The Very First Page

Revealed! The story behind guitar legend Jimmy Page’s ‘lost’ first recording session

It is generally believed that Jimmy Page’s debut as a recording artist was on the 1962 single The Road To Love by Neil Christian And The Crusaders. Record Collector can exclusively reveal that Page’s first recording session was actually laid down at least a year before this, in late 1960 or early 1961.

Our source is John Spicer, who was in the studio with Page at that time. In early 1959 Spicer joined a North London combo called Red-E-Lewis And The Redcats. He played rhythm guitar, and another guitar player called Bobby Oats took care of lead. In Easter 1959, Oates announced that he was going to leave the band to go to drama school, and so the band turned their attention to finding someone else.

“It was during the ensuing conversations about a replacement,” recalls Spicer, “that I first heard the name Jimmy (the kid from Epsom) first mentioned. In the months before I joined, The Redcats had played a few gigs at the Ebisham Hall in Epsom. After these gigs, Jimmy would chat to the band and using Bobby’s guitar played a few licks and riffs and some Chuck Berry solos.”

Chris Tidmarsh, The Redcats’ manager, contacted Page and invited him down to Shoreditch, where the band rehearsed in a room above a pub with a view to auditioning for the vacancy.

“My first sight of Jimmy as he …

by Ian Shirley
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