A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere, and are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience. Key elements of happenings are planned, but artists sometimes retain room for improvisation. This new media art aspect to happenings eliminates the boundary between the artwork and its viewer. Henceforth, the interactions between the audience and the artwork makes the audience, in a sense, part of the art.

In the later sixties, perhaps due to the depiction in films of hippie culture, the term was used much less specifically to mean any gathering of interest, from a pool hall meetup or a jamming of a few young people to a beer blast or fancy formal party.

History[link]

Origins[link]

Survival Research Laboratories Performance in L.A. 2006

Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happening" in the spring of 1957 at an art picnic at George Segal's farm to describe the art pieces that were going on^{[citation needed]}. The first appearance in print was in Kaprow's famous "Legacy of Jackson Pollock" essay that was published in 1958 but primarily written in 1956. "Happening" also appeared in print in one issue of the Rutgers University undergraduate literary magazine, Anthologist.^[1] The form was imitated and the term was adopted by artists across the U.S., Germany, and Japan. Jack Kerouac referred to Kaprow as "The Happenings man", and an ad showing a woman floating in outer space declared, "I dreamt I was in a happening in my Maidenform brassiere".

Happenings are difficult to describe, in part because each one is unique and completely different from one another. One definition comes from Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort in The New Media Reader, "The term "Happening" has been used to describe many performances and events, organized by Allan Kaprow and others during the 1950s and 1960s, including a number of theatrical productions that were traditionally scripted and invited only limited audience interaction."^[2] Another definition is, "a purposefully composed form of theatre in which diverse alogical elements, including nonmatrixed performing, are organized in a compartmented structure".^[3] A "Happening" of the same performance will have a different outcomes because each performance depends on the action of the audience. In New York especially, "Happenings" become quite popular even though many have not seen nor experienced it.

Happenings can be a form of participatory new media art, emphasizing an interaction between the performer and the audience. Breaking the fourth wall between performer and spectator, it replaces criticism with support. For some happenings, everyone present is included in the making of the art and even the form of the art depends on audience engagement, for they are a key factor in where the performers' spontaneity leads. Later happenings had no set rules, only vague guidelines that the performers follow based on surrounding props. Unlike other forms of art, Happenings that allow chance to enter are ever-changing. When chance determines the path the performance will follow, there is no room for failure. As Kaprow wrote in his essay, "'Happenings' in the New York Scene", "Visitors to a Happening are now and then not sure what has taken place, when it has ended, even when things have gone 'wrong'. For when something goes 'wrong', something far more 'right,' more revelatory, has many times emerged".^{[4][Full citation needed]} The art thrives on an artist's whim, with the comfort of giving their mistakes the benefit of the doubt. The art defines itself by the fact that it is a unique, one-time experience that depends on audience response. It cannot be bought or brought home, which entitles every Happening artist to a sense of privacy. As Kaprow explains in the aforementioned essay, since the performances are always different, each one of these artists cannot lose their creative drive to a mainstream force.

Kaprow’s piece 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959) is commonly cited as the first happening,^{[by whom?]} although that distinction is sometimes given to a 1952 performance of Theater Piece No. 1 at Black Mountain College by John Cage, one of Kaprow's teachers in the mid-1950s. Cage stood reading from a ladder, Charles Olson read from another ladder, Robert Rauschenberg showed some of his paintings and played wax cylinders of Édith Piaf on an Edison horn recorder, David Tudor performed on a prepared piano and Merce Cunningham danced.^[5] All these things took place at the same time, among the audience rather than on a stage. Happenings flourished in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Key contributors to the form included Carolee Schneemann, Red Grooms, Robert Whitman, Jim Dine Car Crash,^[6] Claes Oldenburg, Robert Delford Brown, Lucas Samaras, and Robert Rauschenberg. Some of their work is documented in Michael Kirby's book Happenings (1966).^[7] Interestingly, Kaprow claimed that "some of us will become famous, and we will have proven once again that the only success occurred when there was a lack of it". (New Media Reader, p 87)^{[Full citation needed]}

During the summer of 1959, Red Grooms along with others (Yvonne Andersen, Bill Barrell, Sylvia Small and Dominic Falcone) staged the non-narrative "play" Walking Man, which began with construction sounds, such as sawing. Grooms recalls, "The curtains were opened by me, playing a fireman wearing a simple costume of white pants and T-shirt with a poncholike cloak and a Smokey Stoverish fireman's helmet. Bill, the 'star' in a tall hat and black overcoat, walked back and forth across the stage with great wooden gestures. Yvonne sat on the floor by a suspended fire engine. She was a blind woman with tin-foil covered glasses and cup. Sylvia played a radio and pulled on hanging junk. For the finale, I hid behand a false door and shouted pop code words. Then the cast did a wild run around and it ended".^[8] Dubbing his 148 Delancey Street studio The Delancey Street Museum, Grooms staged three more happenings there, A Garden, The Burning Building and The Magic Trainride (originally titled Fireman's Dream). No wonder Kaprow called Grooms "a Charlie Chaplin forever dreaming about fire".^[8] On the opening night of The Burning Building, Bob Thompson solicited an audience member for a light, since none of the cast had one, and this gesture of spontaneous theater recurred in eight subsequent performances.^[8]

Difference from plays[link]

Happenings emphasize the organic connection between art and its environment. Kaprow supports that "happenings invite us to cast aside for a moment these proper manners and partake wholly in the real nature of the art and life. It is a rough and sudden act, where one often feels "dirty", and dirt, we might begin to realize, is also organic and fertile, and everything including the visitors can grow a little into such circumstances." Secondly, happenings have no plot or philosophy, but rather is materialized in an improvisatory fashion. There is no direction thus the outcome is unpredictable. "It is generated in action by a headful of ideas...and it frequently has words but they may or may not make literal sense. If they do, their meaning is not representational of what the whole element conveys. Hence they carry a brief, detached quality. If they do not make sense, then they are acknowledgement of the sound of the word rather than the meaning conveyed by it." Last, due to the convention's nature, there is no such term as "failure" which can be applied. "For when something goes "wrong", something far more "right", more revelatory may emerge. This sort of sudden near-miracle presently is made more likely by chance procedures." As a conclusion, a happening is fresh while it lasts and cannot be reproduced (Wardrip-Fruin, 86).^{[Full citation needed]}

Regarding happenings, Red Grooms has remarked, "I had the sense that I knew it was something. I knew it was something because I didn't know what it was. I think that's when you're at your best point. When you're really doing something, you're doing it all out, but you don't know what it is."^[8]

