Jeff
Beck isn’t your typical guitar legend. His goal, in fact, is to make
you forget that he plays guitar.
“I don’t understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it
has an instantly recognizable guitar sound,” says Beck. “Finding
ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to
make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.
I love it when people hear my music but can’t figure out what
instrument I’m playing. What a cool compliment.”
Beck burst onto the music scene in 1966 after joining the Yardbirds.
Although his stint with the band lasted only 18 months, Beck played
on almost all of the group’s hits. More importantly, Beck’s
innovative style heard on classics like “Heart Full of Soul” and
“Shapes of Things” helped influence the psychedelic sound of the
‘60s.
I
became a huge Eric Clapton fan when I was a teenager totally by
mistake. I was listening to all the
Yardbirds early hits and I thought I was listening to Eric Clapton.
So did most of my friends.
In reality we were listening to Beck,
(What Did We Know)
Everyone said that Eric Clapton was the first guitarist in the
Yardbirds. Everyone of course was right, except that
Clapton played in the original
Yardbirds well before they had any hits.
The Yardbirds first hit in the USA was "For Your Love." This song
did not even have a lead break, This song was recorded between
Clapton & Beck, The first time I heard Beck it was on "Heart
Full Of Soul" which was awesome. We all thought we were
listening to Clapton !!!!!
At the
height of the Yardbirds’ popularity in 1967, Beck left the group and
embarked upon unpredictable journey of musical discovery that has
lasted nearly four-decades as an Epic recording artist. During that
time, Beck has left his distinctive mark on hard rock, jazz-fusion
and modern music history.
While many of his contemporaries are satisfied with musical inertia,
Beck continues to add to his legacy as an innovator with the release
of his 14th album, simply titled " Jeff.” Produced by Andy Wright
(Simply Red, Eurythmics) and mixed by Mike Barbiero (Blues Traveler,
Metallica), the 13 songs on “Jeff” reflect how Beck’s fascination
with electronic music continues to evolve.
“On my last album, " You had it coming,’ I spent a lot of time in
the studio with Andy Wright just toying around with different
sounds. We had a great time, but I bogged down in the
possibilities,” says Beck, who earned a Grammy for instrumental
performance for the song “Dirty Mind” from that album. “When I went
back to the studio for Jeff’ I didn’t want to get bogged down again
so I brought in a few people to help push us along.”
Although they only met when the album was almost finished, Beck says
David Torn of the New York trip-hop group Splatter cell became an
important collaborator. Much to Beck’s delight, Torn gutted an early
version of the song, “Plan B.” “Dave ripped the vocals out straight
away and made my guitar line the song’s main hook. That’s what I
should have done in the first place, but it takes a remix guy to
come along and put a different spin on what you’re doing,” he says.
“The instant I heard Dave’s album with Splattercell, I wanted him to
dismember one of my songs, and he came through beautifully.”
While working on the album at Metropolis Studio, Beck met
Liverpudlian electronic trio Apollo 440—programmers Howard Gray, his
brother Trevor and guitarist Noko Fisher-Jones. Before long, Beck
had recorded three songs using the group’s rhythms.
“When we first met, they wrote me one of those amazing ‘nail your
head to the wall’ kinds of grooves that they’re famous for and I ate
it up,” says Beck. “I played off that track for two hours and wound
up writing ‘Grease Monkey’ around their groove.”
Finding inspiration in a unique rhythm track is how songs like
“Dirty Mind” from "You had it coming" and “Psycho Sam” from " Who
Else” were written, says Beck. “I play guitar, but that’s rarely my
starting point,” he explains. “The drums have to kick me in the ass
and make me want to play or I’ll just sit there all day. Sure, I can
write a song on guitar and then try to add drums in later, but it
never sounds quite right. For me, a good song has to begin with an
inspiring rhythm.”
