This Guitar Kills (60's Groups & Sessions)

Before Jimmy Page rose to guitar godhood with the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin, he was England's premier session guitar player. His presence on a song pretty much guarantees a scorching guitar break that lifts the song up at least one notch and sometimes vaults it straight into the atmosphere. This Guitar Kills: More 60s Groups & Sessions is a follow-up to Castle's 2000 collection Hip Young Guitar Slinger & His Heavy Friends and features Page's work with a wide range of artists. The first disc covers the years 1962 to 1964 and is dominated by the wispy British Invasion and Brit blues sounds of Neil Christian, Dave Berry, Mickie Most & the Gear, and Mickey Finn & the Blue Men but also finds space for Page's work backing girl singers like Antoinette, Peggy Lee (whose powerful "Is It True" should have been a big hit), Louise Cordet, and Jackie DeShannon. There are also two great cuts by the Authetnics, "Without You" being a haunting beat ballad and "Climbing Through" a storming blues romp that finds Page uncharacteristically struggling to keep up with the wildness of the band he is sessioneering for. The second disc covers the years 1965 to 1968 and features Page in a wider (and stranger) range of settings: everything from the weird fusion of big-band jazz and rock rhythms of Bobby Graham to the nasty blues-pop of Dave Berry, the Talismen, and Heinz & the Wild Boys, the wall of sunshine pop of Kenny & Deny, the girl-group sounds of Vashti and Marianne Faithful, and his appearance on a great Pretty Things track, the chiming "You Must Believe Me." Weirdest of all have to be the easy listening orchestral selections by Burt Bacharach & His Orchestra, the Larry Page Orchestra, and the London Studio Group that feature Page's guitar doing subdued battle with a whole raft of string players. Hey, a guy has to eat. The disc rounds off with Page's appearance with Jeff Beck on the amazing "Beck's Bolero" and two very rare songs he cut with French rocker Johnny Hallyday: the trippy "Psychedelic" and the very funky "A Tout Casseer." The two discs are just the tip of the whirlwind that was Page in the '60s. It is a very fun listen because even if a song or singer is pretty rotten Page can save the song with his fleet-fingered, wildly imaginative approach. Not quite an essential listen, but Page fans and fans of the '60s British scene should be quite happy. [Castle issued a remastered edition in 2007.] ~ Tim Sendra|