News Why Jimmy Page’s first band failed: “It wasn’t working”
Before stepping out of the shadows with The Yardbirds and forming Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page was already an experienced figure in the music business despite only being in his early 20s. He played on countless recordings by prominent artists ranging from The Rolling Stones to Tom Jones as a session musician, but it wasn’t his first rodeo.
Page was only 15 when he began performing and touring the country. Despite his tender age, he was a technically gifted wizard on the guitar who was capable of producing magical sounds. However, no amount of aptitude can prepare a teenager for the reality of life as a touring artist, which was a world away from the five-star hotel and private jet experience he’d later enjoy with Led Zeppelin.
At that stage, Page was still a boy and, in hindsight, should have focused on his education rather than attempting to become a professional musician. However, when the opportunity came calling to join Neil Christian and the Crusaders, Page felt it could be a life-changing proposition he couldn’t refuse.
Christian failed to take off with the Crusaders despite working with legendary producer Joe Meek, releasing a string of singles and touring the United Kingdom. As a solo artist, he enjoyed more success, and his song ‘That’s Nice’ reached 14th on the UK Singles Chart in 1966, but Christian failed to repeat that achievement.
The decision for Christian to go solo came out of necessity rather than a desire to leave the Crusaders behind. After two years with the outfit, Page had to leave the group for health reasons after touring took its toll on his young soul, and others departed in 1965 to play with Screaming Lord Sutch.
If the Crusaders’ story had panned out differently, Page could have stayed with them and never eventually formed Led Zeppelin. It was one of several pivotal moments in his career that helped the stars align, even if his health problems were a tough pill to swallow at the time.
During an interview in 1977 with Trouser Press, Page explained how Christian stumbled upon him at a local hall, noting, “It was a big thing because they worked in London, whereas I was from the suburbs. So there I was, the 15-year-old guitarist marching into London with his guitar case. I played with him for a couple of years.”
However, their work didn’t connect with the general public, and Page felt it wouldn’t change, which was another reason he decided to walk away to attend art college. While their brand of rock ‘n’ roll would later become popularised by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, it was a foreign language to audiences they performed to.
He explained in the same interview: “We used to do Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley numbers, bluesy things, before the blues really broke. In fact, half the reason I stopped playing with Neil Christian was because I used to get very ill on the road, glandular fever, from living in the back of a van. We were doing lots of traveling, the sort of thing I’m used to doing now. I was very undernourished then. It wasn’t working right either; people weren’t appreciating what we were doing.”
Rather than cover the songs currently dominating the charts, they boldly played blues deep cuts that were only known by a select few, which Page believes is why fame evaded the Crusaders.
The guitarist elaborated: “The numbers we were doing were really out of character for the audiences that were coming to hear us play, but there was always five or ten percent, mostly guys, who used to get off on what we were doing because they were into those things themselves as guitarists, record collectors.”
Despite the music produced by the Crusaders falling upon deaf ears, this two-year period was a vital apprenticeship for Page that helped make him a better musician and, most importantly, taught him the art of performing.
