Feature Photo: Bart Sherkow / Shutterstock.com
When Led Zeppelin broke up after John Bonham’s death, Jimmy Page faced the reality that any new vocalist he would ever work with would forever be compared to the legendary Robert Plant. There was simply no way around it. Led Zeppelin’s sound was so unique and powerfully defined by four individuals that losing any member would prove too difficult for the band to survive. Robert Plant understood that more than Page and Jones, or at least that is what we have been led to believe. In the post-Led Zeppelin era, Jimmy Page released music sparingly. The most consistent project that Jimmy Page became involved with was with his band, The Firm. It was a group that recorded two albums and featured the vocals of Paul Rogers. Any old-time Led Zeppelin fan is familiar with The Firm. Led Zeppelin fans salivated for anything Jimmy Page. The albums were enjoyable, but that Paul Rogers vocal sound that lit up the Bad Company and Free records only lasted two albums with Page.
Read More: Chris Slade Of The Firm Interview
The Page / Coverdale sessions unleashed another fun record, but the Plant/Coverdale comparisons were ridiculed by many. Robert Plant was even known to make fun of Coverdale. The ribbing aside, the Page/Coverdale record did feature some great guitar work by Page, some great song hooks, and amazing vocal performances by David Coverdale. It was a great album!
Read More: David Coverdale Interview
The one excellent Jimmy Page record that most Led Zeppelin fans enjoyed was Jimmy Page’s only solo record entitled Outrider. The Outrider album was released in 1988 and featured various vocal tracks and instrumentals. Robert Plant appeared on the track “My Only One,” while John Miles handled vocal duties on the record’s other two vocal tracks. The album’s opening number, “Wasting My Time,” was easily the album’s standout track. It was also, in our opinion, the best rock song Jimmy Page wrote and recorded since the breakup of Led Zeppelin in 1980.
John Miles never hit it big in the United States but enjoyed tremendous success in the United Kingdom. John Miles was a well-respected artist with an extensive catalog of pop-rock music that sold very well in Europe. In John Miles, Jimmy Page found the perfect singer to record with outside Robert Plant. John Miles was no Robert Plant imitator, yet his vocal range was ideally suited to match the vocal styling that Jimmy Page utilized during his work with Plant in Led Zeppelin.
“Wasting My Time,” featured a ‘to die for,’ Led Zeppelin style hook that Page repeated brilliantly with minuscule variations throughout the song. Those legendary Jimmy Page guitar slides punctuated the verse changes in tribute to his work with Zeppelin. John Miles’s vocals on the track defined a perfect balance of 80’s style bombast with an authentic blues-infused phrasing that made listeners wish the singer had sung on more than just two of the album tracks.
Unfortunately, since Led Zeppelin had broken up less than ten years before, anything that Jimmy Page did outside of Led Zeppelin was never really given a chance. There was always a backlash against the work that Jimmy Page did without Robert Plant, and so the great track “Wasting My Time” was often overlooked. Take another listen. If you missed it the first time, give it another chance.
Why “Wasting My Time” Was Jimmy Page’s Best Post Led Zeppelin Song article published on Classic RockHistory.com© 2024
Classicrockhistory.com claims ownership of all its original content and Intellectual property under United States Copyright laws and those of all other foreign countries. No one person, business, or organization is allowed to re-publish any of our original content anywhere on the web or in print without our permission. All photos used are either supplied by the artists, public domain Creative Commons photos, or licensed officially from Shutterstock under license with ClassicRockHistory.com.
