Jeff Beck

I first heard The Shapes of Things by Bowie on Pinups when my brother brought the album home from college

I didn't know I was essentially listening to Jeff Beck back then.

I would not really notice his name for several years

Until after I thought myself a guitarist

 

But before I could play a scale or lead on guitar I already had Mick Ronson's treatment of Beck on that Yardbirds song by Bowie firmly memorized.

 

I've noticed that I can think of a memorized melody or chord change from before I learned to play music and deliver it even now, with no guitar in my hands.

 

I first discovered Jeff Beck from this guitarist friend of mine in Palatka.

We weren't in the same band.

We weren't even at the same level

He wished he could play guitar like me

 

Later on he would get his doctorate at Columbia Med and wind up living in Malibu where he said he truly found himself

He also said if you want a really good doctor, go see my wife

But he was a real blast

He was already listening to Beck and Jan Hammer

 

So one day he says

You have to have some mushrooms

Yada yada

I'm tripping on mushrooms with the lights off listening to Beck live and painting with a cigarette like Picasso in that amazing photo of his.

I noticed that Beck plays sounds

 

For so many years

To model my guitar playing after Ronson and Beck

Consciously or not

When I play electric guitar its not often that I don't think of Beck

When you're trying to hit those high notes

With his assuredness

When you play just the right jazz note with the right tone.

He always gave me hope

That maybe I could play like him and myself if I kept going

If studied and listened more

 

I guess with a good dose of mushrooms you too can listen to Jeff Beck without ever feeling jealous.

He has been described as a guitar player's guitar player

 

You, meaning me, can't listen to him without feeling his joy of being a guitarist

It's contagious

I could listen to him play anything

He seems to be a master of all styles and then he invented Jeff Beck

No one else has done this

 

A few months ago I decided to do the deep dive into Beck

Looking up his discography

Starting with the Yardbirds and going into his solo efferts

I kind of made me listen to Peter Green from the early Fleetmac Mac as well as the early John Mayall

That's kind of a lot of work

Listening to too much blues is a chore

Just saying

 

But Beck makes listening to blues like being a happy butterfly

His blues is more cheerful than sad

And its not a chore

 

Without alluding to too much about my thoughts about his last album

He loved working with a great singer

His work with Imelda May on the Les Paul tribute is par excellence

He displays his vast array of skills as a sideman and never forgets to play the song

 

When I sent my wife the video of him and Tom Jones doing Love Letters

I felt it was about as sweet as he could be

He takes a small solo

 

A friend of mine who works for the Florida Theatre once went to the basement below the incredibly historical stage with Jeff Beck to have some champagne for Elvis

 

Live at Ronnie Scott's

November 2007

He was 63

 

One thing you must remember about Jeff Beck's playing is that he was totally freaked out by Jimi Hendrix

It infected him and he was never the same

Trying to sort himself out from King Jimi and what he may have in his own mind

It was difficult

 

Like when guys my age encountered King Eddie the Van Halen

You either find yourself or get frustrated trying to be like him

 

His thing with Jimi shows up in the Ronnie Scott sessions

I almost feel for him

 

He loved controlled chaos in music

He said he went to see Cirque du Solis and thought, if I could just play guitar like that....

 

Looking for Another Pure Love on Talking Book by Stevie Wonder

His solo has a callout from Stevie, Do It Jeff

Released on the album Oct 27 1972

 

I've never heard this

Beck is all over this song

Slide whatever, Stevie just kept it somewhere in the mix until the solo

 

Jeff wrote the Superstition riff

That shouldn't be a surprise

 

I thought I was going to go to Truth

29 July 1968

Led Zeppelin 1 was

12 January 1969

 

From track one Shapes of Things with Rod Stewart on vocals, it is clear that Led Zeppelin were no new thing

By track two it's unclear if Beck or Page were stealing from each other or not

Personally I think Beck got there first by six months

With Rod Stewart

Let me love you baby is Lemon Song

By that point all British bass players were trying to sound like John Paul Jones

 

I guess all Zep fans should be happy about Truth

Else there is no Zep

 

Then on Bolero

Beck Page Jones and Moon

 

The solo on Rock my Plimsoul

Epic

 

There was a time I thought average guitarists around me had abandoned the major third as a possibility in improvisation

Especially in their blues

It never made sense to me why they would do that

 

Blow by Blow was recorded October 1974 and released in 1975

Produced by George Martin

Freeway Jam

Because We've Ended as Lovers

She's a Woman... the Beatles cover

I loved that from the start

I thought that was a real funky track

Controlled chaos

 

When I told my son that this day felt a little like the day John Lennon died

I thought he might be an immortal

He is now his own weird Segovia

He can only be compared to, because no one else like him has ever existed

 

He has so many ways to play guitar happy

In summation I must say

Freeway Jam live with Jan Hammer 1977 is about as happy as it gets.

And his most controlled chaos