The lack of plot as well as the expected audience participation can be likened to Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed, which also claims that "spectator is a bad word". Boal expected audience members to participate in the theater of the oppressed by becoming the actors. His goal was to allow the downtrodden to act out the forces oppressing them in order to mobilize the people into political action. Both Kaprow and Boal are reinventing theater to try to make plays more interactive and to abolish the traditional narrative form to make theater something more free-form and organic.^[9]

Contribution toward digital media[link]

Allan Kaprow's and other artists of the 1950s and 1960s that performed these Happenings helped put "new media technology developments into context".^{[cite this quote]} It was highly influential in true intermedia work and the interactivity in art.^{[citation needed]} The Happenings allowed other artists to create performances that would attract attention to the issue they wanted to portray. Digital media examples of Happenings could be as simple as artists creating a webpage about their issues or going on to blogs, forums and other networks that they could send mass art and information through.^{[citation needed]} Currently happenings today can be found with Jazz in a whole new way through the artistic collaboration of renowned musicians American saxophonist David Liebman, French jazz pianist Jean-Marie Machado, and multimedia visual artist Barbara Januszkiewicz. their group Jazz Vision Trio^[10] is using new media techniques and real-time improvising with jazz and art. Samples of this mixing music and art can be found on YouTube.^{[citation needed]} Dave Liebman a NEA 2011 Jazz master is a perfect example of a forward-thinking player whose advanced style and association with Miles Davis makes him one of the most influential jazz musicians of his era.^{[citation needed]} He recalls mixing it up with the happenings in and around New York in the 1960s.^{[cite this quote]} It is like visiting an old idea but making it new again.^{[citation needed]}

Around the world[link]

In 1959 the French artist Yves Klein first performed Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle. The work involved the sale of documentation of ownership of empty space (the Immaterial Zone), taking the form of a cheque, in exchange for gold; if the buyer wished, the piece could then be completed in an elaborate ritual in which the buyer would burn the cheque, and Klein would throw half of the gold into the Seine.^[11] The ritual would be performed in the presence of an art critic or distinguished dealer, an art museum director and at least two witnesses.^[11]

In 1960, Jean-Jacques Lebel oversaw and partook in the first European Happening L'enterrement de la Chose in Venice. For his performance there - called Happening Funeral Ceremony of the Anti-Process - Lebel invited the audience to attend a ceremony in formal dress. In a decorated room within a grand residence, a draped 'cadaver' rested on a plinth which was then ritually stabbed by an 'executioner' while a 'service' was read consisting of extracts from the French décadent writer Joris-Karl Huysmans and le Marquis de Sade. Then pall-bearers carried the coffin out into a gondola and the 'body' - which was in fact a mechanical sculpture by Jean Tinguely - was ceremonially slid into the canal.^[12]

Poet and painter Adrian Henri claimed to have organized the first happenings in England in Liverpool in 1962,^[13] taking place during the Merseyside Arts Festival.^[14] The most important event in London was the Albert Hall “International Poetry Incarnation” on June 11, 1965, where an audience of 7,000 people witnessed and participated in performances by some of the leading avant-garde young British and American poets of the day (see British Poetry Revival and Poetry of the United States). One of the participants, Jeff Nuttall, went on to organize a number of further happenings, often working with his friend Bob Cobbing, sound poet and performance poet.

In Tokyo in 1964, Yoko Ono created a happening by performing her "Cut Piece" at the Sogetsu Art Center. She walked onto the stage draped in fabric, presented the audience with a pair of scissors, and instructed the audience to cut the fabric away gradually until she was naked.^[15]

Trash people by HA Schult

In Belgium, the first happenings were organized around 1965–1968 in Antwerp, Brussels and Ostend by artists Hugo Heyrman and Panamarenko.

In the Netherlands, Provo organized happenings around the little statue "Het Lieverdje" on the Spui, a square in the centre of Amsterdam, from 1966 till 1968. Police often raided these events.

In Germany, HA Schult (b. 1939), together with his muse, Elke Koska, organizes happenings since the late 1960s, thereby primarily working with garbage. In the 1960s Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman and Dick Higgins made Happenings in Germany.

In Australia, the Yellow House Artist Collective in Sydney housed 24-hour happenings throughout the early 1970s.

Behind the Iron Curtain, in Poland, artist and theater director Tadeusz Kantor staged the first happenings starting in 1965. Also, in the second half of 1980s, a student-based happening movement Orange Alternative founded by Major Waldemar Fydrych became known for its much attended happenings (over 10 thousand participants at one time) aimed against the military regime led by General Jaruzelski and the fear blocking the Polish society ever since the Martial Law had been imposed in December 1981.

Since 1993 the artist Jens Galschiøt have made political happenings all over the world, in November 1993 he made the happening my inner beast where twenty sculptures were erected within 55 hours without the knowledge of the authorities all over Europe. Pillar of Shame is a series of Galschiøt's sculptures. The first was erected in Hong Kong on 4 June 1997, ahead of the handover from British to Chinese rule on 1 July 1997, as a protest against China's crackdown of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. On 1 May 1999, a Pillar of Shame was set up on the Zócalo^[16] in Mexico City. It stood for two days in front of the Parliament to protest the oppression of the region's indigenous people.

The non-profit, artist-run organization, iKatun,^[17] has reflected the use of "Happenings" influence while incorporating the medium of internet. They aim is one that "fosters public engagement in the politics of information".^{[Full citation needed]} Their project entitled The International Database of Corporate Commands presents a scrutinizing look at the super-saturating advertisements slogans, and "commands" of companies. "The Institute for Infinitely Small Things uses these commands to conduct research performances- performances in which we attempt to enact, as literally as possible, what the command tells us to do and where it tells us to do it. For example, a user may look at a long list of slogans on the website database section, and may submit, in text, his or her take on the most literal way to act out the slogan/ command. The iKatun team will then act out the slogan in a research-performance related way. This means of performance art draws on the collaboration of the web world and tangible reality to conduct a new, modern Happening.^[18]

Modern happenings[link]

Flash Mob Bang^{[clarification needed]}

• Flashmob
• Improv Everywhere
• Performance Art
• Zombie Walk
• Subway party
• International Pillow Fight Day
• Silent Disco

Philosophy[link]

