No Quarter: The Three Lives of Jimmy Page

PART 1

YOUR TIME IS GONNA COME

Music is the one thing that has been consistently there for me. It’s never let me down …

Jimmy Page

CHAPTER 1

Mama Don’t Allow No Skiffle Round Here

James Patrick Page was born on January 9, 1944 at the Grove Nursing Home in Heston, a small but verdant suburb of the London borough of Hounslow, neatly situated about ten miles from Big Ben and the political centre of England’s capital city. ‘Owned’ by King Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth in the 1500s, by the time of Page’s arrival, Heston was perhaps best known for the aerodrome that sat imposingly on the outskirts of town, expansion of which from a small airfield to a major international airport began the year of Jimmy’s birth. Originally called London Airport but renamed Heathrow in 1966, it was still known as Heston Aerodrome when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich in September 1938 for appeasement talks with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Some two weeks later, Chamberlain returned to Heston clutching a piece of paper in his hand that declared ‘Peace in our time’. He was being a tad optimistic. Within a year, the Nazis invaded Poland and Great Britain was at war with Germany for the second time in as many decades. Soon, the rest of the world was involved too.

The war was still raging when Jimmy was taken from Grove Nursing Home to his parents’ house at 26 Bulstrode Road in central Hounslow a day or so after his birth. Though the awful, nightly bombing raids that defined ‘The Blitz’ of 1941 had receded somewhat, London was still a very dangerous place to be as German V1 and V2 rockets soon took up where Luftwaffe planes had left off, the new ‘doodlebugs’ targeting the city and its citizens with ruthless efficiency and deadly accuracy. Difficult times then, especially for those raising a newborn. Thankfully, the Page family seemed to have matters in hand.

Jimmy’s father, James Page – from whom Jimmy took his name – was in his mid-twenties when his son came home. Born in 1917, James could easily trace his own family history back to his paternal great-grandfather, Thomas Page, whose thriving carpentry business had employed seven men in Banbury, Oxfordshire during the 1870s. And it was in Banbury that James’ own father, Herbert Miller Page, was born in 1879. A nurseryman by trade, Herbert had his fair share of ups and downs to contend with early in life. Soon after the Page clan moved north from Banbury to Bottesford, Nottinghamshire, Herbert lost the sight of one eye when he was struck by a rebounding air gun pellet fired by his brother John. A horrible thing to befall anyone, Herbert’s bad luck was reported in the local paper at the time. Such a distressing accident has evoked much sympathy for the young Mr. Page and his family. It didn’t hold Herbert back either romantically or socially.¹ Marrying Florence Wilson – three years his junior and originally from Southampton, Hampshire – the couple had three children, Gladys, Norman, and then after a ten-year gap, Jimmy’s own father, James.

Jimmy’s mother, Patricia – whose epithet provided the inspiration for his second name, Patrick – had an equally interesting family background. Born in Croydon in 1925, Patricia’s own parents were John and Edith Gaffikin, though as her father’s Gaelic-sounding surname suggested, there was northern Irish blood in her veins. Indeed, tracing the Gaffikins’ history back a generation or two, Patricia’s father, John, two of his four brothers and his own mother, Jeanie, were born in Belfast and Donaghendry, County Tyrone, respectively.

A young couple by today’s standards (though certainly not at the time), James and Patricia Elizabeth Page had been married nearly three years when Jimmy came along. They had prepared admirably well for his arrival. Like Patricia’s father, John² – who sadly died before his daughter wed on April 22, 1941 – the studious James had found a promising office job in the local aircraft industry, working as a wages clerk. Soon, he would rise to the position of ‘Industrial Personnel Manager’, again an extremely respectable role. After a youthful start in the catering trade, Patricia too put her skills to excellent use, becoming a doctor’s secretary after Jimmy reached school age.

Though central Hounslow was a comfortable enough spot to put down roots, proximity to family and possible work connections may have played a hand in the Pages’ decision to leave the town and move further south to Feltham while James Jr. was an infant. Still nominally in the borough of Hounslow – if now on the other side of its rangy heath – Feltham was in essence much the same as Heston where Jimmy was born: similar transport links to central London, similar look, similar village feel and, again, once ‘owned’ by King Henry VIII. But perhaps of greater importance was the fact that Feltham was a good deal closer to James and Patricia’s relatives who lived near the town, thus creating a stronger support network for all concerned. Additionally, Feltham was the base of Menzies Aviation, which like fellow employer ‘The Heston Aircraft Company’, may well have been useful to James Page when considering his long-term career prospects.

Another plausible reason for the Pages’ move to Feltham was the fact that the Nazis had stopped bombing it, as they had indeed stopped bombing most everywhere else by the spring of 1945. The site of Britain’s second largest railway marshalling and freight yard, Feltham had been the target of repeated air strikes but now – as throughout the rest of Europe – its residents could sleep soundly in their beds once again. Nevertheless, like the rest of Europe, the onus was very much on picking up the pieces. After years of conflict and the death of millions, towns, cities and countries had to dust themselves off, clean up the rubble and start again. For Feltham, London, England and Great Britain as a whole, this meant a decade or so of avoiding falling masonry or plunging into craters left by bombs and rockets while the process of slow re-building took place. In this oppressive, grey post-war atmosphere, money was tight and food rationing abounded. Prosperity would eventually return, but Jimmy Page was unlikely to get his first proper chocolate bar for another eight years.

It could have been worse. While Page had to wait a while to discover the joys of the cocoa bean, he at least wouldn’t have it snatched away by fellow siblings, as he was to remain an only child. The subject of much psychobabble, only children are meant to be many things, quite a few of them negative: slow to share, excessively private, over-protected, unduly sensitive and, sometimes, just plain odd. On the upside, however, such children were also said to have fine, positive traits including high levels of independence and academic achievement, good organisational skills and strong attention to detail. They also mature faster. In later life, Jimmy would display some, if not quite all of these. But like all only children, the biggest hurdle for him to overcome at the time was socialising with other kids.

Having no brother or sister there to help guide or influence the rules of the game, every social skill and human interaction Page learned was by observation alone, and more often than not by watching the adults around him. Not a perfect start when entering a classroom for the first time, then. But Page didn’t seem to mind. He rather liked it that way. Until the age of five, I was totally isolated from kids my own age, he later told archivist Howard Mylett. That early isolation probably had a lot to do with how I turned out. A lot of people can’t be on their own. They get frightened. But it doesn’t bother me at all. It gives me a sense of security. And as time came to show, it also gave him a formidable base of operations from which to access his own creative process.

