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Jimmy Page rides Led Zeppelin's 2nd wave

Led Zeppelin is riding a new wave of popularity, decades after being one of the most influential bands on the planet
Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin's enduring rock legacy 05:44

Led Zeppelin is riding a new wave of popularity, decades after being one of the most influential bands on the planet. But the legendary group has no plans to get back on the road for a reunion tour.

The band broke up more than 30 years ago, but Jimmy Page -- its founder and lead guitarist -- hasn't stopped re-mastering the music that first dominated the airwaves throughout the 1970s, reports CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason.

He made his first TV appearance in 1957 in a Skiffle band, when he was just 13 years old.

"There's always some sort of skeletons that will come out of the closet to haunt you, and that's one," Page said. "I'd rather it wasn't around. I'm sure it brings a lot of mirth for people to see it."

Page became one of the most influential guitarists of the rock era. By the mid '70s, Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham were the biggest rock band in the world.

"All four of us were really good musicians in our own right, but once we played together, it just went into the stratosphere, really," Page said.

Page tells the story in "Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page," a biography in photographs that begins with a picture of a choirboy, who'd just taken up the guitar.

"Even though I looked angelic, rock and roll music had already infected me," he said.

By 17, Page was the most sought after session guitarist in Britain.

"I did sessions with Shirley Bassey," he said. "I did Goldfinger, and with solo singers, Tom Jones for example. I mean I played on The Who's 'I Can't Explain.'"

He said it's quite probable he played on half the tracks that were coming out of Britain.

Page grew up in Epsom, England, about a dozen miles from two other British guitarists; Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck.

"Well, something in the water, or what?" Page said. "We were all self-taught. We all would've learned from playing records and moving that stylus back over a solo and trying to play it."

They didn't actually know each other in the beginning, but Page was later asked to replace Clapton in the Yardbirds. He would join Beck in the band, but then had the idea to form a group of his own.

"It wasn't a band that would go out and play the songs note for note, if you knew them on the record," Page said. "Once these songs went into the set, they would change, they would mutate, they would grow."

Page has just remastered Led Zeppelin "IV" and the band's 5th album, "Houses of the Holy" both of which are near the top of the charts again -- 40 years after they were recorded.

Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980, after John Bonham's death, and fans have long hoped for a reunion tour. But lead singer Robert Plant has resisted, except for a one-night-only concert in London in 2007.

Although Plant only agreed to that one event, Page never thought it would be the last gig.

"No, because it was intimated that we were going to be doing more shows," he said "But as it was, it was the last gig, so. Seven years ago, it's a long while, isn't it?"

While Page said he thinks now that was their final performance as a group, he joked, "I could always take vocal lessons."

Led Zeppelin, meanwhile, is fighting off a lawsuit that accuses the group of stealing the intro to "Stairway to Heaven" from the band Spirit.

Page has only one word to say about that, "Ridiculous."

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