Kaprow explains that happenings are not a new style, but a moral act, a human stand of great urgency, whose professional status as art is less critical than their certainty as an ultimate existential commitment. He argues that once artists have been recognized and paid, they also surrender to the confinement, rather the tastes of the patrons (even if that may not be the intention on both ends). "The whole situation is corrosive, neither patrons nor artists comprehend their role...and out of this hidden discomfort comes a stillborn art, tight or merely repetitive and at worst, chic." Though the we may easily blame those offering the temptation, Kaprow reminds us that it is not the publicist's moral obligation to protect the artist's freedom, and artists themselves hold the ultimate power to reject fame if they do not want its responsibilities. (Wardrip-Fruin, 87)^{[Full citation needed]}

Festivals as happenings[link]

Art and music festivals play a large role in positive and successful happenings. Some of these festivals include Burning Man and Oregon Country Fair.^[19][20] Along with the famous Allan Kaprow Burning Man frowns on the idea of spectators and stresses the importance of everyone being involved to create something amazing and unique. Both parties embody the "audience" and instead of creating something to show the people, the people become involved in helping create something incredible and spontaneous to the moment.^[21] Both of these events are happenings that are recreated and special each year and are always new and organic. These events draw crowds of close to 50,000 people each year and reach more people then just the attendees with their messages and ideals.^[22][23]

Further reading[link]

• Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Montfort, ed (2003). The New Media Reader. pp. 83–88. The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-23227-8.
• Soke Dinkla, "From Participation to Interaction" (283, 289-290) Referenced in Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Montfort, ed (2003). The New Media Reader. The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-23227-8.
• Joseph Nechvatal, Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2009
• Kaprow, Allan. Allan Kaprow: 18 Happenings in 6 Parts. 2007. Print.
• Hendricks, Geoffrey. Critical Mass: Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia, and Rutgers University, 1958-1972. New Brunswick, N.J.: Mason Gross Art Galleries, Rutgers University, 2003. Print.
• Kaprow, Allan, and Jean Jacques. Lebel. Assemblage, Environments & Happenings. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1966. Print.
• Das Theater ist auf der Straße, Die Happenings von Wolf Vostell. Museum Morsbroich Leverkusen. Kerber Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86678-431-4

See also[link]

• Speculations: An Essay on the Theater
• Mac Wellman
• The Flea Theater
• Performance art
• Elizabeth LeCompte
• The Wooster Group
• Ontological-Hysteric Theater
• Richard Foreman
• Richard Schechner
• Allan Kaprow
• Fluxus
• Intermedia
• Dick Higgins
• Marina Abramović
• Jens Galschiøt
• Experimental theatre
• Avant-garde
• Situationism
• Flash mob
• Robert Delford Brown
• Fluxus at Rutgers University
• Bread and Puppet Theater
• Gutai group
• Busking

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiversity has learning materials about Performance art

• Happenings in Belgium
• Happenings by Orange Alternative in Poland
• Allan Kaprow on Ubuweb
• Interview with Kaprow
• Report on a Happening, 1963

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Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page onstage in Chicago in 1977
Background information
Birth name	James Patrick Page
Born	(1944-01-09) 9 January 1944 (age 68) Heston, Middlesex, England
Genres	Hard rock, heavy metal, blues rock, rock and roll, folk rock
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, producer
Instruments	Guitar, mandolin, dulcimer, theremin, bass guitar, banjo, harmonica, dobro, sitar, keyboards, tambourine, tambura, hurdy gurdy, pedal steel guitar, synthesizer, vocals, guitar synthesizer, lap steel guitar, slide guitar
Years active	1957–present
Labels	Swan Song, Atlantic, Geffen, Fontana, Mercury
Associated acts	The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, The Honeydrippers, The Firm, Coverdale and Page, Page and Plant, Herman's Hermits, XYZ, Joe Cocker, The Edge, Jack White, Donovan, The Black Crowes
Website	Official website
Notable instruments
Jimmy Page Signature Les Paul Gibson EDS-1275 Fender Telecaster Danelectro 59DC Custom Manson guitars [1] Jolana Resonet[2]

James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.

Jimmy Page is viewed by critics, fans and fellow musicians alike as one of the most influential and important guitarists and songwriters in rock music.^[3][4][5] Rolling Stone magazine has described him as "the pontiff of power riffing & probably the most digitally sampled artist in pop today after James Brown."^[6] In 2010, Jimmy Page was ranked No.2 in Gibson's list of "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time"^[7] and, in 2007, No.4 on Classic Rock Magazine's "100 Wildest Guitar Heroes".^[8] Page was ranked third in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2011.^[9] He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice; once as a member of The Yardbirds (1992),^[10] and once as a member of Led Zeppelin (1995).^[11]

Early years[link]

Jimmy Page was born to James Patrick Page and Patricia Elizabeth Page (née Gaffikin)^[12][13] 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 Feltham, and later again to Miles Road, Epsom in Surrey, which is where Page came across his first guitar. "I don't know whether [the guitar] was left behind by the people [in the house] before [us], or whether it was a friend of the family's — nobody seemed to know why it was there."^[14] First playing the instrument at the age of twelve years,^[15] he took a few lessons in nearby Kingston, but was largely self-taught:

When I grew up there weren't many other guitarists ... There was one other guitarist in my school who actually showed me the first chords that I learned, and I went on from there. I was bored so I taught myself the guitar from listening to records. So obviously it was a very personal thing.^[16]

Among Page's early influences were rockabilly guitarists Scotty Moore and James Burton, who both played on recordings made by Elvis Presley. Hearing the Elvis Presley song "Baby Let's Play House" is cited by Page as being his inspiration to take up playing the guitar.^[17] Although he appears on BBC1 in 1957 with another guitar, Page states that his first guitar was a second-hand 1959 Futurama Grazioso, which was later replaced by a Telecaster.^[17][18]

Page's musical tastes included skiffle (a popular English music genre of the time) and acoustic folk playing, particularly that of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, and the blues sounds of Elmore James, B.B. King, Willie Dixon, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Hubert Sumlin.^[19] "Basically, that was the start: a mixture between rock and blues."^[17]

At the age of 13, Page appeared on Huw Wheldon's All Your Own talent quest programme in a skiffle quartet, one performance of which aired on BBC TV in 1957. The group played "Mama Don't Want To Skiffle Anymore" and another very American-flavoured song, "In Them Ol' Cottonfields Back Home". When asked by Wheldon 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 an interview with Guitar Player magazine, 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."^[17] Page would take a guitar to school each day and have it confiscated and handed back to him at 4:00 pm^[20] Although he had an interview for a job as a laboratory assistant, he ultimately chose to leave Danetree Secondary School, West Ewell, to pursue music instead.^[20]