When Jimmy was eight, the family upped sticks again and moved to Epsom, this time putting down major and more lasting roots. Again, it was the smart thing to do. Though only half an hour’s drive from their former home in Feltham, the town was neatly removed from the main flight path leading into Heathrow, then at the start of its 50-year run towards becoming Europe’s busiest airport. James Page might have earned his wages from the industry, but he didn’t want the planes it produced ruining his Sunday afternoons. When the airport got jets, we moved away, Jimmy recalled in 1983, it was just so noisy. Cannily avoiding a future price crash on their house due to constant air traffic, the Pages settled at 34 Miles Road, a pleasant ‘three up, two down’ located in a crescent close, but not too close, to Epsom High Street. Its front room would become Jimmy’s main base of operations for over a decade.

As far as the Page’s new home town was concerned, there was much to commend it, with Epsom full of local history and future promise. Named for a wealthy landowner called Ebba – Epsom literally translates as ‘Ebba’s manor’ – it was a strategic meeting place for Anglo-Saxon gentry dating back to the fifth century until the Norman invasion of 1066 called time on such activities. Meriting a mention in the Domesday book of 1086 (two churches, two mills, 38 houses and 24 acres of woodland, no less), Epsom kept mostly to itself until the 1700s, when the Georgians discovered a spring at its centre and turned it into a spa town.

Then a fashionable and, indeed, profitable enterprise, Epsom’s association with spas, flowing water, healing minerals and restful slumber made it well worth a visit, the locals soon producing ‘Epsom salts’ for ailing souls to take home after their stay. In keeping with its spa success, Epsom’s modest racecourse was duly expanded, offering residents and tourists not only the opportunity for physical restoration, but a chance to bet on the horses too.

By 1780, the now famous Epsom Derby and Oaks were off and running, their importance on the racing calendar growing exponentially over the next 100 years. Come 1910, and the Derby and Oaks were bringing over 50,000 visitors to the town for each meeting, this surge in popularity seeing off any remaining farmland in favour of shops, roads and the odd hotel. Surrounded by countryside, with a striking clock tower to mark its centre and the added oddity of having not one, but five psychiatric hospitals to confirm its borders, Epsom in the early fifties was non-threatening, more or less aircraft-free and suited the Pages well. Most of my childhood was spent in Epsom, Jimmy later told Howard Mylett. It was really nice there.

Enrolled in a local primary school on Pound Lane, Page set about making friends and finding things to do. One early success was reportedly sports, with the youngster showing an aptitude for hurdling that eventually led to him becoming school champion. According to local legend, he was also a keen cricketer. Jimmy’s efforts with brush and canvas were duly noted too, as his teachers encouraged him to focus on art as much as English or arithmetic. Though once describing himself as a terrible draughtsman, Page was obviously good enough to be marked out by tutors as one to watch, a useful observation on their part that would help him out of a tight spot when career troubles threatened to flare in his late teens. Away from academia, Jimmy could take full advantage of Epsom’s more leafy aspects, with the local Common, Longrove Park and Mounthill Gardens all within easy reach. In due course, his fondness for walking expanded to a love of full-blown hikes, with Page gaining access to bigger outdoor spaces such as Horton Country Park and the Surrey Hills.³

Crucially, Jimmy was also gaining exposure to the pleasures of music, its essential mysteries coming to him from three distinct sources. First was his enrolment in the choir of St. Barnabas Church on Epsom’s Temple Road. Overseen by the cadaverously named Mr. Coffin, Page could be found singing every Sunday morning to the faithful while dressed in the choir robes – a black cassock, white surplus and white ruff neck – required for the role. Yes, I was a choir boy, he told Channel 4 some 60 years after the event, and lots of black musicians in the States have said that their (musical inspiration) came from church. But you know, I don’t know if I could say that. Given his later interests, this seems almost certain.

Another less formal route from which music seeped into Jimmy’s consciousness was the radio. With no siblings to distract him, the youngster spent most nights in the company of his parents, listening to whatever songs crackled across the airwaves. Aside from a staple diet of crooners and balladeers, Page was privy to the crash, bang and wallop of British big bands, trad-jazzers, American swing and oodles of tunes specifically aligned to dance crazes then sweeping UK ballrooms: ‘The Cha Cha’, ‘The Bossa Nova’ and, maybe on a lively night, even ‘The Jitterbug’. From Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters to Jack Parnell, Ted Heath and the silky-smooth tones of singer Dennis Lotis, Jimmy would have heard the lot. In fifties Britain, someone once joked, swing was king.

The third and certainly most beguiling source of potential music for Jimmy Page had been sitting around the house since he and his parents moved to Epsom. Unsure whether it had been left by the previous owners or relatives, it seemed to simply materialise one morning in the living room. Well, Page would later maintain, a bit mysteriously, nobody seemed to know where it had come from or quite why it was there. The object in question was a Spanish acoustic guitar; fully strung and in reasonable shape, just sitting there, staring at them all from a corner. As neither of Jimmy’s parents was musical and Page himself was still a tad unsure of it, the guitar remained untouched for years. However, he always knew it was there. Well, he later said, a guitar kind of makes an intervention, if you like … A little secret to be unlocked, then.

The set of keys required to do just that landed squarely in Page’s lap with the arrival of the skiffle boom in 1956. A simple, some might even say crude, cocktail of American country blues and Appalachian bluegrass, skiffle relied on three central chords and a hollering vocal to make its musical point. But when performed well, as demonstrated by Lonnie Donegan, that simplicity of form could be as propulsive and emotionally involving as the finest classical symphony. Lonnie, Page later told Charles Shaar Murray, was the first person who was really giving it some passion that we could all relate to.

