The rock singer Jimmy Page called a “master craftsman”
After the sad end of Led Zeppelin with the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980, Jimmy Page felt at a creative loose end. While each member of the band would seek to put the recent past behind them in their own ways, with vocalist Robert Plant committing to his debut solo record only two years later, it took their former leader a touch longer to chart a definitive course out of the heartbreaking mire.
Given Page’s significance to British music, his long-term connection to his era’s other most important acts would provide him with a new and concerted creative project. Strangely, though, this was also under tragic circumstances. Page was offered the key to his next chapter when taking part in the ARMS tour of 1983, the all-star series of charity gigs set up to raise money and awareness for Multiple Screloris research following the 1977 diagnosis of Ronnie Lane, the co-founder and bassist of The Small Faces and Faces.
Although Page had already achieved so much with Led Zeppelin, succeeding in finally bringing to life his vision of making rock much more towering and esoteric – which he conceived in The Yardbirds – as he’d been out of the live game for a few years since 1980, he felt uncustomarily nervous before taking to the stage. He wasn’t in the same headspace as he was at his pomp.
Despite his nerves, Page knew he had to do the ARMS tour when The Rolling Stones keyboardist Ian Stewart invited him to play the original Albert Hall show at a party at Jeff Beck’s country estate. Everybody loved Lane, and there were to be no rock egos on this night; it was for a significant cause bigger than all of them.
When he got there for the original show, Page suddenly had the dawning realisation that he was the only one involved who hadn’t had a solo career, with three former Yardbirds on hand who did, bringing the reality into full focus. Apart from his session career, he’d only worked with the ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago’ group and Led Zeppelin, with the Death Wish II soundtrack his most recent endeavour, a forgotten moment.
Because he’s only done the soundtrack since Zeppelin split, Page played material from it, but he knew it wasn’t enough. However, it felt amazing to be back on stage again, and he was happy to continue the shows. In a stroke of fortuity for him, when it came to taking ARMS to America, Steve Winwood, who supplied vocals for him at the Albert Hall, had to pull out because another UK-based project was taking precedence.
Page then went to his contact book and called Free and Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers. He explained why to Classic Rock in 2020 and revealed that he believes the vocalist is a “master craftsman”. Page recalled: “I got hold of Paul Rodgers, because he’s fantastic. He’s such a master craftsman, he’s wonderful. And we started writing stuff together. He was playing guitar as well as me and that was cool.”
The convergence with Rodgers proved to be the stroke of luck the former Zeppelin man needed. Both had a great time doing it, and when they realised that neither was doing anything when they returned to the UK, they committed to a new project. That became the hit supergroup, The Firm.
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