Initially, Page 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."^[18] Following stints backing recitals by Beat poet Royston Ellis at the Mermaid Theatre between 1960–61,^[21] and singer Red E. Lewis, he was asked by singer Neil Christian to join his band, The Crusaders, after Christian had seen a fifteen-year-old Page playing in a local hall.^[18] 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 (infectious mononucleosis) and couldn't continue touring.^[18] While recovering, he decided to put his musical career on hold and concentrate on his other love, painting, and enrolled at Sutton Art College in Surrey.^[5] As he explained in 1975:

[I was] travelling around all the time in a bus. I did that for two years after I left school, to the point where I was starting to get really good bread. But I was getting ill. So I went back to art college. And that was a total change in direction. That's why I say it's possible to do. As dedicated as I was to playing the guitar, I knew doing it that way was doing me in forever. Every two months I had glandular fever. So for the next 18 months I was living on ten dollars a week and getting my strength up. But I was still playing.^[15]

Session musician[link]

While still a student, Page would often perform 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 Brian Howard & The Silhouettes, who asked him to help record a number of singles for Columbia Graphophone Company, including "The Worrying Kind". Mike Leander of Decca Records first offered Page regular studio work. His first session for the label was the recording "Diamonds" by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, which went to Number 1 on the singles chart in early 1963.^[18]

After brief stints with Carter-Lewis and the Southerners, Mike Hurst and the Method, 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 other noted British session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan. Page was mainly called in to sessions as "insurance" in instances when a replacement or second guitarist was required by the recording artist. "It was usually myself and a drummer", he explained, "though they never mention the drummer these days, just me ... Anyone needing a guitarist either went to Big Jim [Sullivan] or myself."^[18] He has also stated that "In the initial stages they just said, play what you want, cos at that time I couldn't read music or anything."^[22]

Page was the favoured session guitarist of producer Shel Talmy. As a result, he secured session work on songs for The Who and The Kinks.^[23] Page is credited with playing acoustic twelve string guitar on two tracks on The Kinks' debut album "I'm a Lover Not a Fighter" and "I've Been Driving On Bald Mountain"^[24] and possibly on the b-side "I Gotta Move".^[25] He played six-string rhythm guitar on the sessions for The Who's first single "I Can't Explain"^[22] (although Pete Townshend was reluctant to allow Page's contribution on the final recording, Page also played lead guitar on the B-side "Bald Headed Woman").^[26] 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" (released on Metamorphosis), 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", Brenda Lee's "Is It True," and Petula Clark's "Downtown".

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, Twice as Much and Eric Clapton. Page also formed a brief songwriting partnership with then romantic interest, Jackie DeShannon. He also composed and recorded songs for the John Williams^[27] album The Maureeny Wishful Album with Big Jim Sullivan. Page worked as session musician on Donovan Leitch's Sunshine Superman (1966) and the Johnny Hallyday albums Jeune Homme (1968) and Je Suis Né Dans La Rue (1969), the Al Stewart album Love Chronicles (1969), and played guitar on five tracks of Joe Cocker's debut album, With a Little Help from My Friends. Over the years since 1970 Page has played lead guitar on 10 Roy Harper tracks, comprising 81 minutes of music.

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.^[22][23] 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."^[16]

Although Page recorded with many notable musicians, many of these early tracks are only available as bootleg recordings, several of which were released by the Led Zeppelin fan club in the late 1970s. One of the rarest of these is the early jam session featuring Jimmy Page and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards covering Robert Johnson's "Little Queen of Spades". Several early tracks with Page were compiled on the twin album release, Jimmy Page: Session Man.

Page decided to leave 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.^[17] However, he has stated that his time as a session player served as extremely good schooling for his development as a musician:

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.^[19]

The Yardbirds[link]

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.^[18] 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.^[28] On 16 May 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.^[18] 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 Paul Samwell-Smith announced that he was leaving the group.^[17] Page offered to replace Samwell-Smith and this was accepted by the group. He initially played electric bass with the Yardbirds before finally switching to twin lead guitar with Beck when Chris Dreja moved to bass. The musical potential of the line-up was scuttled, however, 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 Clapton never played in the original group 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 just the opposite, becoming heavier and more experimental. These concerts featured musical aspects that Page would later perfect with Led Zeppelin, most notably performances of "Dazed and Confused".

After the departure of Keith Relf and Jim McCarty in 1968, Page reconfigured the group with a new line-up to fulfil unfinished tour dates in Scandinavia. As he said:

Once [the other Yardbirds] decided not to continue, then I was going to continue. And shift the whole thing up a notch ... The whole thing was putting a group together and actually being able to play together. There were a lot of virtuoso musicians around at the time who didn't gel as a band. That was the key: to find a band that was going to fire on all cylinders.^[29]

To this end, Page recruited vocalist Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham, and he was also contacted by John Paul Jones who asked to join.^[30] During the Scandinavian tour the new group appeared as "The New Yardbirds", but soon recalled the old joke by Keith Moon and John Entwistle. Page stuck with that name to use for his new band. Peter Grant changed it to "Led Zeppelin", to avoid a mispronunciation of "Leed Zeppelin."^[31]

Led Zeppelin[link]

Page has explained that he had a very specific idea in mind as to what he wanted Led Zeppelin to be, from the very beginning:

I had a lot of ideas from my days with The Yardbirds. The Yardbirds allowed me to improvise a lot in live performance and I started building a textbook of ideas that I eventually used in Zeppelin. In addition to those ideas, I wanted to add acoustic textures. Ultimately, 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.^[19]

Post-Led Zeppelin career[link]

Page at the Cow Palace, San Francisco, 2 December 1983

Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980 following the death of drummer John Bonham at Page's home, The Old Mill House at Clewer in Berkshire. Page refused to touch a guitar out of sadness for the loss of his friend Bonham,^[22][32] but made a return to the stage at a Jeff Beck show in March 1981 at the Hammersmith Odeon.^[33] Also in 1981 Page joined with Yes bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White to form a supergroup called XYZ (for ex-Yes-Zeppelin). They rehearsed several times, but the project was shelved. Demos of these sessions have turned up on bootleg and they reveal that some of the material emerged on later projects, notably The Firm's "Fortune Hunter" and Yes songs "Mind Drive" and "Can You Imagine?". Page would later join Yes on stage in 1984 at Westfalenhalle in Dortmund, Germany, playing "I'm Down".