A native Scot, Anthony Donegan adopted the name Lonnie from bluesman Lonnie Johnson, and began his run at fame in the late forties, first as a member of Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen and then as a part of the Chris Barber Jazz Band. Originally employed to bolster Barber’s Dixieland-themed troupe on banjo, Lonnie soon found himself bashing out a skiffle break on guitar during the interval. Largely designed to give his fellow musicians a breather between sets, Donegan’s anarchic readings of old Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie tunes nonetheless gained real traction with audiences, keeping punters away from the bar and rooted to their seats. Backed by a duo playing washboard and tea chest bass respectively, Lonnie’s skiffle break might have reeked of novelty and upset some jazz purists, but it soon made him a star. After grinning his way through Leadbelly’s ‘Rock Island Line’ on the BBC’s flagship music show 6.5 Special in 1956, he went to number eight on the UK charts, gaining the first of 31 hits both in Great Britain and the USA. I [was] trying to sing acceptable folk music, he later said. I wanted to widen the audience beyond the artsy-craftsy crowd and the pseudo intellectuals, but without distorting the music itself.

At the heart of Donegan’s skiffle sound, of course, was the acoustic guitar. Never a showy player, he seldom strayed above the first three frets. Yet, Lonnie still managed to strum the instrument within an inch of its life, his train-like chug and almost evangelical vocal delivery pulling listeners along with him until the song finally came off the tracks. For a new generation desperately trying to find their own musical hero outside their parents’ record collections, Donegan and his skiffling guitar were it. Lonnie Donegan, said Paul McCartney, was the man. Within weeks of Donegan’s appearance on 6.5 Special, legions of teenagers had formed their own skiffle groups.⁴ After all, the tools of the trade were so simple: a tea chest, a bit of wood, a length of string and a washboard stolen from the kitchen. For those with bigger ambitions, an acoustic guitar was the essential purchase.

Jimmy Page already had one.

Like many his age, Jimmy fell hard for Lonnie Donegan. A stunned witness to the skiffle king’s 6.5 Special performance, he was thrilled by Donegan’s obvious enthusiasm for his music as transmitted down the cathode tubes of the family TV set and straight into his head. But it was only when he saw a fellow pupil at Danetree secondary school, named Rod Wyatt, banging out ‘Rock Island Line’ on his own acoustic that the penny dropped. I have a guitar at home, was all Jimmy said. A few words. Hardly even a sentence, really. Wyatt’s reply, however, was a crucial moment for Page. Bring it in, said Rod. I’ll tune for you …

The Spanish guitar still residing in a corner of the family home was now quickly called into action. After Wyatt made good on his promise and tuned the thing, he showed Jimmy some rudimentary chords – enough certainly to play ‘Rock Island Line’, and perhaps even ‘Bring A Little Water, Sylvie’, another Donegan hit at the time. Page was off the mark and running. Bert Weedon’s immortal Play In A Day instruction book for aspiring guitarists was the next box to be ticked. Bought more out of curiosity than anything else, Weedon’s instruction book didn’t appeal to Jimmy who was eager to learn more by ear than from the page. The tutor [books] fell a bit flat when it came to the point of the dots, Page recalled to John Tobler, because I was far too impatient. No doubt wanting to indulge their son’s newfound interest, but also give it formal shape, Jimmy’s parents reportedly sent him to a guitar teacher for lessons. Again, this was no great meeting of minds. Page wanted to learn hits. The teacher was offering more theory. But it did at least expand his chord vocabulary and picking technique, if not his ability to actually read music. Given later difficulties, he probably should have paid more attention.

Despite these early teething problems, Jimmy’s dedication to the instrument was absolute, a point underlined when he parted company with his mysterious Spanish gut-string and bought a Hofner President instead. A handsome beast with a single cutaway and brunette finish, the President had a deep body to maximise volume and was a real step up the guitar ladder from the Spanish box top. Even better was the fact that Jimmy could electrify its sound by installing a small, soap bar pick-up beneath the strings, giving him the chance to plug into his parents’ radio or record player and hear himself back through the speaker. Having done a milk round over several months in order to save for the Hofner, the reward of finally being ‘on the radio’ must have been immensely pleasing. And probably quite noisy.

Armed with a basic knowledge of musical theory and a reasonable guitar to test it on, Jimmy took things to the next level by forming a band, though that might be a rather grand title for it. More a collection of skiffle enthusiasts that met weekly in the front room of his parents’ house, it still constituted Page’s first real commitment towards making music with others. Regrettably, the names of all but one of the quartet – drummer David Hassall – have been lost to history. But thanks to some old film footage, which we will come to soon enough, it seems clear that the bass player – who commendably built his own instrument – later joined the Royal Air Force, while the lead singer and Jimmy’s fellow guitarist may have been called Anthony; small beer, perhaps, but all surely worth a mention for the purposes of posterity. Nonetheless, there was no mistaking the name of the band: ‘The James Page Skiffle Group’.

Like most of his peers, Jimmy’s earliest experiments with a band would probably have remained hermetically sealed forever, away from all prying eyes. But someone in or around the group – Page’s mother has been mentioned as a possible candidate – came up with the bright idea of getting them on television. Whatever the case or whoever the culprit, a letter was definitely written to the BBC, which ended up in the hands of the makers of All Your Own. A late afternoon magazine show aimed at youngsters and hosted by the unflappable Huw Wheldon⁵, All Your Own gave a platform for kids to display their talents and discuss their hobbies while the rest of Great Britain watched at home.

It all must have seemed a bit of a long-shot for the boys until they were actually granted an audition in the spring of 1957. Fifty-one years later, Page winced at the memory. It was in a large hall filled with children, he confirmed to Classic Rock in 2008. Then, in walks Huw Wheldon who says ‘All right, where are these bloody kids, then?’ Quaking in their boots, the James Page Skiffle Group still impressed Wheldon enough for him to offer them a spot on the show, thus setting in motion one of the more curious and, it has to be said, genuinely funny episodes in pop and rock folklore.

Now but an internet click away (though worth dwelling on at some length here), Jimmy Page’s turn on All Your Own in the spring of 1957 provides a near perfect snapshot of the future rock star in his early teens. All neat hair, jumper and britches, he looks unbelievably young, fresh-faced, carefree and delightfully unaware of where the years would take him. But even from his first moments on camera, it is blindingly obvious that Page was a natural at this show business malarkey. Wearing his Hofner President with pride, the youngster smiled and strummed his way through ‘Mama Don’t Allow No Skiffle Round Here’ with the rest of the band before breaking for a brief interview with Wheldon. Asked whether he played anything other than these skiffle tunes, Page’s easy, almost eager reply Yes, Spanish and dance, deftly set him up for further enquiry by the host. And that’s when things got interesting.

