Jimmy Page was never one to let songs stay the same. Led Zeppelin’s founding guitarist always viewed studio versions of the band’s songs as blueprints for live experimentation. He almost never played his solos the same way. That’s why Page’s rarest guitar solo came when he joined forces with The Black Crowes in 1999.
Jimmy Page’s rarest guitar solo was a note-for-note copy of a Yardbirds song
Page’s best guitar solos from Led Zeppelin albums remain among the greatest of the classic rock era. Yet when the band performed live — which they did extensively from 1968 through 1973 — those solos took on new lives as Zep breathed new life into their songs during their concerts.
Long story short — Page almost never played his solos live the same way we heard them on the albums. That changed nearly 20 years after Led Zeppelin called it quits.
When Page performed a few shows with The Black Crowes in 1999, the short-lived group performed the Yardbirds song “Shapes of Things.” The tune was a hit for the group in 1966 (a No. 3 single in England) and later a staple for the Jeff Beck Group.
One of Page’s rarest solos came when he played a note-for-note copy of Beck’s solo he did with the Yardbirds, writes Light & Shade author Brad Tolinski (p. 272). The Led Zeppelin guitarist hadn’t attempted to copy his friend’s solo on the song since 1969, the last year the Yardbirds existed (listen via YouTube).
Nearly a decade later, Page (almost) performed a copy of one of his own solos. Led Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion show at the O2 arena saw the guitarist closely mimic his original “Stairway to Heaven” solo from the 1971 album Led Zeppelin IV. Like “Shapes of Things,” it was one of the few times Page played a solo the way fans heard it on a record.
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Page rarely copied from other musicians
When it came to Led Zeppelin songs, Page rarely looked outside himself to create his guitar riffs. Even the blues songs that inspired some of the group’s early tunes, such as “The Lemon Song,” “You Shook Me,” and “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” hardly resembled the originals.
In fact, we can count only two times where Page lifted parts of other people’s riffs for Led Zeppelin songs. The first was his five-note tribute to Beck at the start of “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” Though a fairly common blues intro, it was also something of an apology for Led Zeppelin’s version of “You Shook Me” blowing Beck’s version out of the water.
The other time Page openly copied another guitarist was when he quoted The Beatles’ ballad “Something” in the intro of “The Rain Song.” George Harrison complained about Led Zeppelin’s lack of ballads, and the Houses of the Holy song — complete with two borrowed chords from the Fab Four tune — was Zep’s response.
Jimmy Page rarely copied guitar solos, even ones he created, but he made an exception when he teamed up with The Black Crowes to perform “Shapes of Things” live.
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