Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page nearly ruined classic Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre’s “Aqualung” solo. Martin was asked by Guitar Player if he’s ever discussed the story with Page.
“[Laughs] No, because he left before I finished. I’m sure he understood that when you’re out there doing something, you need to get on with it.
“The funny thing about the story is that Zeppelin had been in the studio, in the basement, for over a month working on ‘Led Zeppelin IV,’ and we’d never ever seen any of them.
“It just happened that the moment he chose to pop in was whilst I was recording that solo. I either had to put my guitar down and say ‘hi’ or carry on with the solo.”
He then discussed not getting co-writer credits, “It never bothered me. The songwriter, particularly in those days, was the guy who came up with the chords and the lyrics. Arranging was just something everybody did.
“I’d have hated to have been in a band where everybody was given their parts and that was basically what you had to play.
“With Tull, we all had a lot of freedom to come up with parts and ideas. Nobody would have ever produced a stopwatch and said, ‘That 10 seconds of music there was my idea.’ [Laughs]
“We were living a dream, playing in a successful band, and the money didn’t come into it, which is what talk about division of credits usually boils down to.
“We knew why people liked us, and a large part of that was because of Ian’s [Anderson, frontman] songs.”