Perhaps sensing some fun for himself, and indeed, older viewers, Wheldon ribbed Jimmy as to whether he wanted to take up skiffle after school. Page’s deadpan reply remains justly famous. No, I want to do biological research. Causing his host to giggle, then mumble I do that already, as a matter of fact under his breath, Wheldon recovered sufficiently to enquire what exactly Page meant. Well, cancer, if it isn’t discovered by then. With the presenter back on stable footing, it was now Jimmy’s turn to be flummoxed. You mean be a doctor? asked Wheldon. No I haven’t enough brains for that, I don’t think, replied Page. When Wheldon comedically gasped No? I’m sure you have, Jimmy appeared unsure, looked around the TV studio in search of his footing and then did something truly wondrous. Saying nothing more, he smiled broadly, if flintily into the middle distance until Wheldon gave up and went on to bother another member of the group. Teenage embarrassment. Middle class modesty. Maybe just a case of the jitters. But over the next five decades, whenever an interviewer’s questions became trite, intrusive or potentially uncomfortable, that steely quiet and disarming smile would be employed with almost universal success.

Finishing up their set with ‘The Cotton Song’, during which Jimmy summoned up a feathery guitar trill as the tune’s introduction, some whistles on the verse and a full-blown backing vocal for the chorus, his trial by fire on All Your Own was by all accounts a real nerve rattler. I was quite nervous on that, actually, he said later. [Being] 13 or 14, it was quite a big deal going on television. As for his pithy response regarding future career prospects, Page was again nothing but honest. At that time, it wasn’t unusual for kids at school to have an academic route too, [so] whatever I said then was probably what I was studying that week! Even in this age of smart phones and instant uploads, there are precious few opportunities to observe celebrities at close range before the advent of fame. As such, Page’s appearance on BBC’s All Your Own should rightly be cherished. "I was just an enthusiastic 13-year-old [and] we all start out that way, don’t we? Not everyone ends up with that stuff haunting them on YouTube, though …"

Beyond the perilous world of television interviews, skiffle actually gave Page much in the shortest of times. As with so many of his generation, it had acted as a superb primer into the joys of music and the simple fun that could be had by sharing it with others. In England, we’d [been] separated from our folk music tradition centuries ago, said Lonnie Donegan in 1998, and were imbued with the idea that music was for the upper classes. You had to be very clever to play music. When I came along with the old three chords, people began to think that if I could do it, so could they. As importantly, skiffle had also put a spotlight on an instrument that had thus far languished on the musical sidelines in the UK. "The great thing about the guitar when I was 12 years old was that it was portable⁶," Jimmy told Rolling Stone’s David Fricke in 2008, [That] made music accessible to me. You could get together with your mates and before you knew it, the serious spirit of music was there.

For all its attendant charms, skiffle’s time in the sun was to be relatively brief, the music soon brushed aside by a much larger, unwieldy and electrified beast recently escaped from the United States of America. Suffice to say, Jimmy Page was to be among its first victims. When I was about 12, 13, I heard rock’n’roll, he said. Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis. It was all so … primeval. There was so much urgency conveyed in rock’n’roll that young people were instantly drawn to it. I was no exception.

CHAPTER 2

Baby Let’s Play House

There are many theories about the origins of rock’n’roll. Some say it began with jump blues and boogie-woogie. Others will make a case for western swing, jazz or even gospel. There are those who swear blind it was all the work of hillbillies. But a couple of songs can lay some real claim to being rock’n’roll’s errant father. On December 10, 1949, for instance, piano giant Fats Domino recorded a tune called ‘The Fat Man’ at Impact Studios, New Orleans that has more than a little rock’n’roll about it. Ironically, ‘The Fat Man’ wasn’t fat at all, more a lean slice of no-frills boogie borne along by Domino’s sparkling keyboard work, scatting asides and drummer Earl Palmer’s metronome-like back beat.

Another worthy contender came in the spring of 1951, when Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats cut a track named ‘Rocket 88’ for producer Sam Phillips at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. Actually the work of Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm (with saxophonist Brenston pulling double duties on vocals), ‘Rocket 88’’s fulsome mix of swinging brass, shuffling sticks and a guitar teetering on the edge of distortion made it another strong contender for rock’n’roll’s ground zero. Ike Turner wasn’t so sure. I don’t think that ‘Rocket 88’ is rock’n’roll, he later told record producer Holger Petersen. "I think [it’s] R&B, but I think [it’s] the cause of rock’n’roll existing. [It was] the first black record to be played on a white radio station, and man, all the white kids broke out to the record shops to buy it …" Over half a million of them, to be precise.

Domino, Turner and Brenston’s early experiments all pass muster as possible progenitors of the form. But it was to be a 29-year-old former country singer from Michigan that ended up popularising what we now call ‘rock’n’roll’. First testing the lock in 1954 with ‘Shake, Rattle & Roll’, before removing the door altogether a year later with ‘Rock Around The Clock’, Bill Haley & his Comets took rock’n’roll from its largely black origins and made it palatable for white, middle-class America. Then a young man called Elvis Presley came along and made it dangerous all over again. Arriving on the music scene in 1955 like some visiting alien, Presley was picture-book handsome, sexually tumescent and gifted with one of the finest voices ever to grace a slab of vinyl. He also fulfilled a prophecy of sorts. According to Ike Turner, Presley’s early producer, Sam Phillips, had once said, If I get me a white boy to sound like a black boy, then I got me a gold mine. With Elvis, Phillips started counting the coins.⁷

Jimmy Page was probably first exposed to rock’n’roll at the same time as he was leading his skiffle band through their paces at Miles Road. But it wasn’t long before he traded in Donegan for Presley. [Hearing] Elvis just electrified me. It really captured me, like a fish caught in a big net. I just wanted to be a part of it. Strangely, it wasn’t one of Presley’s stream of 1956 UK hits on RCA – from ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and ‘Hound Dog’ to ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ and ‘Love Me Tender’ – that bowled him for six. Instead, that honour went to a lesser known tune Elvis cut with Sam Phillips for Sun Records the year before. The record that really made me want to play guitar was ‘Baby Let’s Play House’, said Jimmy. When I heard that record, I just wanted to be part of it … the acoustic and electric guitars, the slap bass, those instruments seemed to generate so much energy.

