Jimmy Page interview dated June 1963, when he was 19.
Jimmy says he's been playing guitar for "four years". I assume he meant professionally, as he previously appeared on TV in 1957, already playing guitar.
This interview comes at the time Jimmy was making big changes in his life (even though he's only 19). He had stopped touring with perpetual no-hopers Neil Christian and the Crusaders (although he mentions them as his current band in the clip), started making a name for himself playing jam sessions in the big London clubs, worked his first few sessions and was, as he says in the clip, equivocating between becoming an artist and becoming a guitarist.
According to George Case's Magus, Musician, Man, Jimmy contracted glandular fever (mononucleosis) in mid 1962 and became so weakened he had to leave the Crusaders (YouTube autoplay) shortly afterward. (He did participate in studio recordings, with them and the legendary Joe Meek in fall, 1962.) He attended Sutton Art College from 1962 to late 1963 (studying painting) and played jam sessions at the Marquee to keep his hand in, which expanded to sessions at the legendary Eel Pie Island and Crawdaddy. This led, once again according to George Case, to offers for him to work on studio recordings as a session musician. Tony Meehan and Jet Harris's Diamonds (YouTube autoplay) is the first record he played on to be released, in early 1963. Mike Leander got him in on some sessions in fall 1963 of which he said, "Before this I thought session work was a closed shop".
"The chronology of these heady days for Jimmy Page and his peers is vague," says George Case.
The interviewer is Royston Ellis, the Beat Poet. Jimmy played at one of his poetry slams
h/t to Aquamarine who put this video on her Facebook. I would have missed it otherwise.
No comments:
Post a Comment