Fender instruments on Wednesday gave the public its first look at its
recreation of a Telecaster guitar that Page once painted with a dragon, a
long-lost piece of six-string history that marked the guitar hero’s
last days in the Yardbirds and first days in Led Zeppelin.
The
instrument with the psychedelic green-and-red serpent on its body
represents “a pivotal moment for the guitar and music,” said Paul
Waller, the master builder who worked side-by-side with Page to make him
a spot-on match of the guitar before making 50 more by hand to sell to
the public.
The reboot was hatched when Page was looking through
photographs for a book celebrating last year’s 50th anniversary of Led
Zeppelin. The dragon guitar, which he says was once his “Excalibur,”
kept popping up in them, and he started to think it was time to get past
his bitterness about its fate.
The 1959 Telecaster, pre-paint, had been a cherished gift from his fellow former Yardbird bandmate Jeff Beck.
“It was given to me with so much affection,” Page told The Associated
Press in October. “I really wanted to customize the instrument, almost
consecrate the instrument.”
Page first decorated it with mirrors, then pulled out poster paints and used his art-school skills to summon the dragon.
He would use the guitar to write and record songs like “Dazed and
Confused” for the first Led Zeppelin album, work as significant as any
in the history of the electric guitar.
But a clueless house-sitter,
not thinking much of Page’s painting, put his own mosaic artwork over
the dragon and presented it to Page as a gift. Page said it was all he
could do not to hit the guy over the head with it. Instead, he stripped
it bare and angrily threw it into storage, where it sat for 50 years.
The guitar-makers at Fender had thought about remaking the instrument
long before Page himself came forward, because of its historic
significance and as a way to claim for Fender a piece of Page, who among
guitar nerds is associated with rival Gibson guitars.
“A lot of
people were surprised to hear all of Led Zeppelin One was recorded on a
Telecaster, that’s kind of mind-blowing,” said Waller, who has been
building guitars since high school woodshop and whose creations have
included a Telecaster for Keith Richards and a fully functioning
Stratocaster made of cardboard.
Page wanted to recreate not just the
design, but the form, feel and sound of the original, so Waller went to
his house in London and the two took out the old guitar and took it
apart piece-by-piece so they could recreate each part for the rebuild.
“Best day at work ever,” Waller said.
Page even made a trip to Fender’s California plant — the rocker’s first
time inside a guitar factory — to inspect and help with the finished
products.
“All the employees lost their minds,” Waller said with a
laugh, “to watch somebody like Jimmy Page be totally enthralled with the
machinery and act like a kid and be taking pictures.”
The 75-year-old Page painted at least a stroke on each of the 50 instruments Waller built.
“He was adamant about applying paint to every one,” Waller said.
Fender is also selling assembly-line models of the guitar that are more
affordable than the many thousands the handmade ones are likely to
bring in.
Waller said he had been a bundle of nerves when the first
of the recreations was sent to Page in England, and was deeply relieved
when he heard back from Page that it was a dead ringer for his original.
“As soon as he opened the case he knew,” Waller said.
Page agreed, telling the AP that “If anything, the colors were just slightly richer,” reports agencies.