If one were being picky, ‘Baby, Let’s Play House’’s combination of descending acoustic bassline and bouncing drums was probably more ‘rockabilly’ than rock’n’roll. In the end, such distinctions were irrelevant. The instrument teasing the best out of Presley’s deliciously slurred vocal and making Jimmy’s ears pop as a result was Scotty Moore’s guitar. Elvis’s secret weapon, Moore was a man who could combine country fills, double stops and hillbilly chord twangs like the ingredients for a gourmet meal, served up on his gold Gibson ES (Electric Spanish) 295 in a way Page once described as heart-stopping. Obviously, this whole rock’n’roll thing was to be investigated, and quickly.

Like any new follower to a cause, Jimmy’s days and nights went by in a haze of discovery and growing devotion. When he wasn’t listening to Radio Luxembourg or the American Forces Network (AFN)⁸ under his bed sheets for all the latest releases from the States, Page could be found in the back room of his local Rumbelows, buying any single he could get his hands on. There were plenty to choose from. As rock’n’roll established the same foothold it had in America months before, an influx of performers followed Elvis across the ocean and into the British charts. The primal scream of Little Richard. The animal magnetism of Jerry Lee Lewis. And, of course, the rascal charms of Charles Edward Anderson Berry. I got my guitar and pretended to be Chuck Berry, Jimmy said in 1982. I still do! Another enormous influence on Page, Chuck Berry’s duck-walking guitar boogie was pure teenage heaven, while his lyrics created a world where having no particular place to go sounded like a great night out. It was what Berry was singing about, Page later told GQ. The stories he was telling. He was singing about hamburgers sizzling night and day. We didn’t have hamburgers in England. We didn’t even know what they were.

By 1957, however, Great Britain was starting to play catch up. Having now got the hang of Elvis, Jerry Lee and Chuck, British youth were increasingly keen to put their own spin on America’s obsession with youth, rebellion and caveman music. Fashion, for instance, was one such quick win. Originally taking hair and style tips from US actors such as James Dean, Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis and Montgomery Clift, UK teenagers now started their very own derivation on the theme of wild ones and rebels without a cause: the Teddy Boy. A beautiful explosion of drape jackets, day-glo socks, brothel creepers and bad attitudes, Britain’s Teds put the fear factor back into rock’n’roll only months after politicians stopped worrying Elvis might bring down society with a sneer.

Elsewhere, a new breed of British-born rock’n’roll singer was also emerging. Keen to mimic Stateside-based chart invaders with homegrown performers of their own, UK record companies and manager/impresarios like Larry Parnes and Jack Good began scouring central London’s then box-fresh coffee bar and club scene in search of suitable talent. There was no shortage of it waiting to be found. Marty Wilde, Tommy Steele and, latterly, Joe Brown and Billy Fury could all approximate what was being exported from the USA, though the best of this new breed was Cliff Richard. As close as Britain had yet come to producing its own Elvis, Cliff’s debut single – 1958’s thundering ‘Move It’ – was nearly as good as anything released by the King himself. After hearing Elvis, Richard later said, thousands of us woke up the next morning wanting to be rock’n’roll singers. I was one of them. Backed by the Shadows, crack instrumentalists who in turn produced the UK’s first real guitar hero in the form of bespectacled Hank Marvin, Richard’s ambitions crystallised a nation eager to embrace rock’n’roll and make it their own.

There is no doubt that Jimmy Page was aware of ‘Cliff and the Shads’, Marty Wilde and Billy Fury. After all, they were all regular faces on Oh Boy!, the slightly off-kilter ITV show that replaced 6.5 Special as the only place teenagers could watch their musical idols for half an hour each week circa 1958. Yet, Jimmy’s interests at the time remained firmly connected to American rock’n’roll, his investigations into its still growing retinue of performers not to be undone by British duplicates. Joining Chuck and Elvis on the family Dansette were the likes of Ricky Nelson and Gene Vincent, whose own guitar men, the Blue Caps, again added much flavour to Page’s ever-growing style.

Nelson’s silken, expressive vocals were backed by the eloquent guitar excursions of James Burton. A tasteful, economic picker who never wasted a note, Burton’s twanging Fender Telecaster enlivened many a Nelson classic, including ‘I’m Walkin’’ and ‘Hello Mary Lou’. It was also from Burton that Page learned the value of replacing the wound ‘G’ string on his guitar for the much lighter ‘B’ string, or even one taken from a banjo. This simple switch meant Jimmy could now bend notes up a semi-tone, tone or wherever his fingers took him. The work of ‘Blue Cap’ Cliff Gallup was equally impressive to Page’s ear, not least because he was pulling off similar tricks to Burton without the benefit of that lighter ‘G’ string. A magician armed with a Gretsch Duo Jet, Gallup’s dextrous mangling of Gene Vincent’s raw rockabilly songs such as ‘B-I-Bickey-Bi-Bo-Bo-Go’, ‘Catman’, ‘Cruisin’’ and ‘Be Bop A Lula’ was both futuristic and thrilling, his every trill, chromatic ascent, over-bend and discordant clang a little miracle unto itself.

From the double-barrelled charm of James Burton to the fizz and pop of Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps, Page sought to master all of it on guitar, occasionally sacrificing his source material in the effort. I’d try and work out solos, some of which were particularly complex, he later said. The only way to do that was by listening to the record … and moving the needle back to where the solo started again. Back and forth you’d go, so it would damage the record itself sometimes. Several sides went the way of the dodo due to Jimmy’s obsession, with one wrecked Buddy Holly LP still the cause of considerable psychic pain. "It was The Chirping Crickets …" he groaned to Mojo in 2010.

When Jimmy wasn’t dissecting rock’n’roll, he was chasing the guitar sounds of Les Paul. A true sonic architect before the phrase had been invented, Paul’s mastery of swing, country and jazz styles was only eclipsed by his skills as an inventor. Contributing greatly to the development of electric guitar in the forties, Paul was also instrumental in expanding recording studio techniques such as overdubbing, phasing and echo-effects. By 1952, he was given the honour of having the world’s first production-line signature model named after him, the Gibson Les Paul ‘Goldtop’. Partnered by his wife Mary Ford on vocals, Paul’s hits such as ‘How High The Moon’, ‘Tiger Rag’ and ‘Bye Bye Blues’ might have had critics calling him ‘gimmicky’ for the use of multi-tracking and sped-up tape, but this was rather missing the point. Strip away Les’s wildly inventive nature, and there would have been no gimmicks for them to criticise. I loved Les Paul, precisely because he was so flamboyant [with sound], said Jimmy. Without him, there would be no electric guitars or multi-track recording.

