Led Zeppelin: The guitars are as much a part of their image as Robert Plant's blond cascade

Jimmy Page's guitars are as much a part of the Zep image as Robert Plant's blond cascade. Paul Alcantara tunes up

Sunburst Gibson Les Paul slung low around his neck, cigarette dangling from his lip, a youthful James Patrick Page closes his eyes and leans back as he unleashes the killer riff that kicks off "Black Dog"... From Robert Plant's howl to John Bonham's thunderous drum assault, Zeppelin's live performances were all about power. In the studio however, Jimmy Page and the bassist/keyboard player John Paul Jones employed a variety of instruments to create a soundscape far removed from the two-dimensional fare served up by many of the metal bands that followed in Zeppelin's wake. Besides the expected electric and acoustic guitars, Zep's albums are spiced up with banjos, mandolins, Mellotrons and even the occasional hurdy-gurdy.

Before joining The Yardbirds, Page had a busy career as a session player, appearing on recordings by such diverse artists as Them, Tom Jones, Marianne Faithfull, Donovan, The Kinks, Petula Clark and The Who. At this point, his instrument of choice was a black Gibson Les Paul Custom equipped with three humbucker pickups and a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece. The metal-capped knobs suggest that his was built in 1960/61.

Disenchanted with session work, Page joined Jeff Beck in The Yardbirds in 1966, initially playing bass. He switched to lead guitar using a late 1950s Fender Telecaster that Beck had given him. Though often described as a 1958 model, Page's Tele has a rosewood fingerboard, a feature that was not applied to this model until 1959. Despite continuing to play the "Jeff Beck" Telecaster (which was used together with a tiny Supro amplifier to record the iconic solo to "Stairway to Heaven"), Page's preference throughout the Zeppelin years was for Gibson Les Pauls.

Though he had used a black Les Paul Custom while employed as a session player, Page now opted for the more flamboyant cherry sunburst Les Paul Standards that Gibson produced from mid-1958 through to 1960. Referred to by aficionados simply as a Burst, this incarnation of the Gibson Les Paul has achieved mythic status, with everyone who was anyone in rock music playing one at the time. Today, their artist association and semi-mythical status means that original examples particularly those with a heavily flamed maple top can change hands for more than the price of a small house in Leeds.

Page's first choice for stage and studio was a 1958 example (repairs to its headstock have obliterated the serial number, which makes it quite difficult to date). A second Sunburst Les Paul, this time a 1959 model, was given or sold to Page, depending on whose account of events you choose to believe, by Joe Walsh, who was a member of the James Gang, and, later The Eagles.

Perhaps the most visually striking guitar that Page played in Zeppelin was a Gibson EDS-1275 twin-neck, which he ordered so that he could perform the six-string and 12-string guitar parts from "Stairway" live on stage (the original recording had been made using the above mentioned Telecaster and a Fender Electric XII).

Sharing centre stage with Page's Gibsons was a humble Danelectro Model 3021. Reputedly assembled from the parts of two separate guitars, the instrument was used to perform such Zeppelin staples as "White Summer/Black Mountain Side", "Kashmir" and "In My Time Of Dying". Founded by Nat Daniel, the Danelectro Company specialised in entry-level guitars, the bodies of which were built from Masonite (a kind of hardboard) over a pine or poplar frame, a mode of construction more commonly found in cheap furniture. Pickups were encased in lipstick tubes bought wholesale from the cosmetics industry. Despite their inauspicious origins, Danelectros found favour with numerous rockers including Link Wray, Duane Eddy, John Entwistle of The Who, and Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett.

Like Page, John Paul Jones was an established arranger and session player long before Zeppelin. Content to let Page and Plant hog the limelight, his main squeeze was a classic early 1960s Fender Jazz bass. His other instruments included a 1950s Fender Precision and a late 1960s Fender Bass V. Various Alembic four- and eight-string basses were joined by a Gibson mandolin and even a triple-necked mandolin.