How a neighbour gave Jimmy Page the greatest kick in music history
When you look at Jimmy Page now, it’s hard to move past his undeniable legacy. Renowned as one of the finest guitarists in the world, he’s been responsible for so many riffs, solos and songs; he has a plethora of masterpieces behind him and such an innovative mind that it’s hard to even begin to understand where he got his ideas from. However, looking back at his life, everything starts to make sense.
When we look at someone who made such legendary music as Jimmy Page, we can get so lost in its majesty that it becomes difficult for us to work out how a fellow human being can be capable of such creativity. The interesting thing about Jimmy Page is that the more you read about him, the more everything falls into place. Page wasn’t a genius by accident; he connected with music from a young age, and his guitar playing was a by-product of that connection.
For instance, when you consider his guitar-playing skills, because of how much he loved music and the fact that learning the guitar was quite an isolating experience for him, his music was something he could get truly lost and find his voice in. His school refused to do guitar lessons, and his teachings were limited to listening to records and trying to replicate them.
Pair that with his work as a session guitarist, and you were always going to have a versatile player. This massively played into what he went on to do with Led Zeppelin. What stood out about the band was that their style of music wasn’t linear. It could be acoustic and bluesy or heavy and chaotic. It all held together, and the glue was Page.
Of course, this wasn’t the only thing that stood out about Page and the music he made. He was also intelligent when it came to recording techniques. He was interested in the different ways that sound could be committed to the airwaves, and that meant that he was happy experimenting with panning, recording from a distance and, as he called it, “Waking up the army of guitars.”
Being a session musician also helped Page experiment with different recording techniques, and his interest in how sound travelled was developed from an early age before he even started playing the guitar. When his neighbours bought a stereo system, he heard volume and depth for the first time and was fascinated by it.
“My introduction to the world of recorded sound came when my family lived in Feltham, London,” he said, “There was a neighbour on our road who’s recently acquired a top-of-the-range stereo record player… He played these audio file recordings for hi-fi enthusiasts, including a steam train, like a Flying Scotsman, zooming across from the right speaker to the left with all its undeniable drama.”
After playing sound effects, Page’s neighbour played classical music, and Page realised how transportive recorded music could be. It didn’t have to be fuzzy and poor quality, as he had previously been subjected to, but instead, it could make it feel like he was in a room with a full orchestra.
“My parents occasionally listened to BBC radio at home. However, through my neighbour’s hi-fi, I actually heard and felt a full orchestra in stereo for the very first time,” he said, “It was probably something like Elgar or Wagner, a really passionate piece. The whole landscape of music, and the depth and texture of it, really affected me. I don’t think I’d ever listened in such detail before.”
Page understood what a good quality recording could do to a person, so it’s no surprise he took great care later in his career to ensure the recordings were as innovative and high calibre as possible. The result? A sound as powerful and dynamic as Led Zeppelins.
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