Jimmy Page: “Four Guitarists and One Record Label That Inspired Me to Play Guitar”

Uncut recently posted an archived interview with Jimmy Page. The story consists of Page answering questions posted by the magazine’s readers.

In response to the question “Who inspired you to play guitar?” Page said the following:

“Lonnie Donegan inspired everyone because he made it look as though it was possible to do. But who really moved it out of just playing acoustic to electric was all those people that were playing in the 1950s, really.

“Initially, it was the rockabilly style guitar, Johnny Burnette Rock & Roll Trio. When you heard that it was just something that inspired you so much to want to play out of the box, because it’s so abstract the guitar playing on that.

“Scotty Moore’s guitar playing [with Elvis Presley], Cliff Gallup [with Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps]… all of these people, they gave me the inspiration… If you heard them you were infected by them, if you listened to it, then you were just seduced by it. That was what was going to write the whole of the manual for use as much as anything else.

“Then the Beatles opened it up for bands to write and down here in the south it was the Chess catalogue more than the Tamla Motown. There was this great fusion that had gone on from rock though the blues and all that wonderful music, that Chicago blues movement, really, that went on Vee-Jay and Chess. All that stuff was so exhilarating.”

You can read the entire story at Uncut.co.uk.