(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Mon 17 November 2025 19:30, UK
Rock and roll might be high art when it’s done well, but for countless invaluable session players on some of the greatest recordings of all time, it was also a normal, punch-the-clock occupation.
Most of these studio musicians were content to do their part without ever becoming household names, but of course, in some instances, the guy or gal in the background kept unavoidably inching closer to the limelight, eventually breaking out from the role of working stiff to bona fide rock star.
No such transition is more famous than that of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, who, long before appearing on most people’s radar as a member of the Yardbirds in 1966, had already played on dozens, or maybe even hundreds, of recognisable tracks as a session man, including work with everybody from The Kinks (‘I’m a Lover, Not a Fighter’) and Them (‘Here Comes the Night’) to the most iconic singles by Petula Clark (‘Downtown’) and Shirley Bassey (‘Goldfinger’).
While he’d later become one of the great centre-stage riff-makers of all time, Page had an equal ability, from a young age, for being a role player, adding the tasteful, subtle guitar elements that turned good tunes into great ones.
On at least one of his high-profile guest appearances, however, Page would later say that his contributions easily could have been left on the cutting room floor. “I don’t know, really, why I was brought in,” Page told Rolling Stone in 2012, referring to his role on The Who’s hit 1964 single ‘I Can’t Explain’.
Jimmy Page in 1965. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
“I’m playing the riff in the background — behind Pete Townshend,” he added. “I didn’t need to be there. You can barely hear me. But it was magical to be in the control room, listening back. You can’t be more privileged than that.”
Jimmy Page was just a 20-year-old kid when ‘I Can’t Explain’ took over the radio airwaves, and he was pleased just to have played any part at all in the first big song from what would become one of the greatest bands in British rock history. That being said, despite the single’s legendary status, the people who recorded it have retained oddly mismatched memories of just how significant young Mr Page’s contributions actually were.
At various points over the subsequent 60 years, some people involved in the recording have stated that Page’s guitar was actually left out of the final cut of ‘I Can’t Explain’ entirely, and that only Pete Townshend’s guitar work is heard on the finished product. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Who frontman Roger Daltrey wrote in his own 2018 memoir that it was actually Page playing the lead guitar on ‘I Can’t Explain’, including the solo.
Was Daltrey speaking the truth, or just taking a random opportunity to drop Townshend down a peg? And from Page’s perspective, has he humbly underplayed his role in the song out of respect for The Who, or does he genuinely remember merely playing a background guitar line that most people would have long forgotten if not for Page’s future fame?
Either way, it’s remarkable to think about the collision of talent going on during the recording of ‘I Can’t Explain’ back in 1964, with a band and a guest guitarist both at the beginning of an almost unbelievable run of success.
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