Top Ten Guitar Solos by Jimmy Page

[Jimmy Page is] a genius.  He's a great player, a songwriter, a producer.  Put it this way, he might not be the greatest executor of whatever, but when you hear a Page solo, he speaks.  I've always said Clapton was my main influence, but Page was actually more the way I am, in a reckless-abandon kind of way."

-Eddie Van Halen, Guitar World, February 1990

1.  Stairway to Heaven (1971)– Though the song was overplayed by both FM radio and countless teenagers in music stores and bedrooms across the world, the fact remains that ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is arguably the greatest guitar solo ever recorded in the history of both classic rock and hard rock in general.  To record the solo, Page eschewed the guitar for which he is best known- his ’59 Gibson Les Paul- in favor of an old Fender Telecaster used frequently during the recording of the original Led Zeppelin album in 1969.   The solo, played over the three chord Am-C/G-Fmaj7 progression, has its basis firmly in A pentatonic minor despite the track’s overall folksy vibe and the borrowing of an ‘F’ note for use over the last chord of the progression.  Devoid of any guitar pyrotechnics until a series of quickly-executed bends that start at the 6:15 mark, Page creates an unpretentious masterpiece born of a mixture of blues and rock phrasing that is imminently hummable and memorable.  By the end of the famous pull-off lick at 6:42, the listener knows that they’ve been taken on a slow-building but wild flight by a pilot who clearly knows his way around the available airspace.

Tour manager Richard Cole, with Richard Trubo, told the story of the cutting of this epic solo in his 2002 book Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored.  Though dismissed an exaggerated ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll’ book by the band, definitive Led Zeppelin biographer Keith Shadwick used Cole’s account of the session in his 2005 work Led Zeppelin: The Story of a Band and Their Music 1968-1980.  Engineer Richard Digby-Smith stated that Page “just leaned up against the speakers with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and rattled out that solo.”  Cole recalled Page working alone during that particular session and said that Page “recorded three different guitar solos, none of them similar, and finally chose the one he thought was best after agonising over them in the studio late one night.”  Page himself once stated that he did indeed record three separate solos for the track, but slyly assured the interviewer that he picked the best one.

2.  Achilles’ Last Stand (1976)– The ten minute, twenty-five second tour-de-force that opens the all-electric album Presence provides a perfect example of  what Eddie Van Halen may have meant when he said that Page ‘speaks’ when he solos.  Most importantly here, Page first creates the perfect background by which he can drop-in and color the track with his lead lines.  Instead of blowing over the song’s main E-pedal bass rhythm atop of which Plant’s vocals are placed, Page introduces a new rhythm at 3:42 over which to execute his solo.  Alternating between a more airy, climbing bass line- rather than a pedal- and chunks of chords powered home by Bonham’s monstrous drums, Page crafts a lyrical yet intense solo reflecting the passion brought by the rest of the band to the track.  The opening bends immediately resonate within the chest cavity of any Jimmy Page adherent who ‘gets it.’  There’s really no other way to describe it.

Page told Steve Rosen in the July 1977 edition of Guitar Player that he felt the solo was on the level of ‘Stairway to Heaven.’  In the January 1991 issue of Guitar World, Page echoed these sentiments by saying, “I thought to myself: ‘My god, that solo says a hell of a lot to me.  What was going on there?’"

The entire Presence album took only 18 days to record and mix.  Unfortunately, Led Zeppelin’s 1977 tour in support of the album would be the band’s eleventh and final visit to United States.  The band broke its own attendance record at the Pontiac Silverdome by playing before over 76,000 fans and sold out Madison Square Garden for a six-night stand.   Tragically, the tour was officially abandoned after the unexpected death of Robert Plant’s five year-old son Karac due to a respiratory infection that did not respond to emergency treatment.

3.  Whole Lotta Love (1969) –  Though only eighteen seconds in length,  it’s the coolness factor of this powerful solo that propels it to Number 3 on this list.   In between the crunch of double E chords, Page tears up the neck in several positions using the E blues scale.  Some of it downright screams through the speakers, but Page never overdoes it.  A new rock cliché for soloing subsequently took hold, mostly used by less capable hands.

