Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page biography

James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.

Jimmy Page is viewed by critics, fans and fellow musicians alike as one of the most influential and important guitarists and songwriters in rock music. Rolling Stone magazine has described him as "the pontiff of power riffing & probably the most digitally sampled artist in pop today after James Brown." and, in 2007, No.4 on Classic Rock Magazine's "100 Wildest Guitar Heroes". Page was ranked third in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2011. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice; once as a member of The Yardbirds (1992), and once as a member of Led Zeppelin (1995).

Early years

Jimmy Page was born to James Page and Patricia Elizabeth Page (nee Gaffikin) in the West London suburb of Heston, which today forms part of the London Borough of Hounslow. His father was an industrial personnel manager and his mother was a doctor's secretary. In 1952 they moved to Feltham, and later again to Miles Road, Epsom in Surrey, which is where Page came across his first guitar. "I don't know whether the guitar was left behind by the people in the house before us, or whether it was a friend of the family's - nobody seemed to know why it was there." First playing the instrument at the age of twelve years, he took a few lessons in nearby Kingston, but was largely self-taught:

When I grew up there weren't many other guitarists ... There was one other guitarist in my school who actually showed me the first chords that I learned, and I went on from there. I was bored so I taught myself the guitar from listening to records. So obviously it was a very personal thing.

Among Page's early influences were rockabilly guitarists Scotty Moore and James Burton, who both played on recordings made by Elvis Presley. Hearing the Elvis Presley song "Baby Let's Play House" is cited by Page as being his inspiration to take up playing the guitar. Although he appears on BBC1 in 1957 with another guitar, Page states that his first guitar was a second-hand 1959 Futurama Grazioso, which was later replaced by a Telecaster.

Page's musical tastes included skiffle (a popular English music genre of the time) and acoustic folk playing, particularly that of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, and the blues sounds of Elmore James, B.B. King, Willie Dixon, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Hubert Sumlin. "Basically, that was the start: a mixture between rock and blues."

At the age of 13, Page appeared on Huw Wheldon's All Your Own talent quest programme in a skiffle quartet, one performance of which aired on BBC TV in 1957. The group played "Mama Don't Want To Skiffle Anymore" and another very American-flavoured song, "In Them Ol' Cottonfields Back Home". When asked by Wheldon what he wanted to do after schooling, Page said, "I want to do biological research" to find a cure for "cancer, if it isn't discovered by then".

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