Another Apollo 440 rhythm track provided the spark for “Hot Rod
Honeymoon,” which juxtaposes a raging club beat against 60s surf-pop
harmonies and blues slide guitar. The unexpected contrast gives the
song a fresh edge. “If I used a shuffle on this song, which is the
kind of beat you would expect to hear, it would have killed the song
instantly,” explains Beck. “Instead, the Apollo guys and I came up
with a tongue-in-cheek Beach Boys song complete with techno-drums
and screaming guitar, which I think sounds more interesting.”
With
its haunting melody anchored by Beck’s violin-like tone and a
40-piece orchestra, “Bulgarian”—a traditional folk song arranged by
Beck and Wright—is one of the guitarist’s most majestic songs. At
the other end of the spectrum is the album’s wildest ride, “Trouble
Man.” Beck starts out by coaxing numb-tongue mumbles from his Fender
Stratocaster before launching into a mercurial solo that soars,
spirals out of control and crashes into a pulsating heap of noise
that sounds like an overdriven modem. The song, like much of Beck’s
work, creates an atmosphere of violent elegance by pitting the raw
emotions of the heart against the calculated technique of the mind.
A rare breed of guitarist like Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix, Beck is
not only compelling for what he plays, but for how he plays it.
While some guitar players use racks of gear to create sound, Beck
prefers a simple, natural approach that emphasizes manual dexterity
over gadgets. As Eric Clapton once said, “With Jeff, it’s all in his
hands.”
Like few guitarists before him, Beck plays the entire guitar. Using
his fingers instead of a guitar pick for greater speed and control
over the fretboard, Beck adds deft twists of the volume and tone
knobs to shape the notes as he’s playing them and further bends
sounds into a rubbery tangle with his controlled cruelty on the
whammy bar. “I play the way I do because it allows me to come up
with the sickest sounds possible. That’s the point now isn’t it?”
says Beck with a wicked grin. “I don’t care about the rules. In
fact, if I don’t break the rules at least 10 times in every song
then I’m not doing my job properly.”
ELECTRONIC ROOTS
Beck
started his career by exploring the heavier side of rock before
switching gears in 1975 with the jazz-fusion albums, Blow By Blow
and Wired.
Produced by Sir George Martin, famed producer of The Beatles, the
two albums shattered people’s preconceptions of what a rock
guitarist was supposed to sound like. By fusing the complexity of
progressive rock and improvisatory freedom of jazz with
intergalactic guitar tones and a sense of humor, Beck opened up the
horizon for future guitar instrumentalists like Steve Vai and Joe
Satriani.
In the wake of those two albums, Beck became increasingly interested
in the possibilities of electronic music thanks to his
collaborations with former Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboardist,
Jan Hammer. On stage, Hammer’s legendary mastery of the Mini-Moog
synthesizer imbued Beck classics like “Freeway Jam” and “Blue Wind”
with a funky, otherworldly aura that was ahead of its time. Looking
back on the tour for Wired —documented on Jeff Beck with the Jan
Hammer Group Live (1978)—Beck says the shows left some in the
audience scratching their heads.
“I don’t suppose many people knew what the hell was happening on
stage,” says Beck. “I can tell you it was an exciting—electric—time
for us as musicians because we were pushing the music in new
directions. At the time, I think we were a little out there for most
people, but when you look back now…it sounds like we were on to
something.”
Although their partnership only lasted a few years, Beck says Hammer
continues to inspire him to search out and use new sounds in his
music. “The way Jan used technology really turned my head around and
opened up a new world for me,” says Beck. “He made me realize that
things are always changing and you can’t sit still. You have to keep
your ears wide open to hear what’s going on or the music will pass
you by.”
BACKGROUND
Born on 24th June 1944, just before the end of World War II, Beck
grew up in Wallington, England. His mother’s piano playing and the
family’s radio tuned to everything from dance to classical made sure
Beck was surrounded by music from a young age.
“For my parents, who lived through the war, music was a source of
comfort to them. Life was tense and music helped them forget about
their troubles. I’m sure that made an impression on me,” recalls
Beck. “I was really small when jazz broke through in England and I
can still remember sneaking off to the living room to listen to it
on the radio—much to my parent’s disapproval.”
