John Paul Jones explains why Jimmy Page is one of his favourite guitarists
Whilst Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones has worked with a host of iconic names in his time, ranging from Donovan to Dave Grohl, one person he knows better than most is Jimmy Page. First meeting Page when the pair were two of the most sought-after session musicians in London’s ‘Swinging Sixties’, both were fully aware of each other’s prowess when they eventually converged to from Led Zeppelin in 1968.
Notably, it was John Paul Jones who brought refinement to the sound of Led Zeppelin, thanks to his trained background and position as a talented multi-instrumentalist. Not the complete package, he would develop with his bandmates as they grew from a blues rock outfit into something more powerful. They captured the imagination with their increasingly expansive sound and became one of the most influential bands ever.
The magic of Led Zeppelin is that each member, Jones, Page, frontman Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham brought something different to the fold. This is something that they all understood, and in 2008, not long after they had reunited for The Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert the previous year at London’s O2 Arena, John Paul Jones sat down with Uncut to discuss Jimmy Page and what makes him so brilliant.
There, Jones revealed that his bandmate was always one of his favourite guitarists and that he seemed to have improved since Led Zeppelin had last played together back in 1995. Asked if Page was as good as in the old days, Jones replied: “Yeah, he really is. He really is. He was always one of my favourite guitarists – I know it sounds obvious, but he was – and as soon as we started in rehearsal, I was just amazed to hear how he’d kept everything and actually improved, I thought. He seemed to have grown since I saw him last.”
It was put to Jones that it must have been difficult for Page to fully account for himself in the live setting, as some Led Zeppelin songs have over five guitar tracks on the recordings, with ‘Achilles Last Stand’ from 1976’s Presence used as an example. Therefore, according to the interviewer, Page had to have his “musical wits” about him at “his age”.
Explaining what makes Page so brilliant, even at his age, Jones revealed that he carried off the guitar “without a second thought”. He said: “He has, yeah, and he certainly did have. Obviously we always used to do songs that had a lot of extra, overdubbed parts, and we used to have to come to some arrangement about doing them live. So we’re kind of used to it, but yeah, you’ve got to be pretty nimble to cover all the important parts so that the song makes sense. And he did it without a second thought, it seemed.”
Watch Jimmy Page in action at the O2 Arena below.
