Some 60 years ago, an English singer named Neil Christian recorded the lone hit of his career with \u2018That\u2019s Nice\u2019, a top 20 UK single in 1966. Christian is far better known in rock \u2018n\u2019 roll lore, however, as the frontman for Neil Christian and the Crusaders, the band that plucked a teenage\u00a0Jimmy Page\u00a0out of obscurity to be their lead guitarist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the 2009 biography Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man<\/em>, Christian first heard about the 15-year-old Page via word-of-mouth. A few friends \u201chad seen this kid get up with this amateur band in the Epsom hall\u201d, Christian recalled. \u201cThey started doing this Jerry Lee Lewis number and it was damn good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once Christian went and saw Jimmy for himself a few weeks later, \u201cI knew the boy had something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time, around the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960, Christian was merely the manager for a London band called Red E Lewis and the Redcaps. Shortly after recruiting Page to start jamming with the Redcaps, though, Christian personally took over for the band\u2019s original singer, William Stubbs (AKA Reddy Lewis), and re-named the band Neil Christian and the Crusaders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Crusaders\u00a0took themselves seriously and wanted to make a mark in London\u2019s growing rock scene, but Christian knew that Page, who only turned 16 in January of 1960, might not be a reliable member of the group so long as his parents still had a say over his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Page confirmed in a separate interview that Christian had essentially sweet-talked his folks, but he considered it \u201cquite a courteous thing to do\u201d, and quite an impressive thing, as well, considering Christian was barely 17 years old himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was tailored in the mould to do what all young lads do, which was to go through school and pass exams,\u201d Page said. \u201c[Christian] reassured my parents and said he\u2019d keep a watchful eye on the young lad, and anyway the gigs were at weekends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christian also sweetened the pot by promising that young Jimmy would be paid his first proper wages as a musician, a solid 15 pounds per week, which equates to about 300 pounds after inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so, with his parents somewhat reluctantly and cautiously on board, Jimmy Page briefly became \u201cNelson Storm,\u201d the new guitarist for Neil Christian and the Crusaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was an important, formative period for Page, playing mostly classic \u201850s style rock to small crowds and developing his chops. This was not, in any fashion, a sneak preview of the sort of fame and glamour that awaited him by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n