“He’s a genius”: The guitarist Jimmy Page called the father of everything
No one really knows when the first guitar hero sprang to life. Even though many people have their first awakening moments on the instrument listening to someone like Eddie Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix, there are still people like Chuck Berry and Scotty Moore who turned heads years before the genre was considered one of the biggest styles in the world. Although Jimmy Page could justifiably be considered one of the first caricatures of what a guitar hero should be, he admitted that this guitarist dominated the conversation amongst every serious player.
While Page was a more than capable guitarist during Led Zeppelin’s prime, he would even tell you that he wasn’t doing anything that hadn’t been taken from the blues initially. He certainly expanded on it and made the kind of tunes that no one had even considered, like ‘The Rain Song’, but there’s no way that anyone can listen to something like ‘You Shook Me’ or ‘Bring It On Home’ and not say that he was well-versed in everyone from Buddy Guy to Muddy Waters.
Even though he was born and bred to push rock forward, blues is normally where everything starts. There are still people who try to add some little twist to it, but those I-IV-V chord progressions are what makes tunes sound dangerous back in the day. At the same time, rock guitar was about reinvention, which Les Paul did in his sleep.
Aside from his accolades now for being one of the biggest pioneers in guitar manufacturing, Paul took the guitar to new levels while he was still playing. While crafting his own guitars, his duets with Mary Ford are the stuff of legends, taking the basics of blues and incorporating pieces of jazz into the mix as well.
Looking back on some of the available footage, some of his tricks are the subtle mannerisms many rock gods picked up later. He wasn’t afraid to be flashy once in a while, and when he decided to fly off the handle, seeing him playing hammer-on licks while showing off his strumming hand away from the guitar was the kind of thing that Page pulled off without even thinking about it.
Although Page helped spread the gospel of Paul’s playing by boasting one of his guitars every time he played, he still felt that he was the godfather of all guitarists, saying, “I appreciated enough of his playing, but to meet him and see how natural he was was amazing. Apart from the fact he’s a genius, he’s such a warm person. I’ve never had the chance to play guitar with him at the same time. I’ve been to his house, and we’ve had a chat. He’s the father of everything.”
There are even traces of that kind of creative ingenuity in what Page was doing. He may not have been as involved in the manufacturing of guitars as Paul was, but his ingenuity when it came to playing his instrument with a bow or playing in strange tunings was all about following in his footsteps and seeing what other sounds had yet to come out of that piece of wood with strings on it.
Because Page knows as well as Paul did that the electric guitar is still a relatively new instrument for the world. And since we’re still barely scratching the surface, it’s important to try out everything one can think of to see how much the instrument can take.
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