Jimmy Page Bragged About Having a Sitar Before George Harrison
Jimmy Page and George Harrison were two of the most famous guitar players ever, but few music fans would confuse them. Page’s blistering solos, folk- and blues-based style, and layered riffs as Led Zeppelin’s lone guitarist stood in contrast to George’s more pop-oriented style. Yet they both enjoyed The Black Crowes’ music and shared a passion for Eastern music. Page bragged about owning a sitar before George, though Zep’s founder admitted Harrison played it much better.
Jimmy Page bragged about owning a sitar before George Harrison but admitted The Beatles’ guitarist played it better
Harrison and The Beatles went to India in early 1968, but he had already used a sitar on several Fab Four songs. He played the instrument on “Norwegian Wood (“This Bird Has Flown),” “Love You To,” and “Within You Without You.”
Still, George wasn’t the only English guitarist interested in Eastern sounds. Page employed tablas and incorporated some sitar-style riffing on “Black Mountain Side” from Led Zeppelin I. The band brought back the tabla for Led Zeppelin III song “Friends,” and later leaned into their Eastern influences on “Kashmir.”
Page also gave up his guitar and used Indian instruments such as sitar and tamboura on his long-lost Lucifer Rising soundtrack, which remained buried for years. He never used a sitar on a Led Zeppelin album, but Page bragged about owning one before Harrison popularized the instrument to Light & Shade author Brad Tolinski:
“Let’s put it this way: I had a sitar before George Harrison got his. I wouldn’t say I played it as well as he did, though; I think George used it well. The Beatles’ ‘Within You Without You’ is extremely tasteful. He spent a lot of time studying with Ravi Shankar, and it showed.”
Page backed up his sitar credentials to Tolinski. He told the author he traveled to India after a Yardbirds tour in the “late 1960s,” which would have happened at some point between his joining the band in 1966 and its dissolution in 1968. The Led Zeppelin founder also bragged about attending a Shankar concert long before Harrison and The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones popularized the instrument:
“I can remember going to see Ravi in concert very early on. To show you how far back it was, there were no young people in the audience at all, just a lot of older people from the Indian embassy. This girl I knew was a friend of his, and she took me to see him. She introduced us after the concert, and I explained that I had a sitar, but I didn’t know how to tune it. He was very nice to me and wrote down the tuning on a piece of paper.”
George brought sitar to the masses with The Beatles after meeting Shankar in 1966, but Page wanted the world to know his interest in the instrument predated Harrison’s. If there were any hard feelings from Page about George stealing his sitar-loving thunder, they certainly didn’t last.
Harrison directly inspired the Led Zeppelin tune ‘The Rain Song’
The Beatles and Led Zeppelin overlapped for a little over a year. Zep’s second record bumped The Beatles Abbey Road from the No. 1 spot in 1969 and fully signaled a changing of the guard. By 1973, there was little debate that Page’s group was one of the biggest bands on earth, if not the biggest.
Still, George had some sway with Led Zeppelin. His critique that they never wrote ballads led Page to write the Houses of the Holy tune “The Rain Song.”
Harrison was 100% wrong about Zep’s lack of ballads, and we’d guess he made the comment in jest. Led Zeppelin III featured several ballads. Even LZ II, the so-called heavy album, included the soft song “Thank You” on Side 1. Yet when Harrison said Zep never wrote ballads, Page immediately responded with “The Rain Song.” As a nod to George, he subtly quoted The Beatles’ hit “Something” at the beginning of the tune.
Despite Page’s interest in Eastern music, he never used a sitar on a Led Zeppelin album. However, he played the instrument before Harrison and even bragged about owning one first. It was yet another example of the Zep guitarist being an innovator and music visionary.
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