Led Zeppelin's guitarist Jimmy Page once referred to the American psychedelic folk rock group Kaleidoscope as his 'favourite band of all time'. Page's enthusiasm for the group was shared by many leading musicians of the day, possibly because of the extraordinary standard of musicianship within Kaleidoscope which helped elevate the band above their contemporaries. At the heart of the band was David Lindley, a talented guitarist whose playing dexterity covered such a wide range of stringed instruments he was described by a music magazine as a 'maxi-instrumentalist'. Although Lindley was often the centre of attention, he insisted he wasn't the band's leader and that Kaleidoscope was founded on democratic principles. The group's musical influences were clearly folk and rock but there were also elements of blues, jazz and Middle Eastern ethnic music to be heard on their albums. They left an indelible mark on the psychedelia genre particularly with their albums recorded in the late 1960s such as 'Side Trips' (1967) and 'A Beacon from Mars' (1968).