Jimmy Page – Elvis Presley – Split(Credits: Far Out / Dana Wullenwaber / Ollie Atkins)
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Jimmy Page on why Elvis Presley should be considered a “visionary genius”
Lauren Hunter
Fri 9 May 2025 5:00, UK
In its infancy, rock and roll well and truly moved at the speed of light. In many ways, that’s just what it had to do in order to truly make a mark on the music scene, but when you consider that Elvis Presley and Jimmy Page were treading the boards of the industry only a decade apart, it’s mind-blowing to think how quickly the fashions changed from acoustic crooning into a full scale electric storm.
But, of course, there is absolutely no denying that rock music and all its blazing offshoots would never have come to be if it were not for Presley in the first place, sticking his neck out on the line to deliver a taste of intoxicating new horizons. No matter what came next, every rocker who strolled onto the scene afterwards would forever be at his service.Despite being almost terrifyingly prolific and influential in his own right, it’s worth remembering that Page was really no different when it came to his worship of the King. Yet having started from his own humble beginnings, learning the guitar by his own graft and fine-tuning, the future Led Zeppelin frontman could perhaps always sense a kind of relatable kinship to Presley in how they both came to take their respective places in the world, all of which was never pulled so sharply into focus than when he ventured to the star’s native Mississippi.
In 2019, Page reflected on his seminal visit to Presley’s homeland by writing on Instagram: “In 1998, I played at Tupelo, where Elvis was born and raised, when there were no local attractions apart from the cotton fields or getting to Memphis.” This notion of pining to ‘get out’ of where you came from was entirely pertinent to the guitarist – his musical ambitions were steadfast from an early age, but nevertheless it took a lot of odd jobs and bumming around before he eventually took the leap of faith to form Led Zeppelin and, in many respects, Presley was not dissimilar.Recognising all the musical prowess and tenacity it took to channel this into something worth turning heads for, Page continued in his post: “When Elvis grew up it must have been pretty bleak but the white and black picked the cotton side by side and the local indigenous music provided the soundtrack to this tough environment. So it took the visionary genius of Elvis to blend those musical sources and change the world.”
In an age of blatant discrimination and segregation, Page is right in asserting that Presley possessed some unquantifiable power in combining even the toughest of forces to produce a whole new sonic world, bridging together the musical conventions of the past with an eye to the future that made rock and roll the blazing, visionary, and everlasting genre it went on to become. There’s no question that this would have been an unshakable elixir for young protégés like Page, who simply watched on in awe, and then very quickly wanted to jump on the bandwagon.
In many ways, it’s vital that the world’s greatest rock exports are still so reverential of Presley, the King, as he more or less bestowed every other god of the genre’s career upon them. Of course, Page is just one in a long line, but it’s still clear that Led Zeppelin would never have come to be if Presley hadn’t taken the leap to Memphis all those years before.
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