The evolution of Jimmy Page’s guitar style in five songs
Since the early 1980s, Jimmy Page has been the archetype of what people think a guitar god should look like. From his time in The Yardbirds to his spellbinding work with Led Zeppelin, Page sits right behind legends like Jimi Hendrix as one of the most inventive guitar players of the late 1960s and early ‘70s. No guitarist gets to that position without putting in the work, though.
Throughout Page’s career, it’s easy to pick up on where he ends up on the timeline, gradually working his way closer to being one of the best guitarists of his generation. As he worked in the confines of blues or went into bold new inventive directions, Page always knew how to steer the ship of any song with the power of the fretboard in front of him.
In fact, some of his most advanced guitar work doesn’t come from his blues notices at all. Throughout Zeppelin’s tenure, Page’s way of weaving in and out of solos and rhythm work and creating an emotional experience out of guitar solos is practically a lost art, with fans still trying to duplicate just what the hell he’s trying to do on every track.
Although it’s easy to track what Page is doing sometimes, it’s nearly impossible to recreate the song exactly like he does, taking the building blocks of traditional rock and roll and creating new colours on the musical spectrum. Page was always learning through his time in the spotlight, and each song gives fans a glimpse into his headspace.
Understanding Jimmy Page’s guitar style:
‘Heart Full of Soul’ – The Yardbirds
Long before becoming the guitar-wielding madman, Page started playing the same down-and-dirty blues as most of his contemporaries. Compared with acts like The Who and The Animals, ‘Heart Full of Soul’ was still a sonic peek into an acid rock nightmare, with Page using his wah-wah pedal to great effect.
Although the actual guitar riff is nothing more than two notes with some bends thrown in here and there, Page’s delivery of the riff is pure gusto, inheriting a sense of pride in having been in the same band as fellow legends like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Despite a perfect riff in his arsenal, it’s easy to see him slipping away from his main gig.
After years of playing sessions, Page was starting to get burnt out on The Yardbirds and knew that he needed to move on to more adventurous fare a little later once Robert Plant and John Bonham came into the picture. This electric blues was already ahead of its time, but the ground was already shaking beneath Page’s feet.
‘Dazed and Confused’ – Led Zeppelin
For a scene that was still immersed in the blues, Led Zeppelin’s debut record hit like a bolt of lightning. Although there had been bluesy bands before and after 1968, the power behind Robert Plant’s voice was impossible to ignore, along with the maniac drum fills behind John Bonham’s kit. Gone were the days of worrying about singles, and in their place was one of Page’s first forays into avant-garde-sounding rock and roll.
While the crux of ‘Dazed and Confused’ is based around a song by Jake Holmes, Zeppelin elevates it into something much bigger, with Page setting the mood in the verses with different harmonics. As the chorus kicks in, Page’s way of choking the guitar is undeniable, sounding like the faint cry of someone screaming for help.
As the band give way to a break in the action, Page spends the time usually reserved for a solo hammering out some white noise on his guitar and a theremin, creating a massive wall of sound before taking the listener down to Hell again. ‘Stairway to Heaven’ was yet to come, but fans had already seen the underworld by hearing this song alone.
‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ – Led Zeppelin III
In the grand spectrum of Zeppelin’s discography, Led Zeppelin III tends to feel like the awkward middle child between everything. Sure, it might have great tunes like ‘Immigrant Song’, but the focus on folksy styles didn’t sit well with fans wanting something a bit more hard-hitting. Although ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ was still in bluesy territory, Page pulled out one of the most emotional guitar solos of his career.
Once the rest of the band drop out, Page starts picking away at his guitar delicately, reminiscent of his playing on the back end of ‘Heartbreaker’. As he builds in intensity, it practically sounds like he’s trying to make his guitar talk, starting out fairly conversational before dialling up the intensity with every chord before bringing the band back in with some of the crudest bends ever heard in a rock song.
Even after they nailed the studio take, the band only got better live, as Page kept adding pieces into the solo that was enough to make artists like Dave Grohl tear up because of how beautiful they were. Page isn’t known to be the sentimental type all that often, but the way he pours all of his emotion into the songs is beautiful when everything lines up correctly.
‘The Rain Song’ – Houses of the Holy
Jimmy Page will be one of the first to tell fans that he isn’t exactly the most experienced guitarist in the world. Though he worked well in the club scene and the studio, Page was particularly hard on himself when talking about his acoustic style, which he compared to incompetence when trying to play songs live. Even if he was incompetent, one of his most moving guitar passages fell out of him when making Houses of the Holy.
Recorded in an uncommon open tuning that doesn’t even have a name, Page fiddled around with his acoustic guitar with different shapes until he got a tune out of his guitar, sounding like the gentle rain in a melody. Plant responded in kind as well, writing lyrics about the wonders of nature and equating it to the love of everything around him.
While plenty of songs are more iconic to Page than ‘The Rain Song’, this is the real example of why he should be considered a genius behind the instrument. Anyone can learn different tunings and find different techniques with theory, but Page found this piece of magic hidden within his soul.
‘Kashmir’ – Physical Graffiti
Everything about Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti centred around them being at the peak of extravagance. From the mammoth track listing to songs over 11 minutes, every piece of the puzzle was meant to paint a picture of a band at the peak of their powers. That didn’t mean it was time to stop innovating, and Page took to learning a whole new vocabulary on ‘Kashmir’.
Recorded in DADGAD tuning, Page turns his guitar into a piece of a symphony orchestra, with a menacing crawling riff keeping in perfect time with Bonham’s kick drum. As Plant sings about the sun beating down upon his face, Page’s intrinsic sense of time is incredibly grounded in the verses, especially considering he plays in a poly-meter with Bonham.
Once the strings respond with their shrill downward figure, Page matches them, sounding like a cinematic scope of the apocalypse when heard in the right context. Page had been in the world of rock for over a decade, and from the snide kid playing blues licks, this song was his final transformation as a mad genius behind the fretboard.
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