Editing Jimmy Page (section)

== Early life ==
Page was born to James Patrick Page and Patricia Elizabeth Gaffikin in the west London suburb of [[Heston]] on 9 January 1944.{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=19}} His father was a personnel manager at a plastic-coatings plant{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=19}} and his mother, who was of Irish descent,{{sfn|Case|2007|p=5}} was a doctor's secretary. In 1952, they moved to [[Feltham]], and then to Miles Road, [[Epsom]], in Surrey.{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=19}} Page was educated from the age of eight at Epsom County Pound Lane Primary School, and when he was eleven he went to Ewell County Secondary School in [[Ewell|West Ewell]].{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=20}} He came across his first guitar, a Spanish guitar,{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=20}} in the Miles Road house: "I don't know whether [the guitar] was left behind by the people [in the house] before [us], or whether it was a friend of the family's—nobody seemed to know why it was there."<ref>[[Charles Shaar Murray]], "The Guv'nors", ''[[Mojo magazine|Mojo]]'', August 2004, p. 67.</ref> First playing the instrument when aged 12,<ref name=PP75>{{cite magazine|last=Crowe|first=Cameron|author-link=Cameron Crowe|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-durable-led-zeppelin-19750313|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110712104446/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-durable-led-zeppelin-19750313|url-status=dead|archive-date=12 July 2011|title=The Durable Led Zeppelin|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|date=13 March 1975|access-date=16 December 2012}}</ref> he took a few lessons in nearby [[Kingston upon Thames|Kingston]], but was largely self-taught:

<blockquote>When I grew up there weren't many other guitarists&nbsp;... There was one other guitarist in my school who actually showed me the first chords that I learned and I went on from there. I was bored so I taught myself the guitar from listening to records. So obviously it was a very personal thing.<ref name="NPRPage">{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1283481|title=Guitar Legend Jimmy Page|work=[[NPR]]|date=2 June 2003|access-date=16 December 2012}}</ref></blockquote>

This "other guitarist" was a boy called Rod Wyatt, a few years his senior, and together with another boy, Pete Calvert, they would practise at Page's house; Page would devote six or seven hours on some days to practising and would always take his guitar with him to secondary school,{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|pp=21–22}} only to have it confiscated and returned to him after class.{{Sfn|Kendall|1981|p=11}} 
Among Page's early influences were [[rockabilly]] guitarists [[Scotty Moore]] and [[James Burton]], who both played on recordings made by [[Elvis Presley]].<ref name="Hunter2012">{{cite book|author=Dave Hunter|title=The Fender Telecaster: The Life and Times of the Electric Guitar That Changed the World|date=15 October 2012|publisher=Voyageur Press|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=7sFrOQv9I5kC}} |isbn=978-0-7603-4138-4 |pages=142– }}</ref> Presley's song "[[Baby Let's Play House]]" is cited by Page as being his inspiration to take up the guitar,<ref name="JPinterview">{{cite web|last=Rosen|first=Steven|url=http://www.modernguitars.com/archives/003340.html|title=1977 Jimmy Page Interview|work=Modern Guitars|date=25 May 2007 <!--originally published in the July 1977 issue of "Guitar Player" magazine-->|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110105123043/http://www.modernguitars.com/archives/003340.html|archive-date=5 January 2011|access-date=16 December 2012}}</ref> and he would reprise Moore's playing on the song in the live version of "[[Whole Lotta Love]]" on ''[[The Song Remains the Same (film)|The Song Remains the Same]]''.{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=21}} He appeared on [[BBC1]] in 1957 with a [[Höfner]] President acoustic, which he'd bought from money saved up from his [[Milkman#Delivery|milk round]] in the summer holidays and which had a pickup so it could be amplified,{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|pp=25–26}} but his first solid-bodied electric guitar was a second-hand 1959 [[Jolana (guitar brand)|Futurama Grazioso]], later replaced by a [[Fender Telecaster]],<ref name="Schulps">{{cite journal|last=Schulps|first=Dave|url=http://www.iem.ac.ru/zeppelin/docs/interviews/page_77.trp|title=Interview with Jimmy Page|journal=[[Trouser Press]]|issue=October 1977|access-date=16 December 2012|archive-date=20 August 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110820054853/http://www.iem.ac.ru/zeppelin/docs/interviews/page_77.trp|url-status=dead}}</ref> a model he had seen [[Buddy Holly]] playing on the TV and a real-life example of which he'd played at an electronics exhibition at the [[Earls Court Exhibition Centre]] in London.{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=30}}

Page's musical tastes included [[skiffle]] (a popular English music genre of the time) and acoustic folk playing, and the blues sounds of [[Elmore James]], [[B.B. King]], [[Otis Rush]], [[Buddy Guy]], [[Freddie King]], and [[Hubert Sumlin]].<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite journal|url=http://www.iem.ac.ru/zeppelin/docs/interviews/page_93.gw|title=Interview with Jimmy Page|journal=[[Guitar World]]|issue=May 1993|access-date=17 December 2012|archive-date=7 August 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807201650/http://www.iem.ac.ru/zeppelin/docs/interviews/page_93.gw|url-status=dead}}</ref> "Basically, that was the start: a mixture between rock and blues."<ref name="JPinterview" />

