The first guitarist Jimmy Page ever wanted to be
The guitar has been attached to Jimmy Page like an extra limb since childhood, and is the one accomplice that goes everywhere with him.
Even before he made his name with Led Zeppelin on the world stage, Page had already contributed to number one records. As a session musician, he was the gun-for-hire that everybody wanted on their song before he became a Yardbird, and eventually swapped the shadowy background for the limelight.
He was only 15 when he first toured, before a bout of illness led to him re-evaluating his life and enrolling at art school. However, he couldn’t stay away from music for long, and quickly enough, Page was amassing a glorious reputation.
Like most, Page learned to play on the acoustic before graduating to the electric guitar, which happened when he discovered one artist who blew his mind and thrillingly expanded his horizons.
Page never set out to find the guitar, but it found him. When his family moved into a new home, the previous owner left behind an unwanted guitar. Although he’d never previously played the instrument, this fortuitous moment proved a turning point in his life. The musician once said of the “intervention” from above: “It’s like, whether I wanted to be a musician or not, I was going to be one.”
For a while, Page remained focused on the acoustic guitar, and like many in his generation, he was inspired by skiffle icon Lonnie Donegan. Naturally, as he grew older and got exposed to more sounds, his tastes changed with the discovery of Buddy Holly, leading him to pick up an electric guitar.
While Page had heard the instrument on records before, it wasn’t until he saw a Buddy Holly album cover on which the musician was holding an electric guitar that Page first laid his eyes on a six-string.
Buddy Holly may not have been a hell-raising rock ‘n’ roller, but he was a gateway drug for Page, who thought he walked on water.
Even before hearing a note of music, he was enamoured due to the electric guitar’s placement on the album cover, once noting, “On the cover of his album, he was cradling this thing. The whole design of it was so avant-garde, basically. I hadn’t seen anything that looked like this. So it was just absolutely phenomenal to actually see a Stratocaster for the first time.”
After finally seeing an image of an electric guitar, Page was desperate to get his hands on one. Once he finally became the proud owner of one, the next step for him was imitating Buddy Holly and pretending to be his hero. This period was a crucial part of Page’s development as a musician and worked as a solid entry point as he continued to advance his ability.
In the book Led Zeppelin: The Biography, Page remembered: “Solos which affected me could send a shiver up my spine and I’d spend hours, and in some cases days, trying to get them [down]. The first ones were Buddy Holly chord solos, like ‘Peggy Sue‘, but the next step was definitely James Burton on Ricky Nelson records, which was when it started to get difficult.”
In addition to his love of Buddy Holly providing a framework for him to hone his craft as a guitarist, this period was also vital in Page realising that he wanted to dedicate his life to the pursuit. While he was in his bedroom playing ‘Peggy Sue’, nothing else mattered, and he was completely free.
Admittedly, Page quickly moved on to trying to copy more technically astute players than Buddy Holly, but he remains gratuitous for the impact the late musician’s work had on his life. After all, he was the man who introduced him to the electric guitar, which changed Page’s life forever.
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