In 1982 Page collaborated with director Michael Winner to record the Death Wish II soundtrack. This, and several subsequent Page recordings including Death Wish III soundtrack (1985), were recorded and produced at his own recording studio, The Sol in Cookham, which he had purchased from Gus Dudgeon in the early 1980s.

In 1983 Page appeared with the A.R.M.S. (Action Research for Multiple Sclerosis) charity series of concerts which honoured Small Faces bass player Ronnie Lane, who suffered from the disease. For the first shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Page's set consisted of songs from the Death Wish II soundtrack (with Steve Winwood on vocals) and an instrumental version of "Stairway to Heaven". A four-city tour of the United States followed, with Paul Rodgers of Bad Company replacing Winwood as vocalist. During the US tour, Page and Rodgers also performed "Midnight Moonlight" which would later be recorded for The Firm's first album. All of the shows featured an on stage jam of "Layla" that reunited Page with Yardbirds guitarists Beck and Eric Clapton. According to the book Hammer of the Gods, it was reportedly around this time that Page told friends that he'd just given up heroin after seven years of use. On 13 December 1983, Page joined Robert Plant on-stage for one encore at the Hammersmith Odeon in London.

Page next linked up with Roy Harper for the 1984 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. Also in 1984 Page recorded with former Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant as The Honeydrippers on the albumThe Honeydrippers: Volume 1, and with John Paul Jones on the film soundtrack Scream for Help.

Page subsequently collaborated with Paul Rodgers to record two albums under the name The Firm. The first album, released in 1985, was the self-titled The Firm. Popular songs included "Radioactive" and "Satisfaction Guaranteed". The album peaked at number 17 on the Billboard pop albums chart and went gold in the US. It was followed by Mean Business in 1986. The band toured in support of both albums, but soon split up.

Various other projects followed, such as session work for Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and The Rolling Stones (on their 1986 single "One Hit (to the Body)"). In 1986, Page reunited temporarily with his ex-Yardbirds band members to play on several tracks of the Box of Frogs album Strange Land.^[34] Page released a solo album entitled Outrider in 1988 which featured contributions from Robert Plant, with Page contributing in turn to Plant's solo album Now and Zen, which was released the same year. Page also embarked on a collaboration with David Coverdale in 1993 entitled Coverdale Page.

Throughout these years Page also reunited with the other former members of Led Zeppelin to perform live on a few occasions, most notably in 1985 for the Live Aid concert with both Phil Collins and Tony Thompson filling drum duties. However, the band members considered this performance to be sub-standard, with Page having been let down by a poorly tuned Les Paul.^[35] Page, Plant and Jones, as well as John Bonham's son Jason, performed at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary show on 14 May 1988, closing the 12-hour show.^[35] In 1990, a Knebworth concert to aid the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre and the British School for Performing Arts and Technology saw Plant unexpectedly joined by Page to perform "Misty Mountain Hop", "Wearing and Tearing" and "Rock and Roll". Page also performed with the band's former members at various private family functions.

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.

In October 1999, Page teamed up with The Black Crowes for a two-night performance of material from the Led Zeppelin catalogue and old blues and rock standards. The concert was recorded and released as a double live album, Live at the Greek in 2000. 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".^[36]

Jimmy Page performing at the Led Zeppelin reunion concert (2007)

In 2005, Page was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of his Brazilian charity work for Task Brazil and Action For Brazil's Children's Trust,^[37] made an honorary citizen of Rio de Janeiro later that year, and was awarded a Grammy award.^[38]

In November 2006, Led Zeppelin was 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 (including Roger Taylor, Slash, Joe Perry, Steven Tyler, Jack White and Tony Iommi), 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".^[39][40]

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".^[41]

On 10 December 2007, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin, as well as John Bonham's son, Jason Bonham played a charity concert at the O2 Arena London.

For the 2008 Olympics, Jimmy Page, David Beckham and Leona Lewis represented Britain during the closing ceremonies on 24 August 2008. Beckham rode a double-decker bus into the stadium, and Page and Lewis performed "Whole Lotta Love".^[42]

In 2008 Page co-produced a documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim entitled It Might Get Loud. The film examines the history of the electric guitar, focusing on the careers and styles of Page, The Edge, and Jack White. The film premiered on 5 September 2008 at the Toronto Film Festival.^[43] Page also participated in the 3 part BBC documentary London Calling: The making of the Olympic handover ceremony on 4 March 2009.^[44] On 4 April 2009, Page inducted Jeff Beck into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[45] Page has announced his 2010 solo tour while talking to the Sky News on 16 December 2009.^[46][47]

On 7 June 2008, Page and John Paul Jones appeared with the Foo Fighters to close out the band's concert at Wembley Stadium, performing "Rock and Roll" and "Ramble On."

In January 2010, Jimmy Page announced he is publishing an autobiography through Genesis Publications, in a hand-crafted, limited edition of 2,500 copies.^[48] Page has also been honoured with a first-ever Global Peace Award by the United Nations' Pathways to Peace organisation after confirming reports that he would be among the headliners at a planned Show of Peace Concert in Beijing, China on 10 October 2010.^[49][50]

On 3 June 2011, Jimmy Page played with Donovan "Mellow Yellow" and "Sunshine Superman" twice, live at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert was filmed. Page made an unannounced appearance with The Black Crowes at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London on 13 July 2011. He also played alongside Roy Harper at Harper's 70th birthday celebratory concert, in London's Royal Festival Hall on 13 July 2011.

In November 2011, Conservative MP Louise Mensch launched a campaign to have Page knighted for his contributions to the music industry.^[51]

Legacy and influence[link]

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 countless future rock bands, and was one of the major driving forces behind the rock sound of that era, influencing a host of other guitarists.^[53] Allmusic states that "just about every rock guitarist from the late '60s/early '70s to the present day has been influenced by Page's work with Led Zeppelin".^[5] For example, Dictators bassist Andy Shernoff states that Jimmy Page's sped up, downstroke guitar riff in "Communication Breakdown", an influential song that contained elements of protopunk,^[54][55] was an inspiration for The Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone's downstroke guitar style.^[56] Ramone, who has described Page as "probably the greatest guitarist who ever lived",^[57] stated in the documentary "Ramones:The True Story" that he improved at his down-stroke picking style by playing the song over and over again for the bulk of his early career.^[58] Brian May of Queen, who was also influenced by Page,^[59] has said "I don't think anyone has epitomised riff writing better than Jimmy Page – he's one of the great brains of rock music".^[60] Tom Scholz of Boston was heavily influenced by Jimmy Page and credits the dual guitar harmonies in Led Zeppelin's "How Many More Times" as the inspiration for Boston's distinctive sound.^[61] Page's guitar solo from the song "Heartbreaker" has been credited by Eddie Van Halen as being the inspiration for his two-hand tapping technique after he had seen Led Zeppelin perform in 1971.^[62] Similarly, Steve Vai has also commented about the song in a September 1998 Guitar World interview: "This one [Heartbreaker] had the biggest impact on me as a youth. It was defiant, bold, and edgier than hell. It really is the definitive rock guitar solo."^[63]

