Jimmy Page reveals his favourite song from childhood
Jimmy Page is undoubtedly one of the greatest guitarists of all time. The Led Zeppelin string smith innovated the use of distortion and created some of the most inventive sounds to ever come out of an amplifier, influencing and inspiring millions of young guitarists in the process, from back in the 1970s right up to the present day.
Back in 2016, Page was asked by NPR’s Bob Boilen to name a song that changed his own life. Page only had one option in his mind, and that was ‘Rock Island Line’ by Lonnie Donegan. Interestingly, Page’s story with the tune begins way back when he got his first guitar at the age of eight.
The guitar was lying about in Page’s new home when he moved as a child. “It was the campfire guitar, you know?” he said. “It was sort of, you know, round hole – yeah, literally that, like a campfire. But it did have all the string on, which was pretty useful.” So that got Page interested in the kind of music that a six-string could create.
This fascination was strengthened when guitar music came onto the radio waves in a big way. Page continued: “And there was this sort of explosion of music in the ’50s. And what we had over in England was this guy Lonnie Donegan. The song I’m going to sort of give as an illustration of this is ‘Rock Island Line’.”
“I mean, he was superb. It was absolutely superb,” Page added. “But there he was, playing, like, an acoustic guitar.” It was on television that Page got to see Donegan in full swing. “Sort of every Saturday there would be a show on the television where usually he was on every other week, and it was just something to behold at the time, just his whole passion and the way that he delivered this material.”
Page went on to explain Donegan’s origins as a musician and how they informed his guitar playing. “Now, the thing is that he’d been in a jazz band prior to that, and he really understood all of this sort of blues, American country, blues and all of that,” he said. “By the time you get to the end of this, he’s really spitting it out – ‘Rock Island Line’. It’s fantastic stuff.”
It was hearing the Lonnie Donegan tune that inspired Page to make songs of his own. He continued: “So this guitar was there, and then somebody showed me how to tune it up – somebody at school. Then I started strumming away, having a go, just sort of strumming chords and all of that stuff. You’ll find so many of the guitarists from the ’60s will all say Lonnie Donegan was the influence.” So we likely have Donegan to thank for all the wonderful music that came out of Jimmy Page’s fingers.
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