The guitar that helped John Paul Jones surpass Jimmy Page

Led Zeppelin - Jimmy Page - Robert Plant - John Paul Jones - John Bonham

(Credits: Far Out / Julio Zeppelin)

Monday October 21, 2024 6:30 p.m., United Kingdom

Jimmy Page’s double-neck guitar: it’s either the iconic Excalibur of England’s greatest guitar god, or an eye-rolling A-piece about the sad collapse of rock n’ roll into gaudy indulgence and naive. Regardless, the important thing to remember is that there were only two necks on the guitar. And it was very clearly a neckless guitar rather than one later used by Page’s bandmate John Paul Jones, the unsung king of the triple neck.

For far too long, generation after generation of devoted Led Zeppelin fans have covered their walls with life-size posters of Page and the double-neck while paying relatively little attention to Jones’ superior trio of keys. Why this lack of respect and favoritism? What did Page’s ax have that the bassist’s

You could say that when you add necks to a guitar, there’s a time when you’re being practical and innovative, and another time where you’re just trying to steal the show from your friend. They might cite Page as an example of the former and Jones, in theory, as a bitter and jealous case of the latter. But lest you think the members of the world’s biggest rock band would waste their energy on such a stupid, competitive pissing contest, rest assured that Page and Jones have always explained the growth of their instruments – for lack of a better term – as an inevitable necessity. of life on tour.

In Page’s case, as he reiterated Telerama magazine in 2014, the double neck was the only option if Zeppelin wanted their most popular new song to appear on the 1971 live setlist. “I thought the only way to reproduce it properly, to do it justice, was to get a guitar that gives you 12 strings on one neck, six strings on the other,” he said. “So I got the double neck following the recording of ‘Stairway to Heaven’.”

So it was only a happy accident that the custom double-neck Gibson EDS-1275 model that Page ordered for this job ended up looking like a mythical beast tamed by the coolest elf in Middle-earth. “It’s an impressive instrument,” admitted Page. Telerama. “It looks great. She is a sexy woman with two necks.

Of course, the only thing imaginable sexier than a woman with two necks is another woman nearby, on the other side of the stage, with even more necks! And so our attention returns to John Paul Jones, who, much like Page, was reluctantly forced to acquire his own multi-handled chrome siren due to the challenges of performing the complex songs of Led Zeppelin IV in a live setting. He eyed Page’s “woman” with his 12- and 6-string necks, and knew he had no choice but to up the ante. “I’m going to need a mandolin handle on mine!” he shouted to the sky.

If you want the real sequence of events, it was a talented luthier named Andy Manson who designed and built the triple neck. According to Manson’s own story, he did this without any direct incitement from John Paul Jones, based on jealousy. or otherwise.

“I had done some repairs and adjustments for John Paul Jones and was kindly given a free ticket to see Led Zeppelin,” recalls Manson. “I saw John play a 6-string, a 12-string and a mandolin in the same song, pick one up and put one down. I thought to myself, “too bad you can’t hang them all around your neck at once.” Light bulb on! I designed and made the triple collar and took it to John’s house. I said, “Hi John, I thought you might be interested.” He said: ‘Wow, yes indeed, I can’t wait to see Pagey’s face when I go on stage with this!’

OK, so maybe there was a bit of one-upmanship. Nevertheless, the triple neck came into regular use during Zeppelin’s 1977 tour and remains – if not as legendary as Page’s lesser model – a cult icon in its own right.