Page in 2008 at the Mojo Awards

Many other rock guitarists were also influenced by Jimmy Page, such as Ace Frehley,^[64] Joe Satriani,^[65] John Frusciante,^[66] James Hetfield,^[67] Kirk Hammett,^[68] Zakk Wylde,^[69] Yngwie Malmsteen,^[70] Tony Iommi,^[71] Joe Perry,^[72] Richie Sambora,^[73] Angus Young,^[74] Slash,^[75] Dave Mustaine,^[76] Mike McCready,^[77] Jerry Cantrell,^[78] Stone Gossard,^[79] Mick Mars,^[80] Paul Stanley,^[81] Alex Lifeson,^[82] and Dan Hawkins.^[83]

Page has been described by Uncut as the "rock's greatest and most mysterious guitar hero".^[84] According to msnbc.com Jimmy Page "played some of the most fundamental and memorable guitar in rock history—from the heaviest crunch to the most delicate acoustic finger picking."^[85] Page's solo in the famous epic "Stairway to Heaven" has been voted by readers of Guitar World^[86] and Total Guitar as the greatest guitar solo of all time, and he was named 'Guitarist of the Year' five times during the 1970s in Creem magazine's annual reader poll. Guitar World wrote: "Truly a guitar god, Jimmy Page is one of the most captivating soloists the rock world has ever known."^[87] In 1996 Mojo Magazine ranked him number 7 on their list of "100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time".^[88] In 2002 he was voted the second greatest guitarist of all time in a Total Guitar magazine reader poll.^[89] In 2007, Classic Rock Magazine ranked him No. 4 on their list of the "100 Wildest Guitar Heroes".^[90] Gigwise.com, an online music magazine, ranked Page No. 2 on their list of the "50 greatest guitarists ever" in 2008.^[91] In August 2009, Time Magazine ranked him the 6th greatest electric-guitar player of all time.^[92] In 2010, Jimmy Page was ranked No. 2 on Gibson's "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time".^[7] In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine named him number three on their list of the "100 greatest guitarists of all time".^[9]

David Fricke, a senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine, described Jimmy Page in 1988 as "probably the most digitally sampled artist in pop today after James Brown."^[6] Roger Daltrey of The Who has been a longtime fan of Page^[93] and expressed his desire to form a supergroup with Page in 2010 saying: "I’d love to do something, I’d love to do an album with Jimmy Page."^[94] Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones has described Jimmy Page as "one of the best guitar players I've ever known."^[95][96] Jimmy Page was the first inductee onto the British Walk of Fame in August 2004.^[97] Page was awarded "Living Legend Award" at Classic Rock Magazine Roll of Honour 2007.^[98] In June 2008, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Surrey for his services to the music industry.^[99][100] Page was inducted into Mojo Hall Of Fame at the magazine's award ceremony on 11 June 2010.^[101]

In August 2010, Auburn University graduate student Justin Havird named a new species of fish "Lepidocephalichthys zeppelini" after Led Zeppelin, because the fish's pectoral fin reminded him of the double-neck guitar used by Jimmy Page.^[102][103]

Equipment and recording techniques[link]

Page became famous for playing a double-necked Gibson EDS-1275 in concert

Guitars[link]

For the recording of most of Led Zeppelin material from Led Zeppelin's second album onwards, Page used a Gibson Les Paul guitar (sold to him by Joe Walsh) with Marshall amplification. A Harmony Sovereign H-1260 was used in-studio on Led Zeppelin III and Led Zeppelin IV and on-stage from 5 March 1971 to 28 June 1972. During the studio sessions for Led Zeppelin, and later for recording the guitar solo in "Stairway to Heaven", he used a Fender Telecaster (a gift from Jeff Beck).^[104] He also used a Danelectro 3021, tuned to DADGAD, most notably on live performances of "Kashmir".

Page also plays his guitar with a cello bow,^{[105][106][107][108]} as on the live versions of the songs "Dazed and Confused" and "How Many More Times". This was a technique he developed during his session days.^[23] 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.^{[citation needed]}

Notable guitars[link]

