Before becoming an international rock star with Led Zeppelin, guitarist Jimmy Page played guitar in a band called Neil Christian & the Crusaders. However, Page fell ill while performing with Neil Christian & the Crusaders and decided to quit the band to enroll in art school. Based on Bob Spitz’s 2021 biography Led Zeppelin: the biographyart school gave Page a break from touring, but he still spends a lot of time playing guitar.
Jimmy Page left Neil Christian & the Crusaders to enroll in art school
As a teenager, Page joined Neil Christian & the Crusaders, and he toured extensively with the band. Due to the lackluster touring conditions, Page fell ill with mononucleosis and had to take a break.
The guitarist also realized that he was bored of touring with the band.
“The numbers we were doing were really irrelevant to the audience that came to hear us play,” Page said in Led Zeppelin: the biography. “It was just disheartening to go all the way to, say, Rushton or somewhere like that and find ten people doing a punch. In the end, it just didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so plug it in.
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Because of this, Page decided to leave the band and he enrolled at Sutton Art College near his parents’ house.
Jimmy Page played guitar while studying art
According Led Zeppelin: the biography, Sutton Art College was a calming place. Students were not required to submit a portfolio for admission, and there were no required courses for students.
Colin Golding, another guitarist and friend of Page, said in the biography: “There was a very relaxed atmosphere. And while you were in art school, someone invariably started a band.
It turns out there were several up-and-coming musicians at the art school in the area, and Spitz called the art school “an incubator for rock ‘n roll.”
Rolling Stones member Keith Richards attended Sidcup Art College, guitarist Eric Clapton attended Kingston School of Art, and Beatles member John Lennon attended Liverpool College of Art for a time.
“There were plenty of people playing guitar there,” Richards said in Led Zeppelin: the biography. “It was a kind of guitar workshop.”
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Jimmy Page joined Neil Christian & the Crusaders
Due to the relaxed structure of Sutton Art College, Page was able to find more balance with his guitar playing. According to Spitz’s biography, he joined a “pickup blues band” with Cyril Davies and played weekly.
Eventually Page returned to Neil Christian & the Crusaders to record the band’s single “The Road to Love”.
“We didn’t play on the slopes. Session musicians did it,” Page said in Led Zeppelin: the biography.
However, Spitz reports in the biography that “while producer Norrie Paramor scrubbed the Crusaders’ bass and drum tracks in favor of professional players, he left Jimmy’s guitar untouched.”
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