Several rock guitarists have used a violin bow on their guitars, but none so famously as Jimmy Page. Page used a bow on Led Zeppelin’s “How Many More Times,” “In The Light” and most memorably, “Dazed And Confused.” (His bow-ing during the live version of that song from The Song Remains The Same is one of the highlights of the film.)
Page says that the origins of his guitar-bowing lie in his pre-Zeppelin, pre-Yardbirds days as a session musician. In this exclusive excerpt from the upcoming book, Light And Shade: Conversations With Jimmy Page, a collection of interviews with the six-string legend, he discusses getting turned on to the bow.
“When I was a session musician, I would often play with string sections. For the most part, the string players would keep to themselves, except for a guy who one day asked me if I ever thought of playing my guitar with a bow. I said I didn’t think it would work because the bridge of the guitar isn’t arched like it is on a violin or cello. But he insisted that I give it a try, and he gave me his bow. And whatever squeaks I made sort of intrigued me. I didn’t really start developing the technique for quite some time later, but he was the guy that turned me onto the idea.”
Page used the bow on a few Yardbirds songs: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor” and “Glimpses” from their 1967 album, Little Games, and then on Led Zeppelin’s 1969 self-titled debut (the aforementioned “Dazed And Confused” and “How Many More Times”). But he wasn’t the first British rock guitarist to take the bow to his axe: a year earlier, Eddie Phillips of The Creation did it on their classic garage rock nugget, “Making Time” (see the video here, Phillips whips out the bow at 1:39).
“Bow-ing” didn’t end with Zeppelin: on their huge (and very Zep-eque) 1987 hit “Still Of The Night,” Whitesnake guitarist John Sykes bowed the strings. Other acts to use the bow since then include Radiohead, Sonic Youth and Fleet Foxes.
