James Patrick Page OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English musician and producer who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin.

Following the death of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, he participated in a number of musical groups throughout the 1980s and 1990s, more specifically XYZ, the Firm, the Honeydrippers, Coverdale–Page, and Page and Plant.

[20] He appeared on BBC1 in 1957 with a Höfner President acoustic, which he'd bought from money saved up from his milk round in the summer holidays and which had a pickup so it could be amplified,[21] but his first solid-bodied electric guitar was a second-hand 1959 Futurama Grazioso, later replaced by a Fender Telecaster,[22] a model he had seen Buddy Holly playing on the TV and a real-life example of which he'd played at an electronics exhibition at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London.

"[22] Following stints backing recitals by Beat poet Royston Ellis at the Mermaid Theatre between 1960 and 1961,[1] and singer Red E. Lewis, who'd seen him playing with the Paramounts at the Contemporary club in Epsom and told his manager Chris Tidmarsh to ask Page to join his backing band, the Redcaps, after the departure of guitarist Bobby Oats,[30] Page was asked by singer Neil Christian to join his band, the Crusaders.

[14]While still a student, Page often performed on stage at the Marquee Club with bands such as Cyril Davies' All Stars, Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, and fellow guitarists Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.

He was spotted one night by John Gibb of Brian Howard & the Silhouettes, who asked him to help record some singles for Columbia Graphophone Company, including "The Worrying Kind".

[22] After brief stints with Carter-Lewis and the Southerners, Mike Hurst and the Method and Mickey Finn and the Blue Men, Page committed himself to full-time session work.

[34] Page is credited with playing acoustic twelve-string guitar on two tracks on the Kinks' debut album, "I'm a Lover Not a Fighter" and "I've Been Driving on Bald Mountain",[35] and possibly on the B-side "I Gotta Move".

[37] Page's studio gigs in 1964 and 1965 included Marianne Faithfull's "As Tears Go By", Jonathan King's "Everyone's Gone to the Moon", the Nashville Teens' "Tobacco Road", the Rolling Stones "Heart of Stone" (along with "We're Wasting Time") (also, Van Morrison & Them's "Baby, Please Don't Go", "Mystic Eyes", and "Here Comes the Night", Dave Berry's "The Crying Game" and "My Baby Left Me", Brenda Lee's "Is It True", Shirley Bassey's "Goldfinger",[38] and Petula Clark's "Downtown".

Along with Ric Grech on bass and Bruce Rowland on drums, a track called "Scarlet" was cut (the same year he played acoustic guitar on The Stones' "Through the Lonely Nights").

In February 1965, Clapton quit the Yardbirds and Page was formally offered his spot, but unwilling to give up his lucrative career as a session musician and worried about his health under touring conditions, he suggested his friend Jeff Beck.

The musical potential of the line-up was scuttled, however, by interpersonal conflicts caused by constant touring and a lack of commercial success, although they released one single, "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago".

[citation needed] Led Zeppelin were the progenitors of heavy metal and hard rock, and their sound was largely the product of Page's input as a producer and musician.

(Action Research for Multiple Sclerosis) charity series of concerts which honoured Small Faces bassist Ronnie Lane, who suffered from the disease.

For the first shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Page's set consisted of songs from the Death Wish II soundtrack (with Steve Winwood on vocals) and an instrumental version of "Stairway to Heaven".

In the same year, Page played guitar for rap singer/producer Puff Daddy's song "Come with Me", which heavily samples Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" and was included in the soundtrack of Godzilla.

[51] Following a benefit performance in the summer where the Black Crowes guested with him, Page teamed up with the band for six shows in October 1999, playing material from the Led Zeppelin catalogue and old blues and rock standards.

[54] In 2001, after guesting with Fred Durst and Wes Scantlin's performance of "Thank You" at the MTV Europe Video Music Awards, Page once again continued his collaboration with Robert Plant.

The television broadcasting of the event consisted of an introduction to the band by various famous admirers (including Roger Taylor, Slash, Joe Perry, Steven Tyler, Jack White and Tony Iommi), an award presentation to Page and a short speech by him.

[62] On 7 June 2008, Page and John Paul Jones appeared with the Foo Fighters to close the band's concert at Wembley Stadium, performing "Rock and Roll" and "Ramble On".

[76] In December 2012, Page, along with Plant and Jones, received the annual Kennedy Center Honors[77] from President Barack Obama in a White House ceremony.

[78] In February 2013, Plant hinted that he was open to a Led Zeppelin reunion in 2014, stating that he is not the reason for the band's dormancy, saying "Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones are quite contained in their own worlds and leave it to [him]", adding that he is "not the bad guy" and that he has "got nothing to do in 2014.

[80] In a spring 2014 interview with the BBC about the then forthcoming reissue of Led Zeppelin's first three albums, Page said he was confident fans would be keen on another reunion show, but Plant later replied that "the chances of it happening [were] zero."

During the late 1960s, most British music producers placed microphones directly in front of amplifiers and drums, resulting in the sometimes "tinny" sound of the recordings of the era.

Taking this maxim to heart, Page developed the idea of placing an additional microphone some distance from the amplifier (as much as twenty feet) and then recording the balance between the two.

In an interview with Guitar World magazine in 2003, he stated: "I can't speak for the [other members of the band], but for me drugs were an integral part of the whole thing, right from the beginning, right to the end.

[147] During the recording sessions for In Through the Out Door in 1978, Page's diminished influence on the album (relative to bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones) is partly attributed to his heroin addiction, which resulted in his absence from the studio for long periods of time.

[154]Page's interest in the occult started as a schoolboy at the age of fifteen, when he read English occultist's Aleister Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice.

Page's own so-called "Zoso" symbol originated in Ars Magica Arteficii (1557) by Gerolamo Cardano, an old alchemical grimoire, where it has been identified as a sigil consisting of zodiac signs.

[162]Page was commissioned to write the soundtrack music for the film Lucifer Rising by Crowley admirer and underground movie director Kenneth Anger.