The moment pre-fame David Bowie met Jimmy Page for the first time
It’s hard to picture a time before the world’s biggest musical icons were shaping the cultural landscape. In truth, it’s been just under 60 years since David Bowie made his mark with the genius of ‘Space Oddity’ in 1969. Even then, it took him a while to find his footing. Yet, talent often attracts talent, and there was indeed a pivotal moment when Bowie crossed paths with another future rock legend, marking the beginning of something extraordinary.
It was four years prior, in 1965, when 18-year-old Bowie—then going by his real name of Davy Jones—was in the lineup of a band called The Mannish Boys. They were set to release a cover of Bobby Bland’s ‘I Pity the Fool’ and headed into the recording studio one day in search of a guitar soloist on the track—and it was provided to them by none other than a 21-year-old Jimmy Page, later of Led Zeppelin superstardom.
At this point, Page was already attracting acclaim, having worked with The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and The Who, among others. Bowie recalled this memory when he said in an interview: “When I was a baby, I did a rock session with one of the millions of bands that I had in the ’60s, and the session guitar player was this young kid who’d just come out of art school and was already a top session man, Jimmy Page.”
However, Page’s estimation of the man and his music was a little less enthusiastic at the time. He reportedly said that ‘I Pity the Fool’ “was definitely not going to be a hit”, which he was not wrong about. Although this was the case, Bowie’s complementary character reference makes clear the tangible impact that the Led Zeppelin founder had on his musical journey, working with Page again within the same year to develop new material.
Before these next strides were made, their first partnership on ‘I Pity the Fool’ still had much to say for itself. The track is a blues number oozing with smoothness and charisma, displaying the full force of Bowie’s belting vocals even at this primitive stage of his life and career. It’s a charming lull until Page’s electrifying guitar solo jolts into action and provides a whole new lifeblood.
Bowie credits Page’s innovation and ingenuity with breathing energy into the song, as he explained: “[Page] just got a fuzz box, and he used that for the solo. He was wildly excited about it.”
Even though the days of fame and glory may have seemed a distant dream for the young men at this point, it’s absolutely evident that such early talent would, in time, translate into stardom for them both. It shows the true smallness of the world when two icons could have collaborated before millions of adoring fans would know their names and clamour to hear those nascent recording sessions. The rest, they say, is history.
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