Don’t believe everything you see or read on the internet. Ritchie Blackmore just found the other day that he didn’t like Jimmy Page, much to his surprise.
Because the Stratocaster-toting Deep Purple and Rainbow icon thinks quite the opposite, and has paid tribute to the Led Zeppelin guitarist, describing him as a “magical guy”.
Blackmore was speaking on April 14 during a livestreamed interview on his birthday (he was born at ten-past-midnight, UK time. Many happy returns, Ritchie), doing one of these ask-me-anything type deals.
And so one fan writes in to enquire if he likes Page. The answer is 100 per cent yes – though he understood where the question came from.
“I read the other day that I hated him,” says Blackmore. “I can’t believe they said that.”
Blackmore says he and Page go way back, and says he knew from the moment he met him that Page was going to be a star. This was the early ‘60s, and they were both sharpening their skills in backing bands.
“The first time I met him was 1963 or ‘62. He was in a band called Neil Christian and the Crusaders, and I was in Lord Sutch and the Savages,” Blackmore recalls. “I knew he was going places, because I could tell, not only did he have a style, he had the playing ability, and he just looked right, playing the guitar. He was a star in the making, Jimmy Page.”
Page spent much of the early ‘60s in and out of recording studios. He was one of the first-call players in the UK. He played on Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger theme song, tracked with the Who, before the Yardbirds came calling, then Led Zeppelin, and then the rest is history.
Peter Grant might have been the administrative spearhead for the Led Zeppelin machine but Blackmore says Page’s business smarts have served him well. “He was a good businessman, too. Not only a guitar player, he was a businessman,” he offers.
Sadly, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin never shared a bill, nor did Rainbow. So whenever Blackmore and Page’s paths would cross, it would be a social occasion, like the last time he bumped into him at the most-legendary of all Los Angeles’ rock-friendly watering holes
“Last time I spoke to him, he was probably in the Rainbow, in Hollywood,” recalls Blackmore. “He said to me, ‘Where did you learn all your runs from?’ And I thought, ‘That was a strange question.’ And I thought, ‘Runs? Well, they’re just improvisational, extemporizations, improvisational inversions.’ And that was quite a compliment coming from him.”
Remarkably, Blackmore and Page both grew up in the same small town of Heston, in Middlesex, England. There’s only a year between them. And yet they never knew each other till later.
“I never knew that he was even in the village, and that would have been when we were both 15 or 16,” notes Blackmore. “But magical guy, great guy. Always will be.”
In related Blackmore news, in the same livestreamed interview the Deep Purple guitar legend said that most guitarists aren’t nice people – but named one player who bucks the trend.
