Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page on the “disappointing” reality of being a session musician
Jimmy Page is best known for playing guitar in Led Zeppelin, forming the band in 1968. Utilising impressive techniques such as playing his instrument with a bow, Page quickly became known as one of the world’s most influential guitarists.
Page was interested in music from a young age, primarily teaching himself the guitar. He explained during an interview with NPR: “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.”
However, before his successful tenure in Led Zeppelin and his previous outfit, The Yardbirds, Page got his start in the music business as a session player. Using the skills he harnessed by himself, he began playing local gigs before he was eventually spotted by several industry figures, such as Decca Records’ Mike Leander, who offered him regular session opportunities.
After playing with artists from The Rolling Stones and The Kinks to Petula Clark and Brenda Lee, contributing to some of the decade’s biggest hits, Page knew he had to form his own band. However, the lack of creative control found in session work frustrated Page, and, as a result, he joined The Yardbirds before founding Led Zeppelin a few years later.
Reflecting on the formative years of his career, Page once explained to The Guardian, “I was doing all these various sessions — from TV jingles to film music to this to that to blues to folk — on and on and on. [I] had quite a lot of music in front of me, and I had to start reading it. I just kept turning the pages, and it didn’t stop. It just kept going on, and it was getting really tricky. It didn’t take long to realise it was a muzak session, and I thought, ‘What am I doing here? This is just really not what I’m cut out for.'”
He added: “Especially as I’d sort of introduced the overdrive pedal, the fuzzbox, into the whole recording scene, and people were using them on stage. I was sort of quite keen on some experimental things like the bow with the guitar, and I thought, ‘It’s time to get out.'”
Despite appearing on hits such as The Who’s ‘I Can’t Explain’, Marianne Faithfull’s ‘As Tears Go By’, and Shirley Bassey’s ‘Goldfinger’, Page found session work “disappointing”. In Mary McCartney’s Abbey Road documentary, If These Walls Could Sing, she includes an old clip of a young Page discussing his thoughts on being a session musician.
Referring to working with popular musicians of the era, he said: “They don’t come out how you expect them to be. It’s rather disappointing on the whole, I would say.”
Luckily, despite the negative experience Page had during this time, it spurred him to form one of the most influential bands of all time.
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