Fender Telecasters, made in the United States, were extremely pricey. Far more affordable, and on sale in London’s musical-instrument shops, was the Futurama Grazioso, a Fender copy replete with tremolo arm, manufactured in Czechoslovakia. Page acquired a second-hand version of this instrument.
Concert venues across the United Kingdom were responding to the new youth market for rock ’n’ roll. By 1958 Epsom’s Ebbisham Hall, little more than a church-hall-type building, had been renamed the ‘Contemporary Club’ for the rock ’n’ roll events it put on each Friday night.
But with another group with whom he briefly played, Page would not even get as far as the Contemporary Club. At around the age of 14, Page briefly became a member of a fledgling local act called Malcolm Austin and the Whirlwinds. On lead vocals was the aforementioned Austin. Tony Busson played bass; Stuart Cockett was on rhythm guitar; there was a drummer named Tom whose surname has evaporated with time; and ‘James Page’, as he was billed, played lead guitar. It was Wyatt who had introduced the various musicians to each other. In 1958 Malcolm Austin and the Whirlwinds played at Busson’s school Christmas concert, a set largely consisting of covers of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis tunes; they played no more than another couple of dates.
Busson, who was two years older than the group’s guitarist, said that ‘James’ Page was ‘very trendy: Italian jackets and Italian shoes – very pointed. Very cool in his tight jeans and trousers, but very baby-faced. We would go round to his house with our acoustic guitars and listen to his 45s and albums. His mum was always very receptive. She’d give us soft drinks. All we really talked about were guitars and pop music. When I first met Jimmy he only had a semi-acoustic Höfner. Then he got a solid electric, a Futurama Grazioso. He was a great fan of Gene Vincent and the Bluecaps, and also of Scotty Moore. I think he liked anything that was a bit complicated and a bit different.’
The guitarist’s home, remembered Busson, was ‘very lower middle-class.’ But Page struck him as ‘very arty: I thought if he didn’t have a career as a musician he’d be an artist. He left school at 15. I thought he would make it. But I also wondered, “How are you going to support yourself in the interim?”’ Soon Busson would receive an answer.
For Epsom also had larger venues in which more prestigious acts would perform. Wyatt recalled the buzz when a genuine professional rock ’n’ roll show came to Epsom – creating an atmosphere like that of a circus or fair arriving in town. The concert was held at the local swimming baths. ‘Top of the bill,’ said Wyatt, ‘was a singer, one Danny Storm, whose claim to fame was being Cliff Richard’s double. He was a dead ringer. The second headliner was the Buddy Britten Trio. Buddy was a Buddy Holly lookalike. Both Jimmy and I went along to the show, which was very exciting at the time. Halfway through, the compère announced an open-mike talent show; Jimmy and I entered. We both got to play a guitar. I did “Mean Woman Blues” and Jimmy did an instrumental, either “Peter Gunn” or “Guitar Boogie Shuffle”.’
Undaunted by the experience of his show at the Comrades Club, Page had persevered and found a drummer and come up with a name: the Paramounts. And at the end of the summer of 1959 he had a show booked for the Paramounts at the Contemporary Club, supporting Red E. Lewis and the Redcaps, a London group modelled largely on the act, antics and material of Gene Vincent and His Bluecaps.
Although the Paramounts even had a vocalist of sorts, their material that night largely consisted – in the manner of the time – of an instrumental set; Page’s strident guitar playing on Johnny and the Hurricanes’ recent hit ‘Red River Rock’ was notable, impressing Red E. Lewis. Lewis informed his group’s manager, one Chris Tidmarsh, of this guitarist’s prowess: at the end of the Red E. Lewis and the Red Caps’ set, Page came out onstage, borrowed the solid-body guitar of Red Caps guitarist Bobby Oats and played a few guitar parts, including some Chuck Berry solos.
From the rear of the hall Page was watched by his parents. Did they believe he would grow out of this silly interest? He told me: ‘No. Actually they were very encouraging. They may not have understood a lot of what I was doing, but nevertheless they had enough confidence that I knew what I was doing: that I wasn’t just a nut or something …’
Also watching the Paramounts that night, from nearer the stage than his parents, was Sally Anne Upwood, Page’s girlfriend at school, a relationship that lasted for a couple of years. Older than her boyfriend, Sally Anne was in Wyatt’s class and able to observe Page’s musical development.
Jimmy Page and the Paramounts played further shows at the Contemporary Club; they supported such acts as the Freddie Heath Combo, who would later be known as Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, one of the greatest English rock ’n’ roll groups. And when Bobby Oats left Red E. Lewis and the Redcaps at Easter 1959, Chris Tidmarsh invited 15-year-old Page to audition, above a pub in Shoreditch, East London. He got the gig, at £20 a week.
Clearly Page’s life was expanding – philosophically, as well as musically. ‘My interest in the occult started when I was about 15,’ he told me in 1977. At this time in his life, when still at school, he read Aleister Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, a lengthy treatise on Crowley’s system of Western occult practice; not an easy book to first comprehend, and a clear indication of the full extent of Page’s precocious intelligence. The book struck into his core, and he said to himself, ‘Yes, that’s it. My thing: I’ve found it.’ From that age he was on his course.
2
FROM NELSON STORM TO SESSION PLAYER
At first Jimmy Page could only play with Red E. Lewis and the Redcaps at weekends; he was, after all, still at school.
In fact, at first his father had nixed the idea of his playing with the group. Chris Tidmarsh had needed to come down to 34 Miles Road to see him; it was only when he explained that almost all of the Redcaps’ dates were at the weekend and would hardly interfere with his son’s schooling that Jimmy’s dad agreed. ‘Oh, okay then,’ said the elder James Page.
Yet soon Page had a major contretemps with Miss Nicholson, the deputy headmistress. When he informed her that he intended to be a pop star when he left school, this martinet was utterly dismissive of him. The minimum school-leaving age was 15 at the time, so he walked out of the school with his four GCE O levels and never looked back.
‘Jimmy’s playing was constantly evolving,’ recalled Rod Wyatt. ‘After he left school he could play lead and pick like Chet Atkins; he was a real prodigy. We still jammed at each other’s houses, but not so frequently. The thing about Jimmy was that, unlike most guitarists of those early days, he could play many styles and genres of music.’
Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds were an emerging act on the R&B circuit in 1960. Page had first seen Farlowe perform three years before, at the British Skiffle Group Championship at Tottenham Royal in north London.
Farlowe’s throaty soul vocals fronted the outfit, but it was his guitarist Bobby Taylor who Page would assiduously study. ‘He would sit there and watch Bobby playing. Then he’d come backstage and say, “Oh man, what a great guitar player you are.” So Bobby influenced him a great deal,’ Farlowe told writer Chris Welch. ‘Jimmy was very keen to meet him as he thought he was the coolest guitarist he’d ever seen. Bobby Taylor was a very handsome bloke and always dressed in black … Jimmy used to come to our gigs at places like the Flamingo. Then one day he walked up to us at some hall in Epsom, where he lived, and said, “I’d like to finance an album of you and the band.”’
Clearly