At the age of 13, Page appeared on [[Huw Wheldon]]'s ''[[All Your Own]]'' talent quest programme in a skiffle quartet, one performance of which aired on BBC1 in 1957.<ref name="Calef2013">{{cite book|author=Scott Calef|title=Led Zeppelin and Philosophy: All Will Be Revealed|date=21 August 2013|publisher=Open Court|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=Ozfg785V0E4C}} |isbn=978-0-8126-9776-6 |pages=125– }}</ref> The group played "Mama Don't Want to Skiffle Anymore" and another American-flavoured song, "In Them Ol' Cottonfields Back Home".<ref>{{cite book|author=Martin Power|title=Hot Wired Guitar: The Life of Jeff Beck|date=10 Nov 2014|publisher=Omnibus Press|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=w5egBAAAQBAJ}} |isbn=978-1-78323-386-1|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=w5egBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT47 47]}}</ref> When asked by Wheldon what he wanted to do after schooling, Page said, "I want to do biological research [to find a cure for] cancer, if it isn't discovered by then."<ref name="Calef2013" />

In an interview with ''[[Guitar Player]]'' magazine, Page stated that "there was a lot of [[Street performance|busking]] in the early days, but as they say, I had to come to grips with it and it was a good schooling."<ref name="JPinterview" /> When he was fourteen, and billed as James Page, he played in a group called Malcolm Austin and Whirlwinds, alongside Tony Busson on bass, Stuart Cockett on rhythm and a drummer named Tom, playing [[Chuck Berry]] and [[Jerry Lee Lewis]] numbers. This band was short-lived, as Page soon found a drummer for a band he'd previously been playing in with Rod Wyatt, David Williams and Pete Calvert, and came up with a name for them: The Paramounts.{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|pp=29–32}} The Paramounts played gigs in Epsom, once supporting a group who would later become [[Johnny Kidd & the Pirates]].{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=33}}

Although interviewed for a job as a laboratory assistant, he ultimately chose to leave secondary school in West Ewell to pursue music,{{Sfn|Kendall|1981|p=11}} doing so at the age of fifteen – the earliest age permitted at the time – having gained four [[GCE Ordinary Level (United Kingdom)|GCE O levels]] and on the back of a major row with the school Deputy Head Miss Nicholson about his musical ambitions, about which she was wholly scathing.{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=34}}

Page had difficulty finding other musicians with whom he could play on a regular basis. "It wasn't as though there was an abundance. I used to play in many groups&nbsp;... anyone who could get a gig together, really."<ref name="Schulps"/> Following stints backing recitals by [[Beat Generation|Beat]] poet [[Royston Ellis]] at the [[Mermaid Theatre]] between 1960 and 1961,{{sfn|Case|2007|p=294}} and singer Red E. Lewis, who'd seen him playing with the Paramounts at the Contemporary club in Epsom and told his manager Chris Tidmarsh to ask Page to join his backing band, the Redcaps, after the departure of guitarist Bobby Oats,{{sfn|Salewicz|2018|p=32}} Page was asked by singer [[Neil Christian]] to join his band, the Crusaders. Christian had seen a fifteen-year-old Page playing in a local hall,<ref name="Schulps"/> and the guitarist toured with Christian for approximately two years and later played on several of his records, including the 1962 single, "The Road to Love".<ref name="SchinderSchwartz2008">{{cite book|author1=Scott Schinder|author2=Andy Schwartz|title=Icons of Rock: Velvet Underground; The Grateful Dead; Frank Zappa; Led Zeppelin; Joni Mitchell; Pink Floyd; Neil Young; David Bowie; Bruce Springsteen; Ramones; U2; Nirvana|year=2008|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=CzWE_J3ZZfoC}}|isbn=978-0-313-33847-2|page=381}}</ref>

During his stint with Christian, Page fell seriously ill with [[infectious mononucleosis|glandular fever]] and could not continue touring.<ref name="Schulps" /> While recovering, he decided to put his musical career on hold and concentrate on his other love, painting, and enrolled at Sutton Art College in Surrey.<ref name="allmusicpage" /> As he explained in 1975:

{{blockquote|[I was] travelling around all the time in a bus. I did that for two years after I left school, to the point where I was starting to get really good bread. But I was getting ill. So I went back to art college. And that was a total change in direction. That's why I say it's possible to do. As dedicated as I was to playing the guitar, I knew doing it that way was doing me in forever. Every two months I had glandular fever. So for the next 18 months I was living on ten dollars a week and getting my strength up. But I was still playing.<ref name="PP75" />}}