For all of his celebrated genius within Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page has offered precious few opportunities to enjoy his flinty creativity outside of it. There’s been, to date, just a single solo album — and it arrived during Reagan’s second administration.
Page has, of course, found varying degrees of success returning to collaborative situations, notably with Paul Rodgers, members of Yes, David Coverdale and even his old bandmate Robert Plant. But where is his definitive solo statement? Thirty five years after Led Zeppelin died with John Bonham, we’re still waiting.
Completist fans have had to seek out the odd Jimmy Page soundtrack recording — 1982’s Death Wish II and the belatedly released Lucifer Rising, which finally arrived in 2012. The aptly named “A Minor Sketch” illustrates both the enduring intrigue and the sad frustration with those pursuits, as the brevity and/or incidental nature of this movie-score concept inevitably dashes our larger hopes.
It’s why Page’s legacy outside of those long-ago Led Zeppelin triumphs has become a scattered, half-remembered tale over the ensuring years. You want to shake something loose, some larger truth about what Page still has to offer, from these ever-so-brief, often meandering bursts of music making, but it’s almost impossible.
That won’t stop us from trying, of course, even as Jimmy Page prepares an expanded version of his late-1970s/early-1980s film work called Sound Tracks. Due in March, the four-disc project will also include additional music not included on the original albums, meant to give us — as the Led Zeppelin reissue boxes have recently done — a more complete idea of Page’s creative process.
The only question I’d love to hear answered, really explored, is what happened to Jimmy Page. A long-awaited new solo album is being promised, just as it has been before. Until then, we’re left with table scraps from a feast that’s somehow never been served.
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