By adding Les Paul to his inventory of guitarists to be studied, Page gained much pleasure, though there was also a fair amount of pain in figuring it all out. Tunes like ‘How High …’ and ‘The World Is Waiting For A Sunrise’ allowed the teenager to follow threads back in time to Paul’s own formal influences, in this case, the Gypsy genius Django Reinhardt’s ‘The Sheik Of Araby’. Another major discovery for Jimmy, Reinhardt’s inimitable prowess on guitar was surely to be marvelled at. However, unlike hillbilly rebels and chord kings such as Scotty Moore and Buddy Holly, whose work was clever but now within his overall grasp, the technical proficiency displayed by Reinhardt and other fifties jazzers like Tal Farlow or Johnny Smith could be intimidating in the extreme. Those people left me standing, Page later laughed. Their technical prowess alone made me think ‘Aw, leave that alone!’

If learning the intricacies of jazz guitar was still a step too far for the young Page, then at least he could try his hand at emulating another of Les Paul’s abiding interests: studio wizardry. In this pursuit, he had to seek approval from his parents. Having already commandeered the front room of Miles Road for skiffle practice, Jimmy wanted to expand his base of operations by turning it into a make-shift studio. Showing admirable foresight, the Pages acquiesced to their son’s request, while also funding his request for a tape recorder and better record player. According to Jimmy’s friend John Gibb, an early witness to this Aladdin’s cave and later to pursue his own musical interests, this collection only grew over time. In most homes, the front room is usually a family room, but Pagey’s parents had turned it over to Jimmy, Gibb said. There were records everywhere, a tape recorder … guitars, other instruments plus a really good hi-fi system. Jimmy’s mum usually just stayed in the kitchen brewing tea for everybody. Singles and LPs strewn across the furniture. A guitar in one corner. A stereo in the other. This was no passing fancy. Les Paul, rockabilly, pure rock’n’roll, Page later said, I had a voracious appetite for all of it.

Things moved quickly now.

CHAPTER 3

Be Bop A Lula

Having skiffled his way into the nation’s living rooms via the wonder of TV and learnt every lick, riff and available chord from an ever-expanding record collection, it was inevitable that Page’s next steps would lead him to the concert stage. In fact, a tentative toe or two had been poked in that general area already. Jimmy’s skiffle combo had banged out a few tunes in front of a small audience at nearby Tolworth Hall before their brush with Huw Wheldon, while he also made a solo appearance as part of a talent show held in St. Martin’s parish church, a long stone’s throw from his parents’ house on Miles Road. On that occasion, Page was content to entertain the crowd by strumming his guitar while sitting on the edge of a raised platform. His next moves proved bolder in scale.

By 1959, Jimmy had begun to attend local dance clubs, with venues like Ebisham Hall and Purley’s Orchid Room offering both live music and the rare opportunity to meet girls without their parents or teachers inspecting the cut of his jib. That said, it was the weekend concerts held at Epsom Baths that most caught Page’s attention. Here, he could watch up close and personal a talented young singer called Chris Farlowe raise merry hell with his band, the Thunderbirds. Yep, I knew Jim when he was nobody! Farlowe laughed. "In fact, I first met him when we were playing at the Epsom Baths. This young dude used to come and stand at the side of the stage, and just listen … I mean really listen. We had a guitar player called Bobby Taylor and Jim absolutely loved him. He’d just stand there and watch what he was playing. And one night, he came up and introduced himself. You know the sort of thing, ‘My name’s Jimmy Page, I’m a guitarist and I think your band’s great’. That’s how I got to know Jimmy."

Born John Henry Deighton in Islington, north London, Farlowe’s early exploration of his mother’s 78s brought about an abiding love of American pop and jazz vocalists such as Doris Day, Anita O’Day and Sarah Vaughan. But it was the bump of skiffle, the grind of blues and a swift name change at the age of 18 that set him on a career in music. [Listening to] Howlin’ Wolf and Memphis Slim, that’s really how I first started to learn my craft as a singer. Then I joined a skiffle group and sort of brought that blues influence into it. By the time Jimmy Page stood watching intently from the wings at Epsom Baths, Farlowe and his band the Thunderbirds had been selling their versions of blues, jazz and rock’n’roll standards into the clubs for almost a year. In my estimation, Page later said, Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds were the best band in the south …

As the story goes, there were only two Fender Stratocasters in Great Britain at the end of the fifties. One – the now famous ‘Fiesta Red’ – was purchased by Cliff Richard for the princely sum of 145 guineas for his right-hand guitar man, Hank Marvin. The Thunderbirds’ Bobby Taylor had the other. Suffice to say, Jimmy Page was entranced with both Taylor and his Strat. Ah, that’s guitar players though, said Farlowe. And it’s the same with all guitar players. They all know each other, they all lean on each other. That’s all they want to talk about really, guitars. Who played this, who played that. Singers aren’t interesting enough for them! Guitar players, they’re like a little community all to themselves. Nevertheless, Chris didn’t think Page rude or given to ignoring the rest of the band while striking up guitar talk with Bobby Taylor. Quite the opposite, in fact. Oh no, at the time, Jimmy was quite the reserved young gentleman. Very sweet, mild mannered and polite to us all. Very quiet, in fact. You wouldn’t know [meeting him] back then what was going to happen later …

While Page and Farlowe’s paths would cross often in the future, with collaborations coming thick and fast across several decades⁹, the principal benefit in Page seeing bands like the Thunderbirds was to again underline just how much he wanted to be a part of the game. By then, rock’n’roll put me in a stranglehold, he said. It had seduced me and the damage was done.

Putting the skiffle combo well behind him, Jimmy also put down the Hofner President that had sustained his musical explorations until now, purchasing instead his first real electric guitar. While not quite in the same league as Bobby Taylor’s glorious Fender Stratocaster, Jimmy’s Czech-made 1949 Grazioso Futurama was still a serviceable enough copy of the real thing. It was also covered in buttons. Well, I got it from Bell’s in Surbiton, he later told Charles Shaar Murray, And they used to mainly sell accordions!

