The only Led Zeppelin song featuring Jimmy Page on bass guitar: “That didn’t happen often!”
The roles of Led Zeppelin were at once relatively fluid and completely set in stone. The unmistakable lineup of Robert Plant on vocals, Jimmy Page on guitar, John Paul Jones on bass, and John Bonham on drums was eternal and not to be trifled with. They operated as four of the best in their respective fields and, because of it, were a behemoth on stage and in the recording sessions that would make them one of the greatest bands in the world. However, there was room to manoeuvre within those parameters.
All three instrumentalists contributed backing vocals at various points. Bonham got a prominent vocal spot during live performances of ‘The Ocean’ and Jones duetting with Plant on ‘The Battle of Evermore’ during the second half of the band’s career. Jones was also their go-to keyboardist, often switching between bass and keys during shows. Both Jones and Page occasionally picked up the mandolin when the band went acoustic, while the guitarist also plucked out a banjo line on Led Zeppelin III’s ‘Gallows Pole’.
Still, no one stepped on each other’s toes when it came to the members’ primary roles. Nobody was battling Plant to sing lead, no one thought they could put down a better drum part than Bonham, no one could rip a solo like Page, and no one could hold the back end down like Jones. The quartet were ultimately one of the most well-rounded groups around, robust with talent and defiant in their willingness to use it in the right ways.
Take The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, and you would see members often sharing tasks or filling in for a missing bandmate. However, Led Zeppelin remained true to their roles within the group. In a rare band where every member has a viable claim as being the best of all time on their respective instrument, why would you mess with the perfect dynamic?
It only happened once and was a combination of experimentation and working late. The Led Zeppelin III track ‘That’s the Way’ found Page taking up a number of instruments that he didn’t normally play, including pedal steel guitar and dulcimer. “The main breaks on it are taken up with the pedal steel,” Page mentions in the book Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page. “And right at the end, where everything opens up, I played the dulcimer.”
While fleshing out the track, Jones picked up a mandolin and added it to the folky arrangement. At this point, there wasn’t any specific plan to add bass, and since it was late by the time the arrangement had fully come together, Jones decided to take himself home for the night. His job, as far as he saw it, was already done. Only after he left, Page decided he wanted more low-end on the mix. It would be a decision that provided a strange anomaly in the band’s discography—a Led Zeppelin song featuring Jimmy Page on bass guitar.
Rather than being some genius move, it was just a natural moment born out of Page’s willingness to complete the track and his enthusiasm for the new part: “I was doing a bunch of overdubs and got excited. John Paul Jones went home, so I put the bass part on it as well!” Page explained in Light and Shade. “That didn’t happen often, believe me!”
It certainly wasn’t a case of Page purposefully replacing Jones or a part he played. Truthfully, it was simply a case of Page making a last-minute decision and completing his vision in the simplest way possible. Page and Jones had a strong mutual respect dating back to their session days, and Page never again wandered into the four-string domain on a Led Zeppelin record.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter
All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.