American tour — which was again phenomenally successful but which lost out in the publicity stakes to the Rolling Stones’ destruction of America that same year.
“That’s probably because we didn’t have a press agent at the time. But the thing is press have always been into images rather than music.
“I mean, who wants to know that Led Zeppelin broke an attendance record at such-and-such a place when Mick Jagger’s hanging around with Truman Capote?
“Anyway, for this tour, we thought we’d bring in some of the press just so the media would be informed of our goings-on. Most of the journalists present seemed so shocked that we’d done this at all. One of them said: “My first question to you, Mr. Page, is — why are you giving me this interview in the first place?” “
Page is still enthusiastic about the American tour and its success.
“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. The thing is that even when we were totally fucked we’d somehow be able to perform on stage. It was just all down to natural adrenalin. We’ve done a lot of live recording — the Madison Square tapes are really good and could well materialise on an album in future. Also Ian Knight came along and worked on the visuals, filming the concerts. I’ve seen some of the footage which is great and again something could easily be done with that.”
So finally a live album is in the works. “We’ve got so many professionally recorded live tapes: from the second Albert Hall gig onwards. We just seem to get involved in a studio album. I mean, right now we’ve written a number of new songs, and October and November are set aside for recording so…”
PAGE REMAINED somehow unperturbed by the horrendous theft of 200,000 dollars during their Madison Square Gardens dates.
“It had reached that point where we really couldn’t care too much. I mean, if the tour had been a bummer, then that would have been the last straw, but it wasn’t. I remember when I heard the news that it had happened: it was just before we were to go onstage. I seem to remember we played a very good gig that night. I’ve had to deal with far worse situations than that on the road. Like, in Los Angeles I cut my hand in that area which is crucial for playing the guitar. It was in fact a tendon that was strained — such a stupid thing, really — and in five gigs I fucked it up for five weeks. And I had all manner of treatment and injections.
“Now think about it this way — you’ve played gigs for a month solid and then suddenly you can’t touch the guitar for a whole month. I didn’t know what the first gig after that would be like. The sensation in my hand was still there actually two days before we left — I didn’t know if I could co-ordinate or even think straight while playing. Fortunately God was on my side or whatever — and it somehow fell together again. But that was just a totally horrifying experience.
“In the same way I was once informed that someone was set on killing me while I was in the States. Actually it was a lot more serious than I thought — the guy was a real crazy and had all these photographs on the wall with circles around them. It was a real Manson situation and he was sending out waves of this absurd paranoia which a friend of mine got mixed up with. I got to hear of it through him and actually hired a security guard along for that American tour. It was actually a lot worse than everyone at first believed — this all happened a year ago on that last tour — and eventually this guy was tracked down and got carted away to hospital. He would have definitely had a try though.
“It’s things like that that tend to lessen the effect of having £80,000 ripped off at the end of a successful tour.”
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