News How Jimmy Page accidentally became a session musician
Before becoming an era-defining guitarist with Led Zeppelin and The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page established himself as a prominent session musician in London during the swinging sixties. However, it was never his intention to fall into this line of work, and it accidentally fell onto his lap, leading him to play with a variety of the biggest stars of the decade.
As much as music was always a love for Page, it wasn’t his sole focus as a young man. Painting was another creative avenue that appealed to him greatly and became a priority once he enrolled at Sutton Art College. He’d previously toured and played on records with The Crusaders as a teenager, but after a bout of glandular fever, art overtook music as his main passion.
Although he was studying art five days a week, his affection for music didn’t completely dissipate, and Page was a regular at The Marquee Club in London on a Thursday evening. Initially, he was a spectator who would take in performances, but eventually, this led to a weekly spot that would change his life’s fortunes.
During an interview with the Academy of Achievement in 2017, Page revealed: “I used to go along every Thursday, regularly, to see various artists who were there, and I met somebody who had been in a previous band, who was a piano player and singer. He said, ‘You can play the interval band here if you want?’”
Page continued: “I said, ‘Fine’. I’d never met him at this point, and I said, ‘Okay, let’s do that’. So, every Thursday night, I was playing in the interval band, and basically, what happened at that point was somebody asked me to play on a record. I play on this record, and because I have a pretty distinctive style, you could hear it was a different guitar player within this record, and I’m starting to get lots of offers but I’m still at art college.”
For a time, he was living a double life of sorts and managing to delicately balance his musical career with his studies. However, once he received an extended break from his studies in the holidays, Page couldn’t keep up with all of the requests that kept flooding his inbox, and it became clear it was no longer sustainable to be a student.
Page’s talent soon made him stand out and led to him recording multiple sessions daily for various record labels. Reflecting on his decision to leave his studies, Page said: “Somebody else could use my place, I’m having so much fun with these recording sessions.”
Despite being a hired gun, Page was granted artistic freedom during these sessions, allowing him to improvise and become a better guitarist. It was an apprenticeship that proved beneficial in teaching him the mechanics of recording music, which later helped Led Zeppelin to hit the ground running upon their formation.
During his period of working as a session musician, Page played on records by esteemed artists such as Rod Stewart, Lulu, Tom Jones, Marianne Faithfull, John Mayall with Eric Clapton, Nico, Cliff Richard, Donovan, The Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker and many more.
While it’s likely that Page would have still carved out a career with a band, if it wasn’t for the happenstance of him becoming a session musician, Led Zeppelin likely wouldn’t have formed if it wasn’t for this precise chain of events. This period of his life, which was never part of his plans, proved to be an invaluable experience and shows the importance of rolling with the punches, which can often lead one to a greater destination than they ever envisaged.
