New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently presenting Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll. Curated from 70 private and public collections in the U.S. and U.K., the exhibit features more than 130 instruments that were used by artists including Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Metallica, Jimmy Page, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, Steve Miller, Elvis Presley and St. Vincent, and iconic guitars like Eric Clapton’s “Blackie,” Eddie Van Halen’s “Frankenstein” and Jerry Garcia’s “Wolf.”
Recently, Eddie Van Halen tweeted about the “Frankenstein” guitar on display, as well as the exhibit's inclusion of his entire rig from Van Halen’s 1978 tour. Now, Jimmy Page has sat down to discuss the Harmony acoustic guitar featured in Play It Loud, the same instrument he used to compose “Stairway to Heaven.”
“I’ve lent my Harmony six-string acoustic, that guitar I had way back in the early Sixties and it was with me all the way through to the point that I used it as a writing tool,” Page says in the clip above. “And that particular guitar is the vehicle whereby the first album, Led Zeppelin, is written, the second album is written, the third album is written and the fourth album is written. And it’s the guitar that actually culminates in playing ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ ”
Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll runs through October 1.
For more information, head over to MetMuseum.org.
