Jimmy Page Hits the Big 7-0: Celebrate With His Pre-Zep Session Guitarist Tracks

Happy birthday, Jimmy Page!

Jimmy came into this world on January 9, 1944 in Middlesex, England, and of course that was the day a legend of rock was born and the music world would never be the same.

Moment of silence please.

But though Page is of course the legendary axeman of Zeppelin, he played on hundreds (if not thousands) of records from 1963 to 1966 as a well-respected session musician on songs you might never imagine.

According to vh1.com:

Known for his diversity as well as his virtuosity, these tracks ran the gamut from hard-edged R&B, easy-listening Burt Bacharach standards, and Top 40 pop like “Downtown” by Petula Clark, “It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones, and even the James Bond theme “Goldfinger”!

He also played for future legends like the Who, the Kinks, Van Morrison and David Bowie.

Check out a plethora of bad-ass session work at vh1.com.

Meanwhile, Page says Led Zeppelin reissues will be released this year and he'll also be putting out some of his own archive material.

According to nme.com:

"It's good news for the New Year. The first of the Led Zeppelin releases - comprising of Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III and their companion discs - will be released this year. I've also been working on some of my own material from the archives that will be unleashed in 2014."

Happy birthday, Jimmy, and many more rockin' years!