Dr. Jimmy Page | Berklee Honoree Working Into Playing Shape
By Scott Bernstein May 21, 2014 • 6:20 am PDT
More than 4,000 guests packed the Agganis Arena in Boston today for Berklee’s 2014 commencement. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page was among those presented with honorary doctor of music degrees and gave the commencement address. Today’s award comes just after Page told Rolling Stone he’s ready to re-ignite his solo career. It’s been 16 years since the release of an album filled with original material from the mysterious guitarist -the 1998 Page/Plant LP Walking Into Clarksdale, but Page seems ready to get himself back into “playing shape.”
Earlier today Page threw away the speech he had planned for the Berklee graduates and instead decided to speak from the heart. “What a spirit there is here,” Jimmy began. “Music has so much power across so many avenues, to be in a position to do the thing you’re best at, which is making music, and bringing joy and pleasure to other people, it can’t be much better than that. I wish to pass that on to all of you. Congratulations with your degrees and lots of success in the future.”
Now that Page has finished his work on the Led Zeppelin remasters, Page is ready to focus on himself. “I’m an unusual character in the music business. How many people do you speak with that say they only have one solo album?” Jimmy told Rolling Stone’s Andy Greene. As hard as it is to believe, Page doesn’t usually spend all that much time with an axe in hand. “I play guitar at least once a week, but now that the Zeppelin project is finished, I’ll be playing daily for the foreseeable future. I want to get myself back into playing shape. I’m a bit of a perfectionist about these things,” Page revealed.
The guitarist isn’t at a lack for new songs, “I’ve got lots of material I’ve written on acoustic guitar, lots and lots. And right now I need to get myself up to speed, and that won’t take too long. But I don’t know what musicians I’d play with. I do have material and a passion for it. I need to work towards it, and now I can without all the other side issues going on,” Jimmy said. Page isn’t opposed to appearing on stage either, “At this moment, it’s safe to say that I haven’t been playing gigs. I’ve been doing this Zeppelin project, but now I intend to start getting to a point where I could play some gigs. But what those gigs are going to be, I don’t know yet. I have ideas of what I want to do, but they’re pretty complex. I would love to play live again. I love playing live. It’s wonderful.” And we would love for the newly-crowned Doctor Page to play live again, so let’s do this!
