Regarding musical developments, Jimmy Page always had his ear on the ground. Even when he once controversially derided rappers by saying, “They steal your riffs and then shout at you”. Given that Page has consistently kept up with the times and once stood at the forefront of sonic evolution, it’s appropriate that the Led Zeppelin man should enjoy the work of other innovators, such as the great David Bowie.
Following Ziggy Stardust, Bowie confirmed that artists should not rest on their laurels and constantly push themselves forward, something that only a select few had done before him, namely, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.
One figure who was fast to comprehend Bowie’s importance was Page, a man who also possessed a tangible creative vision and propelled Led Zeppelin from their foundation until their end.
Page told Uncut: “There’s a lot of Bowie stuff that’s just terrific. He’s multi-faceted, multi-talented, isn’t he? I’m going to say ‘Let’s Dance’ because it introduced everybody to Stevie Ray Vaughan.
People were always saying, ‘Who’s the guitarist on that?’ In the early days, he was prolific, and he put out some really important work. He was taking from various sources and putting it together, but that’s an art form in itself.”
If you’ve ever dug into Jimmy Page’s pre-Led Zeppelin days, it starts to seem like he did in fact play with everyone on the London scene in the mid-1960s. As a top session guitarist of that era, Page worked on James Bond and Beatles film soundtracks in addition to records by The Who and The Kinks.
Page played with a band called the Manish Boys. That group featured an 18-year-old David Bowie on vocals. And, according to Bowie, Page (then 21) gave him a riff that Bowie would use on two occasions.
Bowie said Page dished him a riff that he later used on “The Supermen,” the final cut on The Man Who Sold the World.
“He was wildly excited about [the fuzz box],” Bowie said in an interview. “And he was quite generous that day. He said, ‘Look, I’ve got this riff but I’m not using it for anything so why don’t you learn it and see if you can do anything with it.”
Bowie did in fact learn it. And five years later it turned up as the pulsing, hypnotic riff of “The Supermen.” (You can definitely imagine Page playing such a riff.) But Bowie said that wasn’t the last time he used it. Bowie used the riff again on ‘Dead Man Walking’.