Inspired by the music he heard, it wasn’t long before Beck picked up
a guitar and began playing around London. He briefly attended
Wimbledon’s Art College before leaving to devote all of his time to
music. Beck worked as a session player, with Screaming Lord
Sutch—the British equivalent to Screaming Jay Hawkins—and the
Tridents before he replaced Eric Clapton as the Yardbirds’ lead
guitarist in 1965.
Beck left the band in 1967 and formed The Jeff Beck Group, which
featured Rod Stewart on vocals and Ron Wood on bass. The band
released two albums—Truth (1968) and Beck-Ola (1969)—that became
musical touchstones for hard rockers in the years to come.
Stewart and Wood left to join the Faces and Beck disbanded the group
until 1971 when he formed a new version of the band and recorded two
albums—Rough & Ready (1971) and The Jeff Beck Group(1972). Beck
again dissolved the group and formed a power trio with bassist Tim
Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, which released Beck Bogert &
Appice (1973).
Veering away from hard rock, Beck created two landmark two
jazz-fusion albums— Blow By Blow (1975) and Wired (1976). The
all-instrumental albums were a critical and popular success and
remain two of the top-selling guitar instrumental albums of all
time. The live album, " Jeff Beck With The Jan Hammer Group"
Followed in 1977.
Music
may have been one of Beck’s earliest passions but it has always
shared space with a love of hot rods that began as soon as he could
see over the dashboard. After the success “Blow by Blow & Wired" ,”
Beck began devoting more time to his fleet of hot rods. “I like the
studio because it’s delicate; you’re working for sound. I like the
garage because chopping up lumps of steel is the exact opposite of
delicate,” explains Beck. “The garage is a more dangerous place
though. I’ve never almost been crushed by a guitar, but I can’t say
the same about one of my Corvettes.”
Beck returned in 1980 with There & Back, but he wouldn’t be heard
from again until 1985’s Flash which earned him the Best Rock
Instrumental Grammy—his first—for the song “Escape.” Beck re-emerged
from semi-retirement in 1989 with “Jeff
Beck’s Guitar Shop with Terry Bozzio and Tony Hymas
.” The album earned him his second Grammy for Best Rock
Instrumental. After a co-headlining tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan,
Beck gave retirement another try, but it didn’t last.
Beck returned to the studio in 1993 backed by the Big Town Playboys
to record Crazy Legs a tribute to seminal rockabilly artist Gene
Vincent and his guitarist Cliff Gallup. Six years passed before the
release of Who Else (1999) but the album opened a relative floodgate
of music by Beck standards. It only took two years before “You had
it coming,” (2001), which earned Beck his third Grammy for Best Rock
Instrumental for the song “Dirty Mind.”
To support his album "Jeff ”, Beck returned to the road in the
summer of 2003 on a coast-to-coast tour with blues legend B.B. King
on the 12th Annual B.B. King Music Festival. The landmark event,
presented by VH1 Classic, also featured New Orleans-based
progressive funk outfit Galactic and up-and-coming Florida-bred
murky blues band Mofro. An official bootleg “Live at B.B. King Blues
Club” was recorded in the New York club in September 2003, and
released for online retail only.
In the summer of 2004 Jeff Beck toured the UK, the first time since
1990, using momentum gained from a fourth Grammy for the track “Plan
B” on the album “Jeff”. He put together a new band for comprising
Vinnie Coliauta, Pino Palladino and Jason Rebello for Japan in July
2005 and kept them for a 6 date US West Coast tour in the spring of
2006. It was from those dates that the ‘must have’ Jeff Beck live
CD, the “Official Bootleg” was created. Although Pino wasn’t
available, Jeff kept Vinnie and Jason, adding Randy Hope-Taylor for
UK and European dates, plus two Japanese festivals in the summer of
that year, followed by a long tour of the US in September.
2007 began in public with a duet with Kelly Clarkson on TV’s
American Idol Gives Back to a reputed audience of 30 million! During
the summer Jeff undertook 7 dates in Europe and finished playing to
a crowd of over 30,000 at the Crossroads Guitar festival in Chicago.
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