“A Real Learning Curve”: Robert Plant Remembers His First Impression of Future Bandmate Jimmy Page

Some rock ‘n’ roll partnerships are so serendipitous that one might assume a heavenly chorus of overdriven guitars and wailing vocals must have started playing when the musicians first met. And while the first encounter between Robert Plant and Jimmy Page wasn’t quite as empyrean, it was still pretty special. The working relationship that came out of that first meeting would, in turn, be world-changing.

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The future guitarist of Led Zeppelin came to watch the band’s future vocalist in the late 1960s. Page was in a state of flux after his band, The Yardbirds, dissolved. Meanwhile, Plant was singing with a group called Obs-Tweedle, often incorrectly referred to as Hobbstweedle.

Up until that point, the two musicians had very different professional backgrounds. Page had been working as a session player for years before joining The Yardbirds. Plant, on the other hand, was more involved in the live music circuit. Their personalities reflected these contrasting histories, too. Nevertheless, something clicked.

Robert Plant and Jimmy Page Knew the Other Had Something Special

Speaking to Uncut in 2008, Robert Plant recalled his first impressions of meeting Jimmy Page that fateful day. “I remember it very clearly,” he said. “[Page] was very reserved, very polite, slightly withdrawn, and definitely it was evident to me that he didn’t have the common touch and probably didn’t need it. Even though I was hot and pretty self-confident, Jimmy, with all his sort of quietude, he had a great advantage. I felt immediately this was a different kind of guy to anybody I’d met before. I was brash and bullish, and he was very retiring. And as much as I was tactile, he was quite the opposite.”

Page noticed some differences between himself and Plant as well. After hearing Plant sing, the guitarist started to wonder why the vocalist hadn’t made a bigger name for himself. He began theorizing what sort of personality trait or shoddy work ethic must have kept Plant from reaching the next level of personal success. When the pair finally met at Page’s home to discuss the prospects of working together further, Page didn’t find anything displeasing about Plant.

The opposite was also true, although it would seem that Plant was more intimidated than Page might have been. Plant told Uncut, “I was welcomed into Jimmy’s home and immediately realized that his interests and the whole landscape of his music and his life was very broad and pretty esoteric. And I just couldn’t believe it. I just thought, ‘God’ — quietly to myself — ‘this is going to be a real learning curve.’”

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