On the towering British guitarist's 82nd birthday, my thoughts on his talent, methods, and the sheer ambition that drove a discography ranging from "Goldfinger" to "Stairway to Heaven."
The tension between Page's disciplined studio control and his preference for "feel over precision" is what makes this analysis work. Most retrospectives frame Zeppelin as pure excess, but framing Page as an architect who deliberately chose imperfection for emotional impact recontextualizes those "sloppy" moments as calculated risks. Reminds me of how Thelonious Monk's "wrong" notes were intentional disonance, not mistakes. The fact Page got sole Beck's Bolero credit while still taking abackseat in the Yardbirds shows someone thinking five moves ahead.
I love this shit!!! Keith Moon "inventing" the name. Knowing people would mispronounce "Lead," these stories are GOLD!
"Beck's Bolero"- a true harbinger of future rock. Any long-term planning of K. Moon playing with J. Page... would have been insane...but short-lived, I think.
Page was the master- disciplined, professional and VISIONARY in a musical world of artistic chaos. I still love their first album. Play it often on long trips. Have to go up to Santa B tomorrow. Going to be a fun ride!!! Thank You, MW----------
Thanks! That first album was the first LZ I owned; it really holds up, the production especially nice as well as the eclectic lineup—from Baez to blues. Have a great ride to SB!
What lands here is how little of this feels accidental. Page isn’t reacting to history as it happens—he’s engineering conditions for it. The session years, the Yardbirds implosion, even Beck’s Bolero read less like detours and more like stress tests for a system he already had in mind. This is a sharp reminder that Zeppelin’s impact wasn’t just volume or excess—it was structure, leverage, and control applied at exactly the right moment.
Thanks for the careful read and spot-on takeaway here—I was unaware of how carefully Page had plotted his path forward, how every move was calculated (note that Page got sole writing credit for “Beck’s Bolero,” not Beck). Yet he wholeheartedly threw himself into the Yardbirds, willing to take a demotion to bass player just to get into the group; he’d had enough of Burt Bacharach sessions and could see the outlines of progressive rock, and the opportunities for someone like himself who was first and foremost and craftsman and leader who knew how to to do all the jobs—his guitar playing and composing were also workmanlike—and he was adamant that feel outranked precision, hence those sloppy chord landings on “I Can’t Quit You Baby” on the first Zeppelin LP I think Page is frankly underrated and should wear the mantle of rock’s greatest auteur—
Thanks for this—and the “Beck’s Bolero” clarification really sharpens the point. What stayed with me is Page’s mix of calculation and willingness to subordinate himself tactically to reach a longer arc he could already see. Those rough landings feel less like sloppiness and more like priority: impact over polish. I’m with you—he’s still underrated as an architect, not just a guitarist.
Strongly support the notions that Page - for all the fan plaudits and commercial success - remains remarkably underrated and under-recognized. There’s an old interview with Keith Richards where he says “Led Zeppelin is Jimmy Page” - I think some people heard that as dismissive, but to me it always sounded oddly (accidentally?) perceptive.
I knew this story back and forth and yet you got my heart pumping with excitement as if it were all new and happening now. Thanks for this! And happy birthday Mr. Page. We are/I am immensely grateful for your work!
What a career from session to work to ROCK ROYALTY and that bow on the guitar. I absolutely crushed on Jimmy and Robert too. What a powerful talented group. We are so blessed to have their music in history and the recent documentary has turned younger generations on...Happiest of birthdays to my big crush when I was a kid and roamed hotels and The Rainbow looking for him. Thank you so much for your amazing talent.
This is yet another fantastic essay. I'm reasonably familiar with the early history of Zeppelin but I learned lots of new stuff from this.
I wonder if you could go into a little more technical detail (or, point in the direction of someone else who does) in terms specifically of Page's recording and producing innovations? What, exactly, were the obsolete practices he expunged and what were the new techniques he pioneered?
I'm so glad I asked! Thank you very much for responding (once again).
I've always admired Glyn Johns just because of his work with The Who — the fact that Page had that experience somehow matches up in my head with Pete Townshend's confession that he "just never liked" Zeppelin.
The tension between Page's disciplined studio control and his preference for "feel over precision" is what makes this analysis work. Most retrospectives frame Zeppelin as pure excess, but framing Page as an architect who deliberately chose imperfection for emotional impact recontextualizes those "sloppy" moments as calculated risks. Reminds me of how Thelonious Monk's "wrong" notes were intentional disonance, not mistakes. The fact Page got sole Beck's Bolero credit while still taking abackseat in the Yardbirds shows someone thinking five moves ahead.
Love this, haven’t read it all yet but I just eat up this kind of history.
Thank you for this about my absolute fave band ever on the occasion of Jimmy's birthday. Nice to get all those tidbits of info.
Thanks!
I love this shit!!! Keith Moon "inventing" the name. Knowing people would mispronounce "Lead," these stories are GOLD!
"Beck's Bolero"- a true harbinger of future rock. Any long-term planning of K. Moon playing with J. Page... would have been insane...but short-lived, I think.
Page was the master- disciplined, professional and VISIONARY in a musical world of artistic chaos. I still love their first album. Play it often on long trips. Have to go up to Santa B tomorrow. Going to be a fun ride!!! Thank You, MW----------
Thanks! That first album was the first LZ I owned; it really holds up, the production especially nice as well as the eclectic lineup—from Baez to blues. Have a great ride to SB!
