The song that taught Jimmy Page about “profound attitude”
The guitar wasn’t really a nasty instrument throughout most of the 1960s. The most famous guitarists simply didn’t have the technology or enough destructive qualities to make their six strings sound aggressive. Distortion was still a relatively new concept in the early part of the decade, and controlling the crackling sound coming out of damaged amplifiers was nearly impossible.
But there was a revolution going on, one that expanded by huge degrees of magnitude by the end of the decade. Dave Davies was carving up amplifiers, Pete Townshend was maxing out wattages, and eventually, figures like Jimi Hendrix would revolutionise the sound of the guitar. Jimmy Page was at the forefront of the distortion explosion, using it to psychedelic effect when he joined The Yardbirds in 1966 and for bluesy sustain in the earliest Led Zeppelin tracks. By the start of the 1970s, Page had perfected the hard rock guitar tone, but his influences stretched back all the way to the 1950s.
During the 2008 documentary It Might Get Loud, a scene shows Page leafing through his 45-inch singles before stopping on a record with no outer picture. As he puts it on, a clear look of satisfaction comes across his face. The song is Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’, the iconic instrumental that incorporated heavy amounts of distortion and tremolo into its recording. While the track plays, Page is with the track at every turn, air guitaring to Wray’s iconic strums.
While sitting down with his counterparts in the film, The Edge from U2 and Jack White from The White Stripes, Page explained how ‘Rumble’ was a revelation for him. “I’d listen to anything with a guitar on it when I was a kid that was being played,” Page explained. “All those different approaches and the echoes. But the first time I’d heard the ‘Rumble’: that was something that had so much profound attitude to it.” White, in particular, agrees with Page’s assessment, geeking out over the song’s more aggressive elements.
Page’s appreciation for ‘Rumble’ is illustrated by how closely he follows the track through each of its different sections. Although the composition of the track is relatively simple, Page gets the most out of the small variations, especially as Wray cranks up the tremolo on his amplifier to insane degrees as the song reaches its climax.
Check out ‘Rumble’ down below.
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.