![\"Jimmy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Jimmy-Page-1973-Guitarist-Led-Zeppelin-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Open Culture)<\/p>\n
Wed 15 October 2025 12:00, UK <\/p>\n
There was no one else who rewrote the book on rock and roll guitar quite like Jimmy Page<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n As much as rock and roll would have gone down a similar bluesy road if he hadn\u2019t formed Led Zeppelin, the idea of the guitar riff being an art form was something he fully mastered the minute that he hit on tracks like \u2018Whole Lotta Love\u2019. Not every song needed to have such outlandish production, but Page knew it was about more than just him when it came to musical pioneers.<\/p>\n When looking back on the 1960s, it feels like another classic band was sprouting up every few seconds, even if not all of them were the most accomplished musicians in the world. It\u2019s insane to think that in the same year, you could get landmark records from everyone from The Beatles and The Beach Boys to The Velvet Underground and The Stooges without really having to look too hard.<\/p>\n While all those bands had their place in history, Page was still trying to break away from the spirit of The Yardbirds on those first Zeppelin<\/a> projects. All of them were still eager to break new ground, but after their first record gave them a foundation, tunes like \u2018Ramble On\u2019 had started to take things in a different direction. They wanted to be purely rock and roll, and while the blues did hang around for a little bit, Page\u2019s idols were taking the basis of the same and moving it somewhere else.<\/p>\n As much as Jimi Hendrix was a fan of the genre, it\u2019s hard to call everything he played straight blues. He had that as a template to work with, but he was finding different musical colours that most people didn\u2019t have a name for yet, like when he started working in soul and R&B on \u2018The Wind Cries Mary\u2019 or turning in the closest thing to heavy metal that anyone had heard at that point on \u2018Manic Depression<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n It was all an extension of his soul, but in terms of sheer weirdness, there were also the biggest names in psychedelia tapping into the same vein. The Doors had their place in the world, but when Syd Barrett first came out with Pink Floyd, most people didn\u2019t know what to think of how he constructed his melodies, almost like taking the fanciful side of The Beatles and marrying it with outright whimsy whenever making tunes like \u2018See Emily Play\u2019.<\/p>\n