• 1959 Fender Telecaster (given to Page by Jeff Beck and repainted with a psychedelic dragon design by Page) played with the Yardbirds. Used to record the first Led Zeppelin album and used on the early tours during 1968–1969. In 1971, it was used for recording the "Stairway to Heaven" solo.
• 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard (No. 1) (Given as a gift to Page by Joe Walsh) modified with a shaved neck. This guitar was also used by Gibson as the model for the company's second run of Page signature models in 2004. Produced by Gibson and aged by luthier Tom Murphy, this second generation of Page tribute models was limited to 25 guitars signed by Page himself; and only 150 guitars in total for the aged model issue.^[109][110]
• 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard (No. 2) with a shaved down neck to match the profile on his No.1; He added four push/pull pots to coil split the humbuckers as well as phase and series switches which were added under the pick guard after the break-up of Led Zeppelin.
• 1991 English luthier Roger Giffin built a guitar for Page based loosely on Page's #2. Giffin's work was later copied for Gibson's original run of Jimmy Page Signature model Les Pauls in the mid-1990s.^{[109][111][112]}
• 1971 Gibson EDS-1275 (used for playing "Stairway to Heaven", "The Song Remains the Same", "The Rain Song", "Celebration Day" during live concerts and the Knebworth, "Tangerine" at the 1975 Earls Court shows, and "Sick Again" throughout the 1977 North American tour)
• 1959 Danelectro 59-DC (tuned to DADGAD and used live for "White Summer", "Black Mountain Side", "Kashmir" and "Midnight Moonlight" with The Firm).
• Danelectro 3021 (tuned to open G and used on the Outrider tour for "In My Time Of Dying". This one has a smaller pickguard, as opposed to the large "seal" pickguard on his first Danelectro.
• 1967 Vox 12-String used during the recording for the Yardbirds Little Games album and for on-stage appearances.
• 1960 Black Gibson Les Paul Custom (with Bigsby Tremolo) – stolen in 1970. An ad was placed by Page for the return of this highly modified instrument but the guitar was never recovered. In 2008 the Gibson Custom Shop produced a limited run of 25 re-creations of the guitar, each with a Bigsby Tremolo and a new custom 6-way toggle switch.^[113]
  • Because the guitar was too heavy, one of Jimmy Page's Les Paul Custom Black Beauty guitars is now owned by Dan Hawkins of The Darkness.^[114]
• 1969 Gibson Les Paul Standard (seen in "The Song Remains The Same" during the theremin/solo section of "Whole Lotta Love" and for "Kashmir" at the O2 reunion concert. This guitar was later fitted with a Parsons-White B-string bender and used extensively by Page from the mid-to-late 1980s onward, including the Outrider tour, and the Page/Plant "Unledded" special on MTV.
• 1964 Lake Placid Blue Fender Stratocaster (Used during recording sessions for In Through the Out Door at Earls Court 1975 and in 1979 at Knebworth for In the Evening).
• 1966 Cream Fender Telecaster (Used on Physical Graffiti and on All My Love during the Tour Over Europe 1980).
• 1953 Brown Fender Telecaster featuring a Parsons and White B-string bender, and neck salvaged from the "Dragon Telecaster". Seen primarily during the 1980s The Firm and Outrider era. Also used at Knebworth in 1979, notably on "Ten Years Gone" and "Hot Dog".
• 1965 Fender Electric XII (12-String) used to record Thank You and Stairway to Heaven.
• 1972 Martin D28 used to record acoustic songs after Led Zeppelin IV, used live at Earls Court 1975
• In 1994 Andy Manson was commissioned to make another triple neck guitar for Page. It was used during the Unledded performances with Robert Plant. ^[115]

Strings[link]

• Ernie Ball Super Slinky electric guitar strings .009s-.042s^[116]

Signature models[link]

Gibson released Jimmy Page Signature Les Paul which was discontinued in 1999, then released another version in 2004, which has also been discontinued. The 2004 version included 25 guitars signed by Page, 150 aged by a former Gibson employee (an acknowledged ageing 'master'), and 840 'unlimited' production guitars. The Jimmy Page Signature EDS-1275 has been produced by Gibson. Recently, Gibson reproduced Page's 1960 Les Paul Black Beauty, the one stolen from him in 1970, with modern modifications. This guitar was sold in 2008 with a run of 25, again signed by Page, plus an additional 500 unsigned guitars.

In December 2009, Gibson released the 'Jimmy Page "Number Two" Les Paul'.^[117] This is a re-creation of Page's famous number 2 Les Paul used by him since about 1974 until present. The model includes the same pick-up switching setup as devised by Page, shaved-down neck profile, Burstbucker pick-up at neck and 'Pagebucker' at the bridge. A total of 325 were made in three finishes: 25 Aged by Gibson's Tom Murphy, signed and played by Page ($26,000), 100 aged ($16,000) and 200 with VOS finish ($12,000).

Amplifiers and effects[link]

He usually recorded in studio with a Vox AC30, Fender, and Orange amplification. The first Led Zeppelin album and the solo on "Stairway to Heaven" were played on a Fender Telecaster through a Supro amplifier.^[118]

Page used a limited number of effects, including a Maestro Echoplex,^{[118][119][120]} a Dunlop Cry Baby, an MXR Phase 90, a Vox Cry Baby Wah, a Boss CE-2 Chorus, a Yamaha CH-10Mk II Chorus, a Sola Sound Tone Bender Professional Mk II, an MXR Blue Box (distortion/octaver) and a DigiTech Whammy.^[118] Page also played a theremin.^[118]

Music production techniques[link]

Jimmy Page is credited for the innovations in sound recording he brought to the studio during the years he was a member of Led Zeppelin,^[121][122] many of which he had initially developed as a session musician:^[123]

This apprenticeship ... became a part of [learning] how things were recorded. I started to learn microphone placements and things like that, what did and what didn't work. I certainly knew what did and didn't work with drummers because they put drummers in these little sound booths that had no sound deflection at all, and the drums would just sound awful. The reality of it is the drum is a musical instrument, it relies on having a bright room and a live room ... And so bit by bit I was learning really how not to record.^[16]

He developed a reputation for employing effects in new ways and trying out different methods of using microphones and amplification. 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."^[121] 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.^[124]

For the recording of several Led Zeppelin tracks, such as "Whole Lotta Love" and "You Shook Me", Page additionally utilised "reverse echo" – a technique which he claims to have invented himself while with The Yardbirds (he had originally developed the method when recording the 1967 single "Ten Little Indians").^[121] 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."^[121]

John Paul Jones acknowledged that Page's production techniques were a key component of the success of Led Zeppelin:

The backwards echo stuff [and] a lot of the microphone techniques were just inspired. Using distance-miking... and small amplifiers. Everybody thinks we go in the studio with huge walls of amplifiers, but Page doesn’t. He uses a really small amplifier and he just mikes it up really well, so that it fits into a sonic picture.^[32]

In an interview that Page himself gave to Guitar World magazine in 1993, he remarked on his work as a producer:

Many people think of me as just a riff guitarist, but I think of myself in broader terms... As a producer I would like to be remembered as someone who was able to sustain a band of unquestionable individual talent, and push it to the forefront during its working career. I think I really captured the best of our output, growth, change and maturity on tape – the multifaceted gem that is Led Zeppelin.^[19]

Personal life[link]

French model Charlotte Martin was Page's partner from 1970 to about 1982 or 1983. Page called her 'My Lady'.Today he calls her 'my ex-wife' too.(from Guitar World magazine November issue 2010) Together they have a daughter, Scarlet Page (born in 1971), who is a photographer.

From 1986 to 1995 Page was married to Patricia Ecker, a model and waitress. They have a son, James Patrick Page III (born April 1988). Page later married Jimena Gómez-Paratcha, whom he met in Brazil on the No Quarter tour.^[125] He adopted her oldest daughter Jana (born 1994), and they have two children together: Zofia Jade (born 1997) and Ashen Josan (born 1999).^[126]

In 1972 Page bought, from Richard Harris, the home which William Burges (1827–1881) 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 Burges rests on his extravagant designs and his contribution to the Gothic revival in architecture in the nineteenth century.^[127]

From 1980 to 2004 Page owned The Mill House, Mill Lane, Windsor, which was 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 the early 1990s,^[128] Page owned the Boleskine House, the former residence of occultist Aleister Crowley.^[128][129] Sections of Page's fantasy sequence in the film The Song Remains the Same were filmed at night on the mountain side directly behind Boleskine House.

