Few guitarists have left a mark on rock music quite like Jimmy Page. From the moment Led Zeppelin emerged, his hard-hitting, blues-infused riffs set the standard for what a rock guitar should sound like. Every aspiring guitarist has tried to capture the magic of his playing at some point, but according to Page himself, one riff stands above the rest—not just for its power but for its undeniable, infectious quality.
Before forming Led Zeppelin, Page was already a seasoned musician. A teenage skiffle and rockabilly enthusiast, he spent the early ‘60s as one of the most in-demand session guitarists in Britain. His playing can be heard on everything from Petula Clark’s Downtown to early recordings by The Who. But it was his time with The Yardbirds that truly set him on the path to creating one of rock’s most groundbreaking bands.
By the time Zeppelin’s self-titled debut was released in 1969, Page had already cemented himself as a riff machine. But it was the band’s second album that would feature what he later described as one of his most compelling guitar parts—the riff to Whole Lotta Love.
“I came up with the guitar riff for Whole Lotta Love in the summer of ’68, on my houseboat along the Thames in Pangbourne, England,” Page told The Wall Street Journal.
The riff itself is deceptively simple, yet it became one of the most recognizable sounds in rock history. In Page’s words, it was initially inspired by old-school rockabilly intros, but it quickly took on a life of its own. “I suppose my early love for big intros by rockabilly guitarists was an inspiration, but as soon as I developed the riff, I knew it was strong enough to drive the entire song, not just open it,” he said.
When he finally played it for the band, the reaction was immediate. “When I played the riff for the band in my living room several weeks later during rehearsals for our first album, the excitement was immediate and collective,” he recalled. “We felt the riff was addictive, like a forbidden thing.”
That excitement translated directly into the recording, which would become the explosive opener for Led Zeppelin II. More than 50 years later, Whole Lotta Love remains one of the most iconic rock songs of all time—proof that sometimes, the simplest riffs are the ones that stick with you forever.