Page soon put the Grazioso to work on the stages of Epsom, joining several semi-amateur bands throughout the area, the most notable of which was the Paramounts, with whom he briefly threw in his lot. In this guise, Jimmy found himself occasionally supporting acts already on route to fame, including a pre-‘Bits And Pieces’ Dave Clark Five. Unfortunately, while these spots earned him further notoriety around the neighbourhood, they paid little or nothing. As was often the way in Page’s early career trajectory, another’s keen eye for prospective talent remedied that easily enough.

In this case, the man who spotted Jimmy’s early financial promise was Chris Tidmarsh, then working as a road manager for rock’n’roll bluffers Red E Lewis & the Red Caps. Comprised of vocalist Red E Lewis (aka William Stubbs), drummer Jimmy Evans and lead guitarist Bobby Oats, Red’s motley crew had gained something of a reputation on the dance circuit, their loose brand of rockabilly covers and Chuck Berry tunes going over well with Saturday night crowds across London and the Home Counties. But soon after John ‘Jumbo’ Spicer joined the act on rhythm guitar in the spring of 1959, Oats announced his intention to take up a place at drama school, leaving Red, his Red Caps, and their manager Tidmarsh a man down. Already impressed by Page, who he had seen performing in various pick-up bands in Epsom, Chris decided to offer the youngster an audition. It went well. He asked me whether I’d like to play in London, said Jimmy. [Well], of course I did.

There was one serious issue to attend to before Page could take up arms. He was only 15 years old. A smooth operator, Tidmarsh solved the age problem by going directly to those most likely to raise an objection: Jimmy’s parents. I went to his father and said ‘If I promise to pay £15 a week, would you consider him playing in the group?’ Though a good wage in 1959, James Page had reservations about the offer and reportedly declined on his son’s behalf. But when it became clear almost all the gigs would take place at the weekend, and the ever-courteous Tidmarsh assured him that he would drive Jimmy home after each concert, Page Sr. cautiously gave his consent. You know, Jimmy later told Q, my parents were very encouraging … [at least] to the extent that they weren’t dismissive of my obsession. They might not have understood a lot of what I was doing, but … they had the confidence that I knew what I was doing.

Joining up with the Redcaps brought its share of problems for the young guitarist. The group were based in and around east London’s Shoreditch, a long trek for the Epsom-based Page when it came to rehearsals. Moreover, the district had yet to gain the gentrified status it would later command in the New Labour-led nineties, with pockets here and there conveying a distinct edge to those visiting from outside the smoke. Unlike now, they were really unfashionable areas back then, said Page. In fact, they were still printing papers there at that time. There was also the fact that, despite his undoubted promise on guitar, Jimmy was only a matter of years out of primary school. Traipsing up and down various motorways at all hours of the day and night was going to severely test both his body and soul. Sleeping in a van, breaking down on the M1, he later told NME’s Nick Kent, eventually that will knock you out. But not quite yet.

Fortified by Page’s arrival, further enhanced by Jumbo Spicer’s somewhat inevitable move from rhythm guitar to bass and benefiting greatly from the presence of Jimmy ‘Tornado’ Evans – a former army drum major whose percussive skills Page still rates highly to this day – Red E Lewis & the Red Caps now looked a much more stable proposition. In line with ‘Red’, ‘Jumbo’ and ‘Tornado’, Jimmy was even given his own stage name – ‘Nelson Storm’ – a ludicrous tag presumably coined to invoke magnificent images of the legendary English admiral. But despite all the daft nom de plumes and Americanised notions of gang bonhomie, the line-up lasted only a matter of months before cracks in their collective armour emerged. While the group itself was sturdy enough, their singer Red E struggled to gel with his new colleagues and the responsibilities of road life. Again, Chris Tidmarsh proved an astute problem solver. When Red finally flew the coup in early 1960, Tidmarsh stepped up to the plate and assumed the role of the band’s new vocalist. One swift name change later, Chris Tidmarsh became ‘Neil Christian’ and the Red Caps became ‘the Crusaders’.

Freed from their irksome origins – in honest terms, Red E’s boys were nothing more than a Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps knock-off, albeit with a change of primary colours – Christian and the Crusaders now had a chance to prove their worth as a different type of proposition. But the band’s decision to continue drawing from a familiar well of Gene Vincent, Johnny Burnette and Bo Diddley songs for their live shows saw them at odds with a rapid change occurring in musical tastes of the time. Then as now, pop music had already moved on at high speed since the heady days of 1957/8, with teenagers growing bored of what they deemed indispensable only two years before. In short, rock’n’roll was now distinctly passé, or as one critic aptly put it, New kids were looking for new kicks.

The first wave of rock’n’roll performers had helped derail its progress as much as the short attention spans of the adolescents actually listening to them. Wobble number one occurred in October 1957, when a treacherous flight over the Australian outback scared Little Richard so much he turned his back on making the devil’s music (once removed), and set about reinventing himself as a preacher. Seven months later, it was Jerry Lee Lewis’s turn to shake the tree. While on a brief UK tour, journalists discovered Lewis had recently married his 13-year-old cousin, Myra Gayle Brown. This might have been perfectly reasonable behaviour in Ferriday, Louisiana, but it didn’t travel well outside of Lewis’s homestead. All but torn to shreds by the press – first in Great Britain and then at home – ‘The Killer’’s career was killed stone dead for the best part of two decades. Chuck Berry’s fall from grace was equally ignominious, his transportation across State lines of a 14-year-old waitress bringing the combined weight of the Mann Act, two local police forces and the US media down upon his pompadoured head.

It wasn’t all spiritual crises or questionable relationship choices that were contributing to rock’n’roll’s ever more perilous state. When a plane fell from the skies over Iowa on February 3, 1959, the world lost not one but three early pioneers of the form, with The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and the magnificent Buddy Holly all killed in the resulting crash. By early 1960, Eddie ‘Summertime Blues’ Cochran was gone too, a car accident in the UK permanently ending his career at the age of just 21. But the writing was truly on the wall for rock’n’roll in March 1960, when its potential saviour Elvis Presley returned to civilian life after a near two-year stretch in the US army. Instead of firing up those rotating hips and reactivating that trademark sneer, however, Presley released two dreamy ballads in rapid succession (‘It’s Now Or Never’ and ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’), again stirring up his interest in an acting career. By the time Chubby Checker turned every teenager into a dancing fool with ‘The Twist’ in September 1960, it was obvious to all what record companies had already known for a year. Heroes had fallen, musical tastes had softened and rock’n’roll, if not quite dead, was looking very queasy indeed.

