Jim McCarty, former Yardbirds drummer, recently discussed which Jimmy Page aspects were superior to Jeff Beck’s guitar playing while talking with VRP Rocks.
McCarty first explained how Page and Beck had their different ways with guitar, saying:
“He [Page] was a very creative guy. He couldn’t play like Jeff. He wasn’t that creative like him, but, he worked it out and he thought things out. But Jeff really played the top of his head, in his own much spontaneous [way]. Jimmy was great at coming up with those little riffs… He came up with those in Led Zeppelin. He was the real riff king. That sort of rocks it up.”
Then, after stating that Page was better at ‘coming up with riffs,’ he also explained how the guitarists’ personalities affected the Yardbirds’ dynamics:
“The [bands’] dynamics when Jeff left were very good because Jeff was very moody and he was quite difficult to work with sometimes… You never knew what mood he was gonna be in. He took all his problems onto stage, he was very stressed and wound up.”
However, it seemed that with Jimmy, things were much better:
“Jimmy wasn’t like that… He was very relaxed and very sort of business-like. He used to play in the studio. So, the four-piece worked really well, but, [there] was [also] suffering because we didn’t have that chemistry. We went down the wrong road [and] did some horrible singles…”
You can watch the video below, if you wish, and learn more about McCarty’s days with Yardbirds.