Their music has survived decades of rockcrit nonsense
What lands here is how little of this feels accidental. Page isn’t reacting to history as it happens—he’s engineering conditions for it. The session years, the Yardbirds implosion, even Beck’s Bolero read less like detours and more like stress tests for a system he already had in mind. This is a sharp reminder that Zeppelin’s impact wasn’t just volume or excess—it was structure, leverage, and control applied at exactly the right moment.
Thanks for the careful read and spot-on takeaway here—I was unaware of how carefully Page had plotted his path forward, how every move was calculated (note that Page got sole writing credit for “Beck’s Bolero,” not Beck). Yet he wholeheartedly threw himself into the Yardbirds, willing to take a demotion to bass player just to get into the group; he’d had enough of Burt Bacharach sessions and could see the outlines of progressive rock, and the opportunities for someone like himself who was first and foremost and craftsman and leader who knew how to to do all the jobs—his guitar playing and composing were also workmanlike—and he was adamant that feel outranked precision, hence those sloppy chord landings on “I Can’t Quit You Baby” on the first Zeppelin LP I think Page is frankly underrated and should wear the mantle of rock’s greatest auteur—
Thanks for this—and the “Beck’s Bolero” clarification really sharpens the point. What stayed with me is Page’s mix of calculation and willingness to subordinate himself tactically to reach a longer arc he could already see. Those rough landings feel less like sloppiness and more like priority: impact over polish. I’m with you—he’s still underrated as an architect, not just a guitarist.
Strongly support the notions that Page - for all the fan plaudits and commercial success - remains remarkably underrated and under-recognized. There’s an old interview with Keith Richards where he says “Led Zeppelin is Jimmy Page” - I think some people heard that as dismissive, but to me it always sounded oddly (accidentally?) perceptive.
He is an incredibly calculated and driven individual that planned everything to his financial advantage.
Curious how you feel about the plagiarism that is so rampant throughout his work and how that reflects on his talent?
This is great. I learned something about one of my favorite bands.
I knew this story back and forth and yet you got my heart pumping with excitement as if it were all new and happening now. Thanks for this! And happy birthday Mr. Page. We are/I am immensely grateful for your work!
What a career from session to work to ROCK ROYALTY and that bow on the guitar. I absolutely crushed on Jimmy and Robert too. What a powerful talented group. We are so blessed to have their music in history and the recent documentary has turned younger generations on...Happiest of birthdays to my big crush when I was a kid and roamed hotels and The Rainbow looking for him. Thank you so much for your amazing talent.
This is yet another fantastic essay. I'm reasonably familiar with the early history of Zeppelin but I learned lots of new stuff from this.
I wonder if you could go into a little more technical detail (or, point in the direction of someone else who does) in terms specifically of Page's recording and producing innovations? What, exactly, were the obsolete practices he expunged and what were the new techniques he pioneered?
Thanks, here are some specifics I cut for space in the original post…
Page the autodidact was unencumbered by the technical dogma of his
engineer on the first Zeppelin album, Glyn Johns. Page augmented John
Bonham’s enormous sound by placing microphones several feet from
the drums— one of several techniques that imparted an air of indulgent
spaciousness and made Zeppelin’s albums feel alive even on the most
pathetic teenage stereos. Page bowed his guitar, plugged it directly into
the mixing console to get a particular flavor of distortion, alternated limpid
acoustic verses with pile-driving choruses, and hired a tabla player to
accompany his winding guitar étude, “Black Mountain Side.” In one of
several clashes with his engineer, Page wanted the echo of Plant’s vocal
on “You Shook Me” to precede Plant’s voice— a trick Page first deployed
to tart up a Yardbirds single. Johns flatly told Page that it couldn’t be done; Page showed the skeptical engineer
how to turn the tape over, record the echo on a spare track, then
turn it back over again. Afterward, recalled Page, Johns refused to play
back the results. “Finally I had to scream, ‘Push the bloody fader up!’ ”
the effect worked perfectly. “He just couldn’t believe that someone knew
something that he didn’t— especially a musician.”
Page deployed different engineers for each of the first three LZ albums
“because I didn’t want people to think that they were responsible for our
sound.” For Led Zeppelin II, Page selected Eddie Kramer, a staff producer
at Olympic Studios whose engineering résumé included the Rolling
Stones and all of Jimi Hendrix’s albums. Page had
speciic ideas for the extended bridge to “Whole Lotta Love,” a galvanizing
but blatant reworking of Willie Dixon’s Chess Records chestnut “You
Need Love.” What ended up on the finished track sounded like a kitchen
sink of chaos— squealing theremin, backward- tracking guitar, and Robert
Plant’s guttural moans— but Page plotted every last screech and howl.
Kramer’s chief recollection of mixing the section is of him and Page “just
flying around on a small console twiddling every knob known to man.”
Said Page, “I told him exactly what I wanted to achieve in the middle of
‘Whole Lotta Love,’ and he absolutely helped me to get it.”
I'm so glad I asked! Thank you very much for responding (once again).
I've always admired Glyn Johns just because of his work with The Who — the fact that Page had that experience somehow matches up in my head with Pete Townshend's confession that he "just never liked" Zeppelin.