Jimmy Page lost it?

Jez6345789

I dont think its a decline in motor skills (Page in his finest hours was no Segovia or Petrucci in terms of speed or technique) its just these guys fill their time doing other stuff that interest them and guitar playing is not once the thing that occupies their every waking hour.

It was interesting that Larry Carlton at a clinic was saying he looks to only play 100 days a year now and probably does not touch the guitar for 6 months. He simply said with good practice the chops come back, its rough for a while rehearsing then it clicks. 

Also the Page factor has to be considered even in his glory days he could be lazy and sloppy or focussed and spellbinding.

Dominic

Age is a factor BUT a relatively young Mark Knopfler had a pretty hard time keeping up with A relatively old Chet Atkins !!

Chet was 100 % until the last few months of his life

Page is too busy to practice ............checking Robbie Williams planning applications down at the council offices !!!

bingefeller

The No Quarter album is fantastic though.  I prefer the Middle Eastern tinged reworkings than the originals.  I dont know who was the brains behind rearranging those songs but they are very well done.

Sibelius

Jez6345789 said:

 

Also the Page factor has to be considered even in his glory days he could be lazy and sloppy or focussed and spellbinding.

Depending upon what substance he'd ingested that night! 

Danny1969

It's the feel he had that was so good, not the impeccable technique. Check out the intro to Whole Lotta Love, it's not played perfect, it's deliberately intonated a bit sharp  but it just sounds like rock & roll, it grooves and moves people who enjoy the music rather than analyze the playing. So in this respect people like Page, Brian May, Angus Young are probably the best players in the world 

rsvmark

There is plenty of well informed (and dare I say it, intelligent) comment above but my original post was geared around the contrast of 2 solos, several decades apart , in the same song.... Setting aside his technique, timing and style, these 2 performances really were night and day. One was mesmeric, taking the melody and ideas from the recorded solo and extending those, while the other was..... Well, crap. I dare say there are a few fellas on here who could have done it better.

To be fair, I am a bit past my best too.

xSkarloey

To be honest his version of Dazed at the 02 was driven, atmospheric but a bit ragged in places.

Contrast that with the version of Dazed from Paris 69 on the LZ I reissue bonus disc which is...driven, atmospheric but a bit ragged in places.

Jalapeno

Catching up with Celebration Day recorded - the opening couple of numbers suffer from some fecking awful univibe effect he was using, however Time of Dying & Nobody's Fault But Mine were bang on the money.

Makes it clear how much John-Paul Jones and Bonham Snr & Jnr held/hold it all together.

Bucket

The other things I don't like about Jimmy Page, while we're at it:

1) I usually think his tone is shockingly bad (subjective I know, but I hate it).

2) Rather too little is made of his relentless, shameless plagiarism that no-one else would be able to get away with.

3) Rather too little is also made of the fact that the widely-publicised Lori Maddox story explicitly outs him as a child molester but no-one seems to give a toss. I have no idea why this is the case.

DulcetJones

I am a huge Page/Zeppelin fan but I thought maybe they had all lost it when I heard the long rambling version of "Dazed and Confused" on their live "The Song Remains the Same" album back in the 70's.   I recall at the time a local FM radio station played the entire track and the DJ saying at the end "that was "Dazed and Confused", and I think they were.  

ICBM

Bucket said:

The other things I don't like about Jimmy Page, while we're at it:

1) I usually think his tone is shockingly bad (subjective I know, but I hate it).

2) Rather too little is made of his relentless, shameless plagiarism that no-one else would be able to get away with.

3) Rather too little is also made of the fact that the widely-publicised Lori Maddox story explicitly outs him as a child molester but no-one seems to give a toss. I have no idea why this is the case.

Sadly I agree with two out of three of those.

I'll give him a pass on the tone - it's subjective, and it does fit into the mix pretty well usually. Noel Gallagher is maybe as bad for plagiarism too, although possibly more willing to acknowledge his.

But the last one…. hmmm. On the other hand John Peel got away with it too.

shugz

CD is not perfect by any means but it was hardly off the back of a world tour. Try limbering up with minimal rehearsing for a show like that and be in or around 70, not easy.

If that was first night of a tour I'd be taking that. Much easier to get 'the DVD' from later in a tour or run of gigs.

My initial post was made on the guys as musicians, not people. I have no knowledge of them as human beings. Some are better at that aspect than others I grant you.

I think we cannot get too stuffy re plagiarism. You could argue all day. We all do it. I suppose where Page falls down is the unwillingness to admit yet be pretty trigger happy with his own legals. As I said, he's not a novice when it comes to the 'biz' side of things.

Cheers
Hugh

hobbio

ICBM said:

Bucket said:

The other things I don't like about Jimmy Page, while we're at it:

1) I usually think his tone is shockingly bad (subjective I know, but I hate it).

2) Rather too little is made of his relentless, shameless plagiarism that no-one else would be able to get away with.

3) Rather too little is also made of the fact that the widely-publicised Lori Maddox story explicitly outs him as a child molester but no-one seems to give a toss. I have no idea why this is the case.

Sadly I agree with two out of three of those.

I'll give him a pass on the tone - it's subjective, and it does fit into the mix pretty well usually. Noel Gallagher is maybe as bad for plagiarism too, although possibly more willing to acknowledge his.

But the last one…. hmmm. On the other hand John Peel got away with it too.

Basically what I was about to post (apart from John Peel. I didn't know that.), but he was not alone with the plagiarism. They were all at it in the sixties.

blueskunk

Guys a fooking phoney.

samzadgan

his age is big factor for what he's doing now...so i wont fault him for that.

in his early days, he was a genius on the guitar and composing. People can say he wasnt technically a great guitarist, he was sloppy, he stole stuff (everyone did it back in the 60's) etc...but he put down some of the best music of the time and to this day...he progressed music and influenced millions of musicians.

I see him as a great musician not a great guitarist.

to me, a great guitarist is usually lead guitarist in a band or a solo guitarist...they do one thing really well and thats play guitar...I find a lot of these guys boring as fuck...people who can progress past being a great guitarist and be a musician, those are the ones that are interesting to me.

Luminous

bingefeller said:

The No Quarter album is fantastic though.  I prefer the Middle Eastern tinged reworkings than the originals.  I dont know who was the brains behind rearranging those songs but they are very well done.

agreed 100%

Axe_meister

Let's compare he to BB King or Buddy Guy both far older than him, still doing gig after gig and every time still pulling off a spectacular performance. My problems with page is he could not let LZ go and move on. I really dislike his tone. How can you rob a Les Paul and a Marshall of all the mid range and bass is beyond me. (Steve Vai suffers from the same problem)

Jookyjr

Axe_meister said:

Let's compare he to BB King or Buddy Guy both far older than him, still doing gig after gig and every time still pulling off a spectacular performance. My problems with page is he could not let LZ go and move on. I really dislike his tone. How can you rob a Les Paul and a Marshall of all the mid range and bass is beyond me. (Steve Vai suffers from the same problem)

BB King has tailed off a bit recently, mind..