I gave him a good deal, about 1,200 bucks”: How one of rock's most storied Les Pauls changed hands from one guitar hero to another. (Guita World)
Page had known Joe Walsh, then a budding guitar hero with the James Gang, since his pre-Zeppelin days with the Yardbirds. And Walsh had a proposition for him.
Jimmy Page has always been synonymous with his beloved 1959 sunburst Gibson Les Paul, a guitar so iconic that it was exhibited at no less than the Metropolitan Museum of Art, during the museum's guitar-centric 2019 exhibition, Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll.
Now, it's no CIA-held secret that the Les Paul wasn't always Page's instrument of choice for Zeppelin. He used a Telecaster for the band's fiery, epochal debut, Led Zeppelin I and, at least for a while, was satisfied with that and his Les Paul Custom.
Visualizza questo post su Instagram
Then a budding guitar hero with the James Gang, Page and Walsh had known one another since the former's pre-Zeppelin days with the Yardbirds. And Walsh had a proposition for him.
“Back then, Joe brought a Les Paul Standard along to a Fillmore East gig on the first leg of [a Led Zeppelin] American tour and said, ‘You’ve got to have this guitar,’” Page said in a 2023 Instagram post. “I said, ‘Well, I don’t need it, Joe, I’ve got a Les Paul Custom.’”
So I kept the one I liked the most, and I flew to New York with the other one. I laid it on him and said, ‘Try this out.’ He really liked it. So I gave him a really good deal, about 1,200 bucks. I had to hand-carry it; I flew there and everything.
“Whatever my expenses were, that’s what I charged him,” the future Eagles guitarist continued. “That guitar ended up being a significant part of Led Zeppelin’s body of work. But again, I just thought he should have a Les Paul, for godsakes!”
Page quickly put the Les Paul to use, on Zep's What is and What Should Never Be and for what this publication ranked as the greatest guitar riff of all time, Whole Lotta Love.
