(Credits: Far Out / APA Agency / Dina Regine)
Sat 7 March 2026 15:23, UK
After a mysterious guitar was left in his new family home as a child, Jimmy Page knew he wanted to play the instrument, even if he was yet to master it.
Through dedication and natural talent, Page became infatuated with the guitar, and many figures waltzed into his life as sources of inspiration, including two artists who he later claimed to have “infected” him.
Starting life as a guitarist in the modern age is a fairly innocuous task. You are probably supported by your parents, able to access a guitar at school if you can’t afford to buy your own and know countless other people who also play it. If nothing else, you can head on over to the internet and find the entire creative world at your fingertips. When Jimmy Page was a young boy, things were different.
To be a guitarist was to endure a rather lonely existence. Obsessed by the instrument, Page was a notable nerd about everything to do with the guitar, only finding the solace of a like-minded friend when his older sister introduced him to another guitar geek by the name of Jeff Beck. The two boys would use the records that passed through their hands to listen and try to learn new bands, new rhythms and new guitarists.
When asked about his early inspirations by readers of Uncut, Page named Lonnie Donegan as the first guitarist who impacted him. The Led Zeppelin founder said, “Lonnie Donegan inspired everyone because he made it look as though it was possible to do. But who really moved it out of just playing acoustic to electric was all those people that were playing in the 1950s, really”.
(Credits: Far Out / Dana Wullenwaber)
Donegan was also a crucial influence on The Beatles, most notably Paul McCartney and George Harrison, who both saw the skiffle musician perform live at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool. Of his impact, Harrison once said: “I’d been aware of pop singers before him, like Frankie Laine and Johnny Ray, but never really taken much interest in them. I don’t think I thought I was old enough for them. But Lonnie Donegan and skiffle just seemed made for me.”
After discovering Donegan, Page’s taste began to develop as the electric guitar gained prominence in mainstream culture and rock ‘n’ roll gained momentum. Elvis Presley was another vital discovery for the guitarist who once described ‘The King’ as a “visionary genius” and claimed his music “changed the world”.
However, Page was equally inspired by Presley’s guitarist Scotty Moore. At the same time, he was also enchanted by Cliff Gallup, who played with Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, with Page crediting both men for making an impression on him as a young guitarist.
He added: “Scotty Moore’s guitar playing [with Elvis Presley], Cliff Gallup [with Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps]… all of these people, they gave me the inspiration… If you heard them you were infected by them, if you listened to it, then you were just seduced by it. That was what was going to write the whole of the manual for use as much as anything else”.
When writing on his Instagram page, Page once shared a memory of presenting Moore with a guitar at Air Studios in 1999. He said: “Scotty Moore had been a major inspiration in my early transitory days from acoustic to electric guitar. His character guitar playing on those early Elvis Sun recordings, and later at RCA, was monumental. It was during the 50s that these types of song-shaping guitar parts helped me see the importance of the electric guitar approach to music.”
Moore died in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2016, aged 84, after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Sadly, Gallup’s career faded into obscurity in the 1960s, although he continued to contribute to the local music scene in Virginia. He passed away due to a heart attack in 1988, aged 58.
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