Jimmy did the simple things very well. The "Stairway to Heaven" solo is an intermediate, minor pentatonic level solo, but still a great solo. Not all great music is over complicated.
The DADGAD tuning I believe came originally from Davey Graham, and exploring alternate tunings was a central facet of British folk guitar. The open strings allow all kinds of opportunities you don't have with standard tuning. But the folk players were looking for something that specifically avoided what they had come to regard as "blues cliches," and a band like Fairport Convention, whom Zeppelin admired, credited with inventing British Folk Rock, were not writing riff based material. So Page's great innovation was to combine the folk and blues influences in a package he could sell to Zeppelin's vast American audiences. Phase shifting, or flanging, had been used on drums by Deep Purple before Kashmir was recorded, possibly at the end of Smoke on the Water, certainly on Ian Paice's drum solo during the Burn tour.
JPJ had much more to do with the song writing than we are lead to believe. In an interview, he mentioned that any riff which had a chromatic run in it was his. That’s about 75 percent of the riffs in the Zepp catalogue.
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Jimmy did the simple things very well. The "Stairway to Heaven" solo is an intermediate, minor pentatonic level solo, but still a great solo. Not all great music is over complicated.
Jimmy also used the compressor on the No Quarter riff..
The DADGAD tuning I believe came originally from Davey Graham, and exploring alternate tunings was a central facet of British folk guitar. The open strings allow all kinds of opportunities you don't have with standard tuning. But the folk players were looking for something that specifically avoided what they had come to regard as "blues cliches," and a band like Fairport Convention, whom Zeppelin admired, credited with inventing British Folk Rock, were not writing riff based material. So Page's great innovation was to combine the folk and blues influences in a package he could sell to Zeppelin's vast American audiences. Phase shifting, or flanging, had been used on drums by Deep Purple before Kashmir was recorded, possibly at the end of Smoke on the Water, certainly on Ian Paice's drum solo during the Burn tour.
I play the Rain Song in standard tuning because I’m too lazy to re-tune my guitar.
JPJ had much more to do with the song writing than we are lead to believe. In an interview, he mentioned that any riff which had a chromatic run in it was his. That’s about 75 percent of the riffs in the Zepp catalogue.
Black Dog and Heartbreaker, amongst others, are JPJ riffs.