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Jimmy Page and The Rolling Stones: Friends Since the ’60s
JIMMY AND THE STONES: CLOSE CALLS AND CLASSIC COLLABORATIONS Jimmy Page and The Rolling Stones share a long history of friendship and musical collaboration dating back to the 1960s. Before Led Zeppelin, Page worked as a studio musician on a few Stones demos. He also contributed to Andrew Oldham’s Immediate Records projects, playing alongside Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, and other legends. Their connection reflects the tight-knit London rock scene, where creative sparks and lifelong friendships were forged through shared sessions and mutual respect.
As history has it, after being a member of the Yardbirds, Jimmy was the former lead guitarist of a small British quartet known as Led Zeppelin. Prior to that, as mentioned before, he was a studio musician who worked on some Rolling Stones demos, including a second version of Heart of Stone (which later surfaced on the Metamorphosis album) and was also employed as house producer and arranger of Andrew Oldham’s Immediate Records, at the time releasing the Blues Anytime albums (Vol. 1 and 2), including four songs featuring him (plus Mick Jagger on harmonica, Eric Clapton on guitar, Stu on piano, Bill Wyman on bass and Chris Winters on drums) in three songs: West Coast Idea, Draggin’ My Tail and Choker.
Jimmy Page and The Stones: Close Calls and Classic Collaborations
He also played lead guitar on Brian Jones’ soundtrack album for the A Degree of Murder movie, starring Anita Pallenberg. In 1965, the Stones asked Page to join the band, planning to throw Brian out, but Page declined. Nine years later, in 1974, Page jammed in the studio with Keith, recording a song called Scarlet with Rick Grech on bass, though it was highly unlikely that in the “Great Guitarists Hunt” (that’s when they were looking for a guitarist to replace the departed Mick Taylor in 1975) Page would leave the then biggest band in the world—even for the Stones. Scarlet was finally released in 2020 as part of the expanded edition of Goats Heads Soup. Jimmy also played in the (Bill Wyman’s band) Willie and the Poor Boys album (1985) and the A.R.M.S. concert tour, later on in the same year taking part of the Stones’ Dirty Workrecording sessions, with a guitar solo on One Hit (To the Body).
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