Brad Tolinski - Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page

LIGHT & SHADE

Copyright 2012 by Brad Tolinski

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers,
an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tolinski, Brad.
Light and shade: conversations with Jimmy Page/Brad Tolinski. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Page, JimmyInterviews. 2. Rock musiciansEnglandInterviews.
3. Led Zeppelin (Musical group) I. Page, Jimmy. II. Title.
ML419.P37A5 2012
782.42166092dc23
[B] 2012009454

eISBN: 978-0-307-98573-6

Jacket design by Eric White
Jacket photography: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns

v3.1

For Kane and Nico Tolinski

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
A conversation with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
The Yardbirds according to Chris Dreja

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
A conversation with John Paul Jones

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
A conversation with Jimmy Page and Jack White

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
A conversation with Led Zeppelin publicist Danny Goldberg

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
Top ten Led Zeppelin guitar moments

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
A conversation with Bad Company and Firm vocalist Paul Rodgers

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
An inventory of Jimmy Pages primary guitars, amps, and effects

MUSICAL INTERLUDE
A conversation with mens fashion designer John Varvatos

F OR MORE than fifty years, guitarist/composer/producer Jimmy Page has influenced contemporary music in both large and subtle ways. While still in his teens, he and a small handful of musicians helped introduce American blues to the British Isles, sparking a revolution that set the stage for artists such as the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Cream. His virtuoso guitar work on countless studio sessions in the sixties, with artists as disparate as Nico, Joe Cocker, Donovan, and Them, helped create the soundtrack for Swinging Londons much-celebrated youth explosion. And his groundbreaking playing, writing, and production work with Led Zeppelin dominated the seventies and continues to resonate decades after.

Even now, Page remains a dynamic force whose inventiveness continues to surprise. His recent photographic autobiography, Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page, is an original and beautifully designed assessment of his life and career, while his new website, jimmypage.com, with its smart graphics and informative content, should satisfy the cravings of his worldwide legion of fans to know what hes up to.

Considering his many accomplishments and rich history, one would assume that there would be several books about him. The world of Jimmy Page, however, has largely been uncharted.

Sounds like another Led Zeppelin mystery, but the truth is that this one is fairly easy to solve. There is the matter of Pages natural reticence; he is, after all, the man who chose to dress himself as a hermit in the bands 1976 concert film, The Song Remains the Same. More significant, however, is the fact that Page has had an uneasy, sometimes antagonistic relationship with music journalists and criticsthe very same people who tend to write rock and roll biographies.

So why the hostility? Absurd though it may sound, in the early seventies, when Led Zeppelin was coming into its own, the hipster rock press often was, to put it mildly, less than enthusiastic about the band and its now-universally-hailed music.

Rolling Stone magazine was particularly savage. In 1968, critic John Mendelsohn wrote a 389-word vivisection asserting that Led Zeppelins first album offered little that its twin, the Jeff Beck Group, didnt say as well or better three months ago. Several months later, Rolling Stone chose this same Mendelsohn to review Zeppelin II, which he dismissed as one especially heavy song extended over the space of two whole sides.

Stone was by no means alone in picking on Led Zeppelin. In December 1970, Detroits legendary rock and roll magazine Creem printed a notorious anti-review of Led Zeppelin III, in which critic Alexander Icenine used faux, drug-addled gibberish to express his utter contempt for the album:

What is a Led Zeppily? I have oftimes asked of my own selfhead this questlung upon retiring to my bed patterns. Or sometimes, how is a Red Zipper not a Load Zoppinsky? Many times there is no answer and they refuse to do it for ya.

How did Jimmy Page respond to these and other sober assessments of his work? He turned his back on the entire rock writing community.

As the band got bigger, the reviews got better and Pages chilly attitude toward the press began to thaw. But in many ways the damage had already been done. Veteran rock writer Jaan Uhelszki recalls one exchange with Page during Zeppelins 1977 tour that is as telling as it is funny.

Id been on the road with the band for over a week and couldnt get Jimmy to do an interview, Uhelszki says. Finally, on the last day of the tour, he agreed to an audience on the condition that the publicist had to be there. I didnt find out until the time of the interview that Jimmy stipulated that I must first ask the publicist my question and then she would relay the question to himeven though we all spoke the same language and I was sitting a mere six feet from him. This went on for about an hour.

But maybe Page had a right to keep his guard up. Most writers just wanted to know about his alleged drug use, weird groupie sex, or whether it was true that hed made a pact with Satan. Truth is, few journalists treated him or his band with the respect they accorded his peers John Lennon, Keith Richards, and Pete Townshend. In the long run, none of it really mattered. Jimmy turned his obsession with privacy into an essential part of his mystique. He became rocks greatest enigma.

This is where I come in.

I HAD MY first conversation with Page in the spring of 1993. As editor in chief of