Jimmy Page made a rare live appearance Friday night in London.
Rolling Stone reports the Led Zeppelin legend joined Donovan at the Royal Albert Hall to perform his classic "hired gun" solo from the British folk-rock legend's 1965 hit "Sunshine Superman". Page also sat in for another Donovan favorite, "Mellow Yellow".
"In 1965, Jimmy had just left The Yardbirds and hadn't started on Zeppelin yet", said Donovan. "So we hired him to do a session at Abbey Road". The price, for three hours on the album's title track, was 13 pounds.
"Though he's known for his power guitar", added Donovan, "Jimmy is a real folk aficionado."
Page agreed. "A lot of my songs were written on the acoustic guitar. And so much of the first album of Led Zeppelin was acoustic, too."
Last fall, Jimmy caused quite a stir among fans when he told an interviewer "I'm desperate to be playing, but it won't be 'til next year. I'll get a good vehicle to get out there and do some concerts."
Those comments – at the 2010 Classic Rock "Roll Of Honour" Awards – gave fans some hope that they'd be seeing Jimmy in action again and, perhaps, soon. It's been a quiet five months since then, with no sign of movement in the Page camp.
Jimmy surfaced again recently at the Ivor Novello Awards, which are presented annually to celebrate, honour and reward excellence in British music writing.
In light of his comments last fall, Page was asked for an update on his plans for the coming year.
"At the moment I'm constructing a website", said Jimmy, "because I've had the domain name (JimmyPage.com) but I've not had a website, so I'm constructing that. I think that will bring a few surprises to how things normally are. Once that's done, then I'm going to start working on the new music."
Donovan – Sunshine Superman (With guest Jimmy Page - Royal Albert Hall, London, UK, June 3, 2011)
Donovan – Mellow Yellow (With guest Jimmy Page - Royal Albert Hall, London, UK, June 3, 2011)
I know someone will say I'm wrong, but I think Jimmy Page is overrated. I'm not saying I dislike him or Zeppelin, but when people play him off as one of the worlds greatest guitarists I have to disagree.
I know someone will say I'm wrong, but I think Jimmy Page is overrated. I'm not saying I dislike him or Zeppelin, but when people play him off as one of the worlds greatest guitarists I have to disagree.
I know what you mean - technically he's not the best but he can squeeze mor emotion out of one phrase than Metallica can out of a career.
Igamikun, did you ever actually see Zeppelin in concert? There are dozens of anonymous studio guitarist who are technically perfect and can parrot anyone's lick or play faster than the next guy. Know why they're anonymous? Because technical perfection, in itself, is not that impressive. Rock guitarists don't achieve popular greatness unless they can write a great guitar part and play it. Page has done that dozens of times, AND shown he can successfully improvise his own stuff live hundreds of times. That's what makes Page legendary.
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