Thursday 9 January 2014

Jimmy Page turns 70: A Tout Casser with Johnny Hallyday

Jimmy Page turns 70 today, and while he's rightly celebrated for his work with Led Zeppelin, I thought a link
 to one of his lesser-known tracks was in order.

Page was a session guitarist when he worked with Johnny Hallyday for the track À tout casser, which featured on Hallyday's 1968 collection Jeune Homme. It was written by Hallyday, Georges Aber and Mick Jones, who later went on to success in the band Foreigner.

The song originally featured on a film of the same name.

Jimmy Page was one of London's most celebrated session guitarists from 1962-1969, in the later years doing session work alongside his time in the Yardbirds.

Page previously featured on Hallyday's track Psychedelic, released the previous year, Hallyday seemingly having an ear for what was going in in the wildly energetic music scene of the late 60s.

What's particularly interesting about his work with Hallyday is that the guitar work is so distinctively that of Jimmy Page, and clearly establishing the groundwork for what Page would do the following decade.

Now if only Hallyday had been recruited as vocalist for Page's New Yardbirds the history of Rock 'n' Roll would have been very different indeed.

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