Jimmy Page and the Rolling Stones: 60 years of musical flirtations
Certainly, not all blues enthusiasts of the early 1960’s can claim to have become some of the most influential musical artists of all time. But that’s one thing that Jimmy Page and the members of the Rolling Stones have in common.
The first encounter between Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jimmy Page occured in 1962, just a few months before the formation of the Stones. The three English boys travelled all the way from the South to attend UK’s first American Folk Blues Festival in the city of Manchester. They met at a blues collector’s house, and together they listened to Howlin’ Wolf’s masterpiece album commonly known as ‘Rocking Chair’—then newly released. For a blues fanatic back then, meeting someone with the same interest was something almost extraordinary. Most people weren’t interested in what was still a rather obscure music genre and preferred rocking and rolling to the songs on the radio. For this reason, if you liked the blues and met someone alike, you were going to remember them.
By the end of the same year, Jimmy was spotted during a gig at the Marquee Club in London and asked to play regularly on record sessions. This was the start of a short but prolific career as a session musician for the young man, who would soon encounter Mick and Keith again, this time with the rest of the Rolling Stones. He played on a number of demos for the band, three of which were officially released on Stones records:
These sessions were a great opportunity for Page to develop an understanding of how records were produced: he spent hours in the control room, and soon he was employed as house producer and arranger at Andrew Oldham’s Immediate Records. In 1968, the record company released Blues Anytime Vol 1-2-3, a series of records containing works by various British blues artists. Jimmy featured in two of these, producing a few songs on which Mick Jagger (harmonica), Bill Wyman (bass), Ian Stewart (piano) and Eric Clapton (guitar) were the musicians.
Around this time, Jimmy also gave a helping hand to Brian Jones on the soundtrack for the cult classic movie A Degree of Murder (recorded late 1966-early 1967), also using his now notorious trick of the violin bow. He recalls:
“Brian knew what he was doing. It was quite beautiful. Some of it was made up at the time; some of it was stuff I was augmenting with him. I was definitely playing with the violin bow. Brian had this guitar that had a volume pedal – he could get gunshots with it. There was a Mellotron there. He was moving forward with ideas.”
—Jimmy Page, from issue #1171 of Rolling Stone
Legend has it that the Stones had previously asked Page to join the band in order to throw Jones out, but he declined.
The group was again looking for a guitarist in late 1974, to fill the spot left by Mick Taylor’s sudden goodbye. Jimmy had recently jammed in the studio with them on a fun session which birthed the track Scarlet, but it was highly unlikely that he would leave the then biggest band in the world—even for the Rolling Stones. The track remained in the vaults for 46 years, and was finally released in 2020 as part of the expanded edition of Goats Heads Soup.
“I had completely forgotten about it. Someone told me it was Ginger Baker on drums. And I rang Jimmy Page up — I didn’t remember anything — and Jimmy Page remembered everything! This person played on it, it wasn’t Ginger Baker … he seemed so certain about it.”
— Mick Jagger on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, July 22, 2020
Jimmy Page and the Rolling Stones would cross paths again in September 1983 when both Jimmy and Bill Wyman played on the ARMS Charity Concert, later embarking on an American tour with the rest of the musicians involved.
As a result of this, several of said musicians were invited to take part of Wyman’s latest project, Willie and the Poor Boys. Inspired by the music of the early 1950’s, they congregated at Jimmy Page’s home studio, the Sol, and recorded numerous tracks, twelve of which were officially released on a 1985 self-titled album. Jimmy can be heard on two of them:
The Eighties were a time of turmoil for the Rolling Stones as its two principal songwriters, Richards and Jagger, had been feuding over the band’s direction for most of the decade. Nonetheless, right after the Willie and the Poor Boys sessions commenced the recording process for Dirty Work. Jimmy took part of another jam session with the band, immortalised on the hit single One Hit (To The Body).
In 1992, the 7th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame took place, and among the chosen legends to be honoured that year were the members of the Yardbirds. Keith Richards also attended the ceremony, being assigned the role to induct Leo Fender, one of his idols and legendary creator of the Fender Stratocaster. Later on, an All-Star Band was formed for a one-off performance and Keith and Jimmy found themselves merrily jamming together once again on classics such as ‘Green Onions’, ‘Soul Man’, ‘Big River’, ‘Dust My Broom’, ‘Shout’, ‘All Along the Watch Tower’, ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Something Is Wrong With My Baby’.
After sharing much of their success over the past six decades, Jimmy Page and the members of the Stones remain close friends, now having earned a well deserved title as rock and roll legends.
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So
Good morning,
18/09 was the day that the show premiere
While not everyone loves them, but Sonic SatAM is a part of Sonic. i really care for it even if it doesn't jive with the rest of the Sonic idea.
The Freedom Fighters will forever be Sonic's friends, Tails being cute, and the amazing Dr.Robotnik, Snivley, too. This man always brought me a good laugh and a reason to see him more
And not forgetting to mention Sally Acorn, the dudette protagonist of the show, specifically designed to be the Sonic's foil character; to show Sonic's weaknesses and strengths and always a fun time to see her grow and to learn more about the kingdom she must rule in the future
To artists, the sound design crew of this show, and of course Ben Hurst it's incredible to see what little of sonic everyone had but was able to bring a character so energetic and fun for small screen.
God bless you all.
I also wish to bring attention to the wonderful animation of the SatAm Rejuiced which is a participation of many artist do re-do a episode of Sonic SatAM
https://youtu.be/QPeSS-VJ180?si=NtPD5LHxKGowqvIl
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