Hear Jimmy Page Rock Out on The Beatles' 'A Hard Day's Night' Film Score
Before he was a Led Zep, before he was a Yardbird, Jimmy Page was an incredibly busy London session guitarist with several notable production credits under his belt.
And we're not talking about long-forgotten recordings made under a flickering lightbulb in his cousin's basement; Page played on countless high-profile sessions, appearing on seminal tracks by the Who, Donovan, Joe Cocker, the Kinks and many more.
One thing he never did, however, is play on a Beatles song. That honor went to only a handful of non-Beatles, including (but not limited to) Billy Preston, Alan Civil, Beatles producer George Martin, the Rolling Stones' Brian Jones, good ol' Anil Bhagwat and, of course, Eric Clapton.
It turns out, however, that Page was involved in a seriously Beatles-related session in 1964; his guitar playing can be heard in the score for the band's first film, the hugely successful A Hard Day's Night.
According to a 7-year-old article by U.K. broadcaster Tony Barrell, Page would typically show up for a session "cold," as in, not knowing what he was going to play that day, exactly who had hired him, where and how the music would appear, etc. One day in early '64, he arrived at EMI Studios in London for a session led by George Martin. After examining the music, he quickly realized he was working on the score for A Hard Day’s Night.
In the article, we learn that Page played background guitar (not the lead guitar part) on "Ringo's Theme," which is simply an instrumental version of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's 1963 tune "This Boy." The performance is heard during the scene where Ringo Starr is trying to "get away from it all"; he travels alone along a river, runs around a bit, snaps a few photos and strikes up a short-lived friendship with a young “deserter.”
By: Damian Fanelli
Source: Guitar World
