Rock guitar legend Jeff Beck, about to undertake his first Australian tour in 30 years, tells Brian Wise, 'I’m a fan really. I’m just dabbling in music professionally.'
I can tell you, from first hand experience, that Jeff Beck