Getting endorsed by Jimmy Page is something most guitarists could only dream of. However, Steve Lukather is one of the lucky ones who’s received the highest of compliments from the Led Zeppelin icon.
Aside from releasing nine solo albums, Lukather has sat in and recorded on more than 1,000 records for the likes of Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, and Aretha Franklin. What's more, over the last decade or so, he's been working as part of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.
“I have a funny story about Jimmy,” the session legend tells Forbes. “It was the one and only time I ever met him. I went over to this Guitar Center thing honoring Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap. In fact, I ended up producing four tracks on their next record because of that night.
“I showed up with Eddie [Van Halen] and my boys,” he recalls. “Hey, we're going to meet Jimmy Page, a big deal, right? Jimmy's standing there greeting everyone. He points at me.
“I think he's pointing at Ed, of course, but it's me, and he motions for me to come over. He said, ‘You have something that these other guys here don't.’ And I go, ‘What's that, Jimmy?’ He said, ‘You understand and I understand, but those other guitarists don't. We were studio players. They don't know what that means.’”
Page went on the say that he had read that Lukather wasn't being taken seriously because he was just a “studio guy” – a notion that Page, once a session guitarist himself, strongly opposed.
Lukather adds, “‘That's the opposite of the absolute truth. That sets you above these other guys,’ Jimmy said. I asked if I could give him a hug, and tell people he had said that. He laughed, gave me a hug and said, ‘Sure.’ That meant the world to me.”
Indeed, pre-fame Page cut his teeth in the session world, eventually becoming the first-call guy for renowned producer Shel Talmy. As a result, he secured sessions on songs by the Who and the Kinks, and even lent his chops to the incidental music of the Beatles' 1964 film A Hard Day's Night.
Earlier this year, Lukather set the record straight on his reported involvement on a new Van Halen album.
