Video: Jimmy Page Talking About His #1
Have you ever seen and heard Jimmy Page talking about his number-one Les Paul? Well now you can. I’m sure Pagey fans will know this info already, but may not have seen this video, dug up from YouTube by the good folks at fretbase.com.
A few quick highlights of the video:
> Joe Walsh didn’t just sell the LP to Jimmy, Walsh “insisted” Page buy it
> Jimmy was familiar with Grover tuners from his Les Paul Custom (I didn’t know about that Custom)
> A push/pull knob on the bridge tone control makes the pickups out of phase a la Peter Green, something Jimmy says he used “a lot” — and is the results of experiments with his #2 Les Paul, which apparently was very tricked out
> His #1 has a very slim neck, and he got it that way
Here’s the funniest question by the person with the camera, who apparently is a Gibson employee: “So this guitar is essentially irreplaceable to you?” Duh! Pretty funny – he may have been at a loss for words at the time, maybe because some part of him was saying “you are with Jimmy Page, talking with him about his Les Paul!”
Here’s some info from the Gibson website about the guitar, apparently also based on the video:
The neck of Page’s guitar is thick at the nut and at the neck heel, like a typical 1959 Les Paul, but it tapers to a super-slim depth in the middle. It was that way when Page acquired it, and he hasn’t changed it. He did make two other modifications: He put a push/pull pot in the rear volume control that reverses the phase, in order to get a tone like Peter Green or B.B. King. And he replaced the original tuners with sealed, gold-plated Grovers to achieve the exact tuning and sensitivity of the Les Paul Custom he had been playing with Led Zeppelin.
Enjoy the vid:
Category: Jimmy Page/Zep, Les Paul
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