According to The Sunday Times Rich List, Page's assets are worth £75 million as of 2009.^[130] He resides in Sonning, Berkshire in Deanery Garden, a house designed by Edwin Lutyens for the owner of Country Life magazine, William Hudson deanery Garden. Page also previously owned Plumpton Place, Sussex also owned by William Hudson with certain parts of the house also designed by Edwin Lutyens. This house features in the Zeppelin film "The Song Remains The Same" where Jimmy is seen sitting on the lawn playing a hurdy gurdy.

Recreational drug use[link]

Page has acknowledged heavy recreational drug use throughout the 1970s. In an interview with Guitar World magazine in 2003, he stated, "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."^[131] After the band's 1973 concert tour of the United States, 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."^[132]

In 1975, Page began to use heroin, a fact attributed to Richard Cole, who stated that Page (in addition to himself) was taking the drug during the recording sessions of the album Presence in that year, and that Page admitted to him shortly afterwards that he was addicted to the drug.^[133]

By Led Zeppelin's 1977 tour of the United States, Page's heroin addiction was beginning to hamper his guitar playing performances.^{[5][124][134]} By this time the guitarist had lost a noticeable amount of weight. His onstage appearance was not the only obvious change; his addiction caused Page to become so inward and isolated it altered the dynamic between him and Plant considerably.^[135] During the recording sessions for In Through the Out Door in 1978, Page's diminished influence on the album (relative to bassist John Paul Jones) is partly attributed to his heroin addiction, which resulted in his absence from the studio for long periods of time.^[136]

Page reportedly kicked his heroin habit in the early 1980s.^[137] In a 1988 interview with Musician magazine, Page took offence when the interviewer noted that heroin had been associated with his name, and insisted "Do I look as if I'm a smack addict? Well, I'm not. Thank you very much."^[138]

In an interview he gave to Q magazine in 2003, Page responded to a question as to whether he regrets getting so involved in heroin and cocaine:

I don't regret it at all because when I needed to be really focused, I was really focused. That's it. Both Presence and In Through the Out Door were only recorded in three weeks: that's really going some. You've got to be on top of it.^[139]

Interest in the occult[link]

A derivative of Page's Saturn sigil, itself derived from a 1557 source

The appearance of four symbols on the jacket of Led Zeppelin's fourth album has been linked to Page's interest in the occult.^[140] The four symbols represented each member of the band. Page's own so-called "Zoso" symbol originated in 'Ars Magica Arteficii' (1557) by Gerolamo Cardano, 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.^[141][142]

During tours and performances after the release of the fourth album, Page often had the "Zoso" symbol embroidered on his clothes, along with zodiac symbols. These were visible most notably on his "Dragon Suit", which included the signs for Capricorn, Scorpio and Cancer which are Page's Sun, Ascendant, and Moon signs, respectively.

The artwork inside the album cover of Led Zeppelin IV is from a painting by William Holman Hunt, influenced by the traditional Rider/Waite Tarot card design for the card called "The Hermit".^[140] Page transforms into this character during his fantasy sequence in Led Zeppelin's concert film The Song Remains the Same.

In the early 1970s 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 English occultist's Aleister Crowley's 1904 edition of The Goetia.^[143] Page has maintained a strong interest in Crowley for many years. In 1978, he explained:

I feel Aleister Crowley is a misunderstood genius of the 20th century. Because his whole thing was liberation of the person, of the entity, and that restrictions would foul you up, lead to frustration which leads to violence, crime, mental breakdown, depending on what sort of makeup you have underneath. The further this age we're in now gets into technology and alienation, a lot of the points he's made seem to manifest themselves all down the line.^[144]

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 ultimately produced 23 minutes of music which Anger felt was insufficient because the film ran for 28 minutes and Anger wanted the film to have a full soundtrack. Anger claimed Page took three years to deliver the music, and the final product was only 23 minutes of droning. The director also slammed the guitarist in the press by calling him a "dabbler" in the occult and an addict, and being too strung out on drugs to complete the project. Page countered that 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.^[145]

Although Page collected works by Crowley, he has never described himself as a Thelemite nor was he ever initiated into the O.T.O. The Equinox Bookstore and Boleskine House were both sold off during the 1980s, as Page settled into family life and participated in charity work.

Discography[link]

Led Zeppelin portal

Single[link]

• "She Just Satisfies"/"Keep Moving" (February 1965)

Albums[link]

Pre-Led Zeppelin (1963–1969)[link]

Many pre-Led Zeppelin session recordings have been released on various labels and compilation packages, including:

• Mannish Boys 1965 recordings with David Bowie (then Davy Jones) & 'The Lower 3rd' group. Page was a session guitarrist for the side A of the EP, titled 'The Manish Boys'. They just recorded two tracks, 'I Pity the Fool' and 'Take my Tip'. ^[146]
• Blues Anytime 1, 2, 3 series on Immediate Records featuring the Immediate All-Stars, mid 1960s
• No Introduction Necessary (1968), Recordings feat. John Paul Jones, Albert Lee, Nicky Hopkins, Clem Cattini and Keith de Groot
• Jimmy Page and Friends – Wailing Sounds (2006). Includes Lord Sutch & Heavy Friends album (1970) + six tracks from the 1968 sessions for Keith De Groot's debut album.
• Guitar Boogie (1971) Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton compilation album from the recordings on the Blues Anytime series on Immediate Records.
• Special Early Works (1972), 1965 session recordings with Sonny Boy Williamson
• Smoke and Fire (1984), session recordings with Jeff Beck, Noel Redding and Nicky Hopkins
• Jimmy Page: Session Man Vol. 1 (1989)
• Jimmy Page: Session Man Vol. 2 (1990)
• Jimmy's Back Pages...The Early Years (1992)
• Jimmy Page and His Heavy Friends: Hip Young Guitar Slinger (2000, double cd)
• This Guitar Kills: More 60s Groups & Sessions – remastered by Jimmy Page (2007, the 2003 ed. is not remastered) (double cd)
• Jimmy Page and Friends (2006, double cd)

Please note that there are several duplicates amongst all these albums.

Post-Led Zeppelin[link]

References[link]