In an excerpt from Brad Tolinski's new book, Jimmy Page discusses recording Led Zeppelin.

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Another interesting aspect of the first album is your use of the acoustic guitar, which was something that separated you from other guitar heroes of the day like Clapton or Hendrix.

PAGE: Our acoustic songs were designed to create dynamics both on the albums and in live performance. The harder songs wouldn’t have had as much impact without the softer ones. It was funny to us that everyone made such a big deal out of the fact that we used acoustic instruments on Led Zeppelin III, because they were there from the beginning.

The first album featured two folk-oriented songs, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and “Black Mountain Side,” but the critics just never noticed. It makes you wonder. I think they just got completely absorbed in the second album, which was more high energy. But even the second album had its quiet moments in “Ramble On” and “Thank You.”

Our performance of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave” showed how original the band was. There weren’t many hard rock groups who would have the nerve to play a song originally recorded by [folk singer] Joan Baez!

Your arrangement of the traditional British folk song, “Black Mountain Side” was also an interesting choice. It was a tune recorded by revivalists like Anne Briggs and Bert Jansch, but you saw the potential as a rock song.

PAGE: As a musician, I’m only the product of my influences. The fact that I was listening to folk, classical and Indian music in addition to rock and blues was one thing that set me apart from so many other guitarists at the time.

How did the Indian and Middle Eastern elements heard on songs like “Black Mountain Side,” “White Summer, “Friends” and “Kashmir” take form?

PAGE: Eastern music was always appealed to me. I went to India after I came back from a tour with the Yardbirds in the late Sixties, just so I could hear the music firsthand.

Let’s put it this way—I had a sitar before George Harrison got his. I wouldn’t say I played it as well as he did, though; I think George used it well. The Beatles’ “Within You, Without You” is extremely tasteful. He spent a lot of time studying with [Indian musician] Ravi Shankar, and it showed. But I can remember going to see Ravi in concert very early on. To show you how far back it was, there were no young people in the audience at all, just a lot of older people from the Indian embassy. This girl I knew was a friend of his, and she took me to see him. She introduced us after the concert, and I explained that I had a sitar but I didn’t know how to tune it. He was very nice to me and wrote down the tuning on a piece of paper.

But it’s really hard for me to say exactly where I got my technique, because it’s a combination of a lot of things that were floating around. Sometimes I tell people it’s a product of my “C.I.A. connection”—which is shorthand for Celtic, Indian and Arabic music.

You recorded “Baby Come On Home” during the Led Zeppelin I sessions, but it didn’t see the light of day until 1993’s Boxed Set 2.

PAGE: I don’t think we finished it—the backing vocals weren’t very clever. And, at the time, we thought everything else was better. Simple as that really. But don’t get me wrong, the track is good and Plant’s singing is excellent. It’s just that we set such high standards for ourselves.

How did Atlantic react when you presented them with the first album?

PAGE; They were very keen to get me. I had already worked with one of their producers and visited their offices in America back in 1964, when I met [Atlantic executives] Jerry Wexler and Leiber and Stoller and so on. They were aware of my work with the Yardbirds because they were pretty hip people, so they were very interested. And I made it very clear to them that I wanted to be on Atlantic rather than their rock label, Atco, which had bands like Sonny and Cher and Cream. I didn’t want to be lumped in with those people—I wanted to be associated with something more classic. But to get back to your question: Atlantic’s reaction was very positive—I mean they signed us, didn’t they? And by the time they got the second album, they were ecstatic.

I was looking at some old photos of the band recently, and I noticed you were using an assortment of fairly bizarre amplifiers and guitars around the time of the first album. What were you using before you switched to the Marshall Super Lead/Les Paul combination that most people associate you with?

PAGE: It was basically whatever we could afford at that time. I didn’t really make any money when I was with the Yardbirds, so I was pretty broke in the beginning. I actually had to finance the first Zeppelin album with money I had saved as a session musician. What I had as equipment was very minimal. I had my Telecaster that Jeff Beck gave me, a Harmony acoustic, a bunch of Rickenbacker TransSonic cabinets left over from the Yardbirds, and a hodge-podge of amps—Vox and Hiwatts, mostly.

I also had a black Les Paul Custom with a tremolo arm that was stolen during the first 18 months of Zeppelin. It was lifted at the airport. We were on our way to Canada and, somewhere, there was a flight change and it disappeared. It never arrived at the other end.

What are you playing on the first album?

PAGE: Primarily the Telecaster.

That Tele sported quite a spectacular psychedelic custom paint job.

PAGE: I painted it myself. Everyone painted guitars back then.

[[ Light & Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page is available now at the Guitar World Online Store, plus Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, book stores and other retailers. ]]

Photo: Chuck Boyd

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