Matt Warnock at ModernGuitars.com has a great analysis posted of Jimmy Page’s Heartbreaker solo, one of the greatest rock guitar solos from one of the greatest rock albums, Led Zeppelin II:

With the song recorded and headed for mixing, along with the rest of the bands second album, a 25-year-old Jimmy Page decided to re-listen to one of the group’s newest compositions, “Heartbreaker.” Though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, Page felt as though something was missing from the track, something that would draw in the listener, something that would raise the intensity of the song to the next level. Since the tune was already recorded and headed for mixing his options were limited, but maybe there was a way to insert a new section somewhere in the middle of the song. After pondering over the different possibilities of how to do this, Page picked up a ‘59 Les Paul, plugged it into a Marshall amp, and proceeded to record one of the most famous guitar solos of all time.

But what’s really interesting is how the Heartbreaker solo directly influenced the creation of the other greatest guitar solo, Eruption:

After seeing Page perform this solo live in 1971, a young Eddie Van Halen began experimenting with using both hands on the fingerboard to recreate Page’s behind-the-nut bends. Van Halen found that if he played the slurred notes with his right hand, by tapping his fingers on the neck, he could free up his left-hand to act as a “moveable nut,” which allowed him to tap any series of notes on any string throughout the entire fretboard. This discovery led to the development of his famous two-hand tapping technique that can be heard on his Magnus Opus “Eruption” as well as many of Van Halen’s hit songs.