In this more anodyne, dance-craze driven and ballad-friendly era, Neil Christian & the Crusaders were at risk of setting themselves up as yesterday’s men. They knew it too. In the group, Page later said, playing Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley songs, well, nothing was happening at all. Nobody wanted to hear those numbers [anymore], but that’s all we wanted to do. A fitful compromise was struck. The band would continue to perform the music they loved while also making the odd concession to the demands of a new audience. To counterbalance the seismic blasts of ‘Maybelline’, ‘Be Bop A Lula’ and ‘Honey Hush’, the likes of Santo & Johnny’s silken ‘Sleep Walk’, the Shadows’ lilting ‘Apache’ and – if reports are correct – faithful renditions of ‘Summertime’ and ‘Hava Nagila’ were all duly dispensed from the stage. Corn-fed rock’n’roll, Top 20 hits, lush instrumentals, hoary jazz standards and Israeli folk songs. If nothing else, it made for an interesting night’s entertainment.

Establishing a punishing schedule of club, dance hall and occasional cinema gigs, Neil Christian & the Crusaders played most everywhere that would have them over the next two years. From supporting the newly tamed Cliff Richard & the Shadows¹⁰ at east London’s Edmonton Odeon to quick-fire visits to old stomping grounds like Epsom Baths, the band became consummate road warriors, with Jimmy Page dragging his ever-reducing frame across the hills and dales of south-east England and beyond. Driving themselves between gigs in a former council ambulance (large, rangy and a snip at £100), the Crusaders even managed to squeeze in a concert at the women’s prison on London’s Holloway Road. The girls went mad, Christian told Disc in November 1961, [and] we hope to make a return visit very soon! Page later confirmed the story in an interview with Classic Rock. Yes, we played Holloway Prison. Heavens knows how that happened. Under strict orders not to reveal what they saw inside at the time, Jimmy’s memory of events was less about potential security issues, and more given to what the inmates were wearing. [They] wore cotton print dresses in four different colours, he said in 2008. The garment’s shades were faded by frequent washing. It really was quite … erotic.

Not every concert held such charms. As evidenced, the band’s admirable, but marginalising decision to use rock’n’roll songs as the backbone of their set still led to lukewarm receptions at certain venues, while other gigs were sometimes stopped when fights broke out in the crowd. The first guy to hit the floor lost, Jimmy said, laughing. In addition to those seeking an alcohol-assisted break from the rigours of their working week or just a good old-fashioned punch-up, there was now another type of visitor coming to the shows. Fellow musicians.

Since Jimmy first joined the Redcaps in 1959, word had been steadily building among local players of his talent. But quiet whispers ceded to raised voices by the time the band morphed into Neil Christian & the Crusaders. An early witness to Page’s skills as a guitarist was John Hawken, then a promising young keyboardist about to make his own first steps into the music business with the Nashville Teens. I first saw Jimmy at Weybridge Village Hall. Back then, he was this super-thin little fellow onstage of about 15, 16 years old wearing a sweaty grey suit, doing these Shadows-like dance steps with the rest of the band. Hawken was in no doubt that Page had something very special indeed. His playing was just stunning. Believe me, Jimmy with the Crusaders was stunningly brilliant on guitar. Incredibly gifted and completely immersed in the music. Watching him was just a treat.

There were obvious reasons aside from innate talent that enabled Page’s gifts. The dedication he had shown music for the last three years was starting to truly manifest itself, all those nights learning and re-learning solos by the likes of Scotty Moore, James Burton and Chuck Berry now seeping through his own hands and onto the neck of his guitar. According to Neil Christian, this dedication was only reinforced when he joined the band. Jimmy, it seemed, was seldom if ever parted from six strings. Every time you saw him, Christian laughed, he had a bloody guitar around his neck. Like so many of his ilk, Page found a curious joy in repetition, the mastery of chords and lead lines coming easily only after he had practised them to the point of abstraction. This, of course, brought its own rewards. When the basics were mastered, he could then begin taking the original idea in new directions, building his own particular style in the process. Oh, Jimmy got really good, really early on, said Chris Farlowe. He was locked into finding his own thing. Now able to play songs and sets with his eyes closed, Page was able to introduce another aspect to his performance. Indeed, said John Hawken, Jimmy was quite the showman.

In fact, Page’s gift for showmanship often matched his prowess as a guitarist. Whether mimicking Chuck Berry’s comedic duck walk, aping the Shadows’ forwards/backwards step routine or mock-falling to his knees while taking on a tricky solo, Jimmy was a fine onstage foil for the charismatic Neil Christian – every bit his equal, and for some at least, the real star of the show. Remember, Neil Christian was up there every night, confirmed Hawken, and Neil was a great frontman with a bloody good voice and a real way with a crowd. But I just remember Jimmy standing stage right. Honestly, Jimmy stood out head and shoulders above everybody else on that stage.

Sometimes, Page’s flair for the dramatic could be over-shadowed by the tools of his trade. Thanks to his gig with the Crusaders and the financial rewards it brought, Jimmy had now graduated to a different class of instrument from his sturdy, if unremarkable Grazioso. With regular earnings came the opportunity to finally buy a Fender Stratocaster all his own. But it was the purchase of a Gretsch Country Gentleman that threatened to steal the limelight. Gloriously large and exceedingly orange, this fluorescent battleship of a guitar completely dwarfed its whippet-like owner. I went to see Jimmy with Neil Christian in 1961, 1962, said a new acquaintance of Page’s, then content to lurk in the background at the odd Crusaders gig. It was a lunchtime gig at The Boathouse in Kew Bridge. All I saw was this human beanpole with a Gretsch. It was four times bigger than he was …

When he wasn’t doing battle with the Gretsch, Jimmy was gaining his first experience of the recording studio, with the Crusaders cutting their first single, ‘The Road To Love’, soon after Neil Christian took over as vocalist. Like so many tunes of