Jimmy Page’s First Production Being Issued

The career paths of guitarist Jimmy Page and English vocalist Chris Farlowe have intersected at noteworthy intervals over the past 56 years. As a session musician, Page played guitar on several of Farlowe’s mid-60s sides for Immediate Records (including his number one UK rendition of The Rolling Stones’ “Out of Time”). Many years later, Farlowe sang on Page’s 1982 soundtrack to Death Wish II, and again on the Led Zep guitarist’s 1988 solo album Outrider.

But their association began way back in 1961, when a teenaged Page caught a gig by Farlowe and his early band The Thunderbirds. Page dug the group and offered to record a demo for them. Shortly afterward, they recorded a 12-song demo at London’s RG Jones Sound Studio, Page’s first official turn in the producer’s chair. A mix of incendiary instrumentals (powered by Bobby Taylor on guitar, Johnny Warne on bass and Johnny Wise on drums) and covers of rock and R&B classics of the time period such as Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” and Carl Perkins’ “Matchbox,” Chris Farlowe and The Thunderbirds: The Beginning… will be released to the public for the first time on April 30th. The single CD or LP is also available for very limited pre-order signed by both Page and Farlowe at JimmyPage.com.

“I’m really pleased to be able to make this musical document available for the first time,” notes Page, “to give an idea of the musical cauldron that was going on in London in 1961, a few years before the Chicago Blues renaissance and The Beatles.”