(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Thu 18 December 2025 12:03, UK
There aren’t many people well-versed in the world of rock and roll who can doubt the impact of Jimmy Page. His position, not only as the leading man of Led Zeppelin but with The Yardbirds and in studio sessions, has long been cemented as a pillar of the musical landscape as we know it today.
But perhaps his greatest gift to the music scene in London wasn’t just his work with Led Zeppelin but his hand in pushing the blues in the foggy streets of the capital. While the blues were already being picked up, it was Page who became a vital figure in sharing it further afield.
Most of the greatest rock and roll guitar playing ever produced traces back to the blues. Regardless of how many aspiring players may try to reinvent their musical vocabulary when picking up their instrument, some of the most significant solo breaks of all time usually originate from the sounds emanating from cities like Chicago and Mississippi decades before rock and roll existed. Although Jimmy Page took blues into new and exciting places with Led Zeppelin, he considered another rock luminaire one of the world’s best.
Throughout every facet of Page’s career, he constantly innovated what his sound was supposed to be. Looking through Zeppelin’s discography, it’s easy to spot Page constantly playing around with the common understanding of guitar playing, whether that meant playing it with a bow or toying with sounds behind the nut to make his instrument sound like it was being tortured.
Then again, that creative ingenuity wasn’t magically turned on once Led Zeppelin started. Years before he started his outfit, Page had been working as a session musician, often lending outlandish lead breaks to several tracks for The Who and Donovan before joining the blues outfit The Yardbirds.
The mercurial Jeff Beck performing. (Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Taking over for Eric Clapton, Page started finding his voice on the instrument, turning in one of his first classic riffs on ‘Heart Full of Soul’. Just as he began to settle into his surroundings, though, another guitarist was due to join the band that would blow minds worldwide.
Spawning from the same blues tradition, Jeff Beck was known for twisting the guitar into insane shapes that no one had seen before. Across the latter half of Page’s time in the band, he often had to switch over to bass so Beck could showcase his talent, often squeezing notes out of the guitar that felt more human than any other musician had attempted.
While Page would eventually take Zeppelin to new heights, Beck also had something different in mind when he departed from The Yardbirds. After making various strides as a player, Beck’s instrumental projects like Blow By Blow would become a foundational part of modern rock guitar playing, featuring songs that would become classics like ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’.
Despite his status as a guitar hero, though, Page always felt that Beck towered above all other guitar players, telling The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: “He’s developed a whole style of expanding the electric guitar and making sounds and techniques that were totally unheard of before, which is such an amazing feat. He’s done some amazing fusion records. Blow by Blow was a solo record that established him as the most incredible soloist of our time. He doesn’t stop. He just keeps getting better and better”.
While most guitarists may be able to find their lane on the instrument and stick with it, Beck helped teach legions of players that there was a lot more to gain out of the instrument than typical scales. The electric guitar is still a relatively new instrument in the grand scheme of history, and Beck was one of the few who knew how to bend it to suit how he felt inside.
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