Led Zeppelin - feat. Jimmy Page:

Jimmy Page: guitar
Robert Plant: vocals
John Paul Jones: bass
John 'Bonzo' Bonham: drums

Heavy metal pioneers. Founded in 1968. First tour in October 1968 as the New Yardbirds since Jimmy Page had legal rights to the name of 'his' previous group, The Yardbirds.
First album "Led Zeppelin" pictured above issued in February 1969 under group's new name. The group was hugely successful and finally sold over 50 million records.

Jimmy Page was a busy session guitarist before joining the Yardbirds. His inventive guitar licks were said to adorn many pop hit singles of the day - although the proper lead guitarists of the groups in question sometimes refuted this vehemently.

When he felt like adopting the role, Jimmy Page was also a brilliant blues guitarist, squeezing beautiful blue notes out of a psychedelically painted Tele or a precious '59 Les Paul. Many Led Zep songs were thinly disguised blues classics, played and sung with impressive dynamics. The use of dynamics was a trademark of Led Zep's.

According to an interview in 'Guitar Player Magazine' of July '77, Page recorded first album with a Telecaster and a small Supro amp. Same equipment incidentally as on the track 'Stairway to Heaven' from the fourth album.

Links:

Click for 'Led Zeppelin - Electric Magic': an excellent web site!

"Manic Nirvana": Robert Plant + Led Zep pages