“It wouldn’t look right”: The Keith Richards advice that would have changed Led Zeppelin forever
By the time the 1960s were drawing to a close, Jimmy Page needed a major change of scenery. Most people knew him as one of the premier guitarists for The Yardbirds, but as he would soon find out, playing nothing but the same bluesy shuffles in a desperate attempt to get on the radio was not something that he envisioned doing for the rest of his life. He needed to stretch, and while Led Zeppelin was a step in the right direction, Keith Richards couldn’t help but see some kinks in the armour with his guitar-slinging colleague.
Then again, no one was ever going to be able to stop Page from doing what he wanted to do. Even when Keith Moon said that Page’s idea for a group would go over about as well as a lead balloon, Page took it as the perfect description for his new outfit. And when listening to their first few albums, it’s not surprising that the band happened to pick a name that had something heavy and sturdy in the title.
From the moment that John Bonham hit his first drum hits on ‘Good Times Bad Times’, the band were already firing on all cylinders. Page was looking to be a supercharged version of what The Yardbirds were, and while he may have taken dubious notes from what Jeff Beck did a few months before him, it didn’t take him long to start going in different directions. Led Zeppelin III didn’t sound anything like Houses of the Holy, and by Physical Graffiti, Page became the definition of a guitar hero.
But Page was much more than the person who wowed behind the fretboard. He had full control in nearly every production that the band made, and even if they had people like Eddie Kramer behind the scenes working on their greatest tracks, he would play the production board like it was an instrument, getting the perfect tone for ‘When the Levee Breaks’ or making ‘No Quarter’ sound like it was emerging from the depths of the ocean.
“When Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards came to hear us play, Keith said, ‘You ought to get another guitarist. You’re rapidly becoming known as the most overworked guitarist in the business. Quite amusing.”
Jimmy Page
The Rolling Stones were certainly dark in their own way, but that always came from Richards putting grand arrangements around everything. Beggars Banquet was already a good showcase for what he could do on his own, but he knew that he could always count on Mick Taylor to be the one to fly off the handle when it came to crafting the perfect guitar solo moment for his elongated jams.
And while Page had both areas covered, he remembered Richards telling him that what he needed was a second guitarist to help fill out the sound, recalling, “When Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards came to hear us play, Keith said, ‘You ought to get another guitarist. You’re rapidly becoming known as the most overworked guitarist in the business. Quite amusing. There are times when I’d just love to get another guitarist on. But it just wouldn’t look right to the audience.”
That certainly would have been interesting to see, but also practical as well considering their lineup restrictions when playing live. No one can manage to play every guitar overdub in a live setting, and even though Page did his best to leave it all out onstage whenever he played, it was usually a good idea for him to have another player when working on tracks like ‘Ten Years Gone’, which wouldn’t meet the stage fully until he started working with The Black Crowes.
If we’re looking at it objectively, though, that guitarist would have only been needed for the stage show and nothing more. It could have been interesting getting someone equally as proficient in the band from the session scene like Larry Carlton or even another guitar star like Peter Frampton, but the minute that Page stepped onstage, there wasn’t anyone in that arena paying attention to anybody else but him.