Two interesting notes on the song itself: legendary bluesman/songwriter Willie Dixon sued Led Zeppelin for copyright infringement based on his song ‘You Need Love’ that was first recorded by Muddy Waters.   The band settled with Dixon out of court.     Also, the track was said to be a favorite of those driving tanks during the Vietnam War.   You can hear Muddy Waters performing ‘You Need Love’ here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM8_HuQ0b3

4.  Dazed and Confused (Live)(1973) – Though Page has often lamented that the concerts recorded at Madison Square Garden for the movie and accompanying soundtrack The Song Remains the Same did not show Zeppelin at its best, this 26:52 track shows Page playing with true reckless abandon.  While it’s evident that Page’s brain moves faster than his fingers at times during the jams (Eddie Van Halen once compared it to a two year old playing with a broken hand), there’s no question that Page finds his way around the fretboard in way that most other guitarists in the Seventies simply couldn’t.  After the violin bow sequence ends at the 14:46 mark, the Page takes extended lead breaks over Jones’ booming bass lines and Bonham’s drums.  At times when Page sounds as if his fingers are about to fail him, he’ll launch into another riff or chord sequence that shows him to be somehow in command.  This version includes a short take on Scott McKenzie’s ‘San Francisco.’

Ironically, the start of Eddie Van Halen’s solo on ‘A.F.U. (Naturally Wired)’ from the OU812 album is similar to the riff that starts at 15:13 of this version.

5.  Tea for One (1976) – Though ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ is the sexy pick for a Jimmy Page solo in the context of a minor blues, Page himself admitted in a 1977 interview that he was “really a bit frightened” about laying down the solo for this track.  He was well aware of the number of great blues solos that had been recorded by his contemporaries and influences before him.  The results show that Page had little to be frightened of.   Plant was still recovering from a serious car accident that occurred in Greece that had confined him to a wheelchair.  (Hence the lyric, ‘There was a time when I stood tall in the eyes of other men.’)  While initially sounding like he has trouble finding his groove, Page manages to capture the overall gloom of Plant’s lyrics by settling into a reverb-drenched tone at 4:55 that makes his licks sound almost sublime.

6.  I’m Gonna Crawl (1979) -  When an offer came in from Stockholm, Sweden to record the new Led Zeppelin album at the Polar studio owned by ABBA, the band jumped at the chance, in part, to avoid the enormous tax consequences associated with recording it in the U.K.  By this time, the brainchild, meticulous taskmaster and guiding force behind Led Zeppelin for over a decade found himself confronting a serious drug problem.   According to tour manager Richard Cole and Led Zeppelin biographer Keith Shadwick, Page and Bonham were often showing up late to the studio for the sessions.  This forced Jones and Plant to take the lead, making In Through the Out Door a keyboard-heavy affair that saw Jones garner several songwriting credits.

Although all Led Zeppelin albums contain a diversity of material, the overall offering on this particular album is best described as ‘disjointed.’  Still, when the drug-addled Page was charged with recording a guitar solo for the album’s final track, he comes through with a distorted bluesy masterpiece.   It starts on a slow bend and continues  with several palm muted riffs until Plant’s cry of ‘Hit me!’ pre-signals Page opening up on the fretboard behind the rising dynamics of the rhythm section.  Page then plays some gorgeous bends over the changes, providing a real sense of momentum that pushes the slower track forward, all while maintaining a lyrical quality to his solo that mimics the climbing melody of Plant’s vocal track throughout the song .  After playing a series of distorted Am chords in the upper register as an answer to Plant’s ‘Every little bit…’ lyric, Page wraps things up with a high-pitched bend that wails in the same way that Robert Plant does as he pines over a lost love during the track.

7.  Ten Years Gone (1976) – This masterpiece from the Led Zeppelin double-album magnum opus Physical Graffiti shows Page creating several memorable lead lines over the course of a single track.  The main solo at 2:29 has Page using lyrical slides and bends that sound neither rushed nor contrived while employing a phased, distorted tone.  He continues with this tone for the multi-tracked break at 3:43, then drops the phaser for the memorable outro harmonies that begin at 5:19.

8.  What Is and What Should Never Be (1969)- The airy slide guitar solo over both the jazz-influenced chord progression and chorus on this classic from Led Zeppelin II sounds exactly as a slide guitar solo should on an electric guitar- smooth, lyrical, memorable and is a motivator to pick up the instrument and practice yourself.

9.  The Rover (1976) – Originally written during the sessions for Houses of the Holy, this second track from Physical Graffiti has a compact solo with a semi-distorted tone in which Page plays perfectly over the chord changes in several neck positions without wasting a note.

10.  No Quarter (1973) – This track, which was used to showcase John Paul Jones’ ability on the electric piano during live shows, shows two very different sides of Page’s abilities on one solo: he opens using a clean, jazzy tone and phrasing before giving way to a distorted (but compressed) sound more commonly associated with his playing.

Honorable Mentions:  Good Times Bad Times; Since I’ve Been Loving You; Heartbreaker (lead break at 3:08); Over the Hills and Far Away; Thank You; In the Evening; Hummingbird