Although Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page are often remembered for their heavy songs, powerful guitar riffs, and solos, they also embraced acoustic music throughout a significant part of their discography. The British guitarist’s interest in the acoustic guitar grew throughout the 60s and 70s, and he began incorporating Folk Rock influences into Zeppelin’s sound—something that vocalist Robert Plant also greatly appreciated.
There is one acoustic guitarist in particular who was Page’s main influence, and he revealed that this musician is his all-time favorite in that category.
The acoustic guitarist Jimmy Page said is his favorite of all time
The acoustic guitarist that inspired Jimmy Page the most and is his favorite one is the Scottish musician Bert Jansch, who besides having a praised solo career also was a member of the influential band Pentangle. “I was really listening to acoustic guitarists like Bert Jansch. He’s my all time favourite. I was listening to that more than anything and that’s what I play a lot of at home. I would really like to develop the acoustic guitar into something much better. The finger style not like Crosby, Still & Nash,” he said in an interview with Music Express in 1970.
Page has always been a huge fan of the late Jansch and once even said that he was obsessed in the 60s with his guitar playing. “At one point I was completely obsessed with Bert Jansch. When I heard that first LP, I couldn’t believe it. It was so far ahead of what anyone else was doing,” Page said as mentioned by Record Collector.
Zeppelin’s “Black Mountain Side” was inspired by a Jansch song
The album Page was referring to was Jansch’s self-titled debut, released in 1965. But it was “Jack Orion”, Bert’s third solo studio album, which had the instrumental piece “Black Waterside”. His version of the traditional Folk song inspired the Led Zeppelin guitarist and that can be heard in the similarity of some parts of “Black Mountain Side”, from Zeppelin’s first album, with that song.
A few years later, Page admitted that he wasn’t very original in that song. In an interview with Steve Rosen in 1977 he mentioned Jansch’s song. “I wasn’t totally original on that. It had been done in the folk clubs a lot. Annie Briggs was the first one that I heard do that riff. I was playing it as well, and then there was Bert Jansch’s version.”
“He’s the one who crystallized all the acoustic playing, as far as I’m concerned. Those first few albums of his were absolutely brilliant. And the tuning on ‘Black Mountain Side’ is the same as ‘White Summer’. It’s taken a bit of battering, that Danelectro guitar, I’m afraid,” Jimmy Page said.
What Bert Jansch said about influencing Jimmy Page
The two musicians finally had the chance to meet each other face to face only in 1996 and Jansch praised Page a few times over the years. “He’s a very good acoustic player… I don’t think there’s anything schizophrenic about Led Zeppelin playing acoustic music or using traditional tunes.”
“In those days, everybody was trying to put different sounds together. Davy Graham probably started those fusions. He was very into Eastern music and when he started, crossed it with the Blues. Jimmy Page was doing a similar thing,” Bert Jansch said as reported by Record Collector.
Some of Jimmy Page’s favorite Bert Jansch songs
Jimmy Page had the chance to see Jansch playing live in 1965 right after his second album “It Don’t Bother Me” was released. One of the main reasons why Page liked him this much was because he considered Bert “more adventurous and complicated in his technique”.
Two songs of the musicians’ career that Page considered to be good examples of complexity and weird timings were “Alice’s Wonderland” and “Finches, both tracks from his debut album. Bert Jansch really impressed me very greatly. His first album particularly is just great from beginning to end,” Jimmy Page said.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1943, Bert Jansch started his musical career in 1965. He was very prolific as a songwriter, releasing 28 studio albums until his death in 2011 at the age of 67. His final solo album was “The Black Swan”, released in 2006.
Jansch was a member of Pentangle from 1968 to 1973, returning from 1981 to 1995 and reuniting with them in 2009 and 2011. Other artists who were also influenced by him are Donovan, Paul Simon, Neil Young and Mike Oldfield.
