Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page recently spoke to The New York Times about "Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page", the 500-page collection of images that Page selected to represent his career, to be released on September 27th by Genesis Publications, a British company that specializes in lushly designed rock photo books.
When asked why he decided to to do this book, as opposed to a more traditional autobiography, Page said, "I've been approached to do an autobiography, but I thought that was the least attractive way of doing a book. So I thought it would be quite interesting to do a photographic autobiography. It's the story of a kid who's involved with music, but really the music involved itself with him. It's this conjoining of music and a teenager, and off it goes.
I thought that a career in pictures was really the best way to do it at this stage, but I wouldn't discount the idea of an autobiography. This is usually my defense: When publishing people say, 'How about writing a book?,' I say, 'Yes, I've thought about it, but I'd like a book that came out posthumously.' That's probably as good as it's going to get: this visual documentary, and then possibly, if I ever get around to it, doing a book that comes out posthumously."
Regarding whether it was his aim to correct the record and to present his own version of the story of Led Zeppelin, Page said, "No, I didn't think that was necessary. Everyone wants to know what happened here and there, and you've got so many people that come forward with explanations — people who give authoritative accounts who were never anywhere near the place. But there's only one thing as far as I'm concerned that remains constant and true, and that's the music. So if you want to use your imagination, please apply it to the music rather than things that maybe surrounded it.
As far as a pictorial record, you can certainly see a little bit behind the music, and you can make your own mind up. I'm not really coloring it too much with what annotations I've made. I didn't want to laden it with controversies. I just wanted the pictures to speak in a way that the music does."
Read the entire interview from The New York Times by clicking here.
