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On January 9th, 1944, Jimmy Page was born in England. We all know he’d go on to become the guitarist for Led Zeppelin, but to celebrate his birthday, here are 25 things you might not know about the rocker:
1. Jimmy’s dad was an industrial personnel manager and his mom was a doctor’s secretary.
2. Page found his first guitar in a house his family moved into. Mysteriously, no one knew why it was there – whether it belonged to the previous family in that house or a friend of theirs – but it changed his life.
3. Jimmy first started playing guitar at age 12. Aside from another guitarist in his school showing him some chords, the rocker is self-taught and learned by listening to records.
4. Elvis Presley’s song “Baby Let’s Play House” inspired Jimmy to become a guitarist.
5. As a 13-year-old, Jimmy appeared on a talent search TV show called All Your Own as part of a quartet. When the host asked him what he wanted to do after school, Jimmy said, “I want to do biological research [to find a cure for] cancer, if it isn’t discovered by then.”
6. Every day he went to school, Page would take his guitar and it would be confiscated and returned to him after class.
7. Near the end of his schooling, Page was closing in on a job as a lab assistant but instead decided to pursue music.
8. Early on in his career, Jimmy spent time busking. While it was hard, he called it “good schooling.”
9. Jimmy had trouble finding people to play with, so he would take any gig he was offered, including backing Beat poet Roysten Ellis.
10. After seeing a 15-year-old Jimmy play in a local hall, singer Neil Christian asked the guitarist to join his band, The Crusaders. Page toured with them for two years but kept getting mono so he had to stop playing live.
11. While recovering from mono, Jimmy focused on his other love, painting, enrolling in art college.
12. As a student, Jimmy would play live with bands and other guitarists, like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Eventually, John Gibb of Brian Howard & the Silhouettes asked him to help them record some singles. From there, Page was offered regular studio work and started his career as a session musician.
13. One of the first sessions Jimmy worked was for Jet Harris and Tony Meehan’s “Diamonds,” which went to number one on the singles chart in the UK in 1963.
14. When he did session work, Jimmy was known as Lil’ Jim Pea so he wouldn’t be confused with another session guitarist named Big Jim Sullivan.
15. Among the bands Jimmy did session work for were The Who and The Kinks. He plays acoustic on “I’m a Lover Not a Fighter” and “I’ve Been Driving on Bald Mountain” on The Kinks’ debut album, and rhythm guitar on The Who’s “I Can’t Explain.” He’s also on songs by The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Marianne Faithfull and more.
16. You can hear Jimmy on Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger,” the 1964 theme to the James Bond film of that name.
17. Jimmy contributed guitar to background music for The Beatles’ 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night.
18. In 1965, Page was hired as an A&R man for Immediate Records and he started producing too.
19. Jimmy was first asked to join The Yardbirds in 1964, but declined out of loyalty to his friend, Eric Clapton, who they wanted to replace.
20. In 1966, Jimmy recorded “Beck’s Bolero” along with drummer Keith Moon, bassist John Paul Jones, Jeff Beck and keyboardist Nicky Hopkins. It made Page want to form a supergroup with Moon, Beck and Who bassist John Entwistle, but they couldn’t find a solid singer and there were contract issues, so it didn’t happen.
21. When everyone left The Yardbirds, Jimmy recruited Robert Plant, John Bonham and Jones to be in The New Yardbirds. They changed their name to Led Zeppelin and Page explained the sound he desired for the group saying, “I wanted Zeppelin to be a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses – a combination that had never been done before. Lots of light and shade in the music.”
22. In 1981, Jimmy finally got a supergroup. It was called XYZ, for ex-members of Yes and Zeppelin, and featured Yes’ Chris Squire and Alan White. While they rehearsed and made some music, the project was ultimately shelved.
23. In 1982, Jimmy recorded the soundtrack to the Charles Bronson film Death Wish II.
24. Jimmy was really into dark arts and at one point owned an occult bookstore and publishing house.
25. Jimmy’s favorite Led Zeppelin album was their first record.
Happy birthday Jimmy!