JIMMY PAGE

(As a guitarist, Jimmy Page has all the bases covered. Clapton has that soaring fluid thing down pat, Beck is the absolute Crowned Prince of Flash and Hendrix . . . well, his feet never touched the ground when he was on. But Page . . . Page is solid.

If his rhythm work doesn’t quite have the manic flair of Townshend, it’s as close as dammit and when he solos it’s like a cluster of tiny volcanoes all timed to go off one directly after the other. Also there’sJhat arch sense of the hard rock dynamic for which Zeppelin still can’t be equalled.