The Iconoclast

How Jimmy Page redefined the role of acoustic guitar in rock

- Jonathan Horsley

The images emblazoned in pop-culture's memory of Jimmy Page in his pomp are electric. The dragon-embroidered bell-bottoms and 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard. The double-necked EDS-1275. The Telecaster and the violin bow. But just as Page changed electric guitar, he changed the acoustic, redefining its place in rock, using it to traffic in melodies inspired by Indian and Arabic music, to blur the line between folk and rock. To think that folkies were outraged at the electric Bob Dylan while Page was being similarly iconoclastic, re-contextualising folk through rock epics.

From the beginning, the signs were there that Page had big plans for the acoustic. Page had long been a fan of Babe I’m Going To Leave You, the Anne Bredon folk song popularised by Joan Baez in 1962, and on Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut he transformed it into a melancholy folk-rock-blues epic, demonstrating just how wide the band would stretch rock’s dynamics.

All those studio sessions before finding a regular gig in The Yardbirds had expanded Page’s musical vocabulary. There was White Summer, a 1967 Page instrumental that was released with the Yardbirds on the album Little Games that foreshadowed Black Mountain Side. One of the headiest tracks on Zeppelin’s debut, Black Mountain Side was adapted from Bert Jansch’s version of the Irish folk standard Down By The Waterside. You know the saying; talent borrows, genius steals. There was no disputing Page's genius. Performed on a Gibson J-200 jumbo, Black Mountain Side was an early showcase for Page's acoustic orchestration and the freedom he found in open tunings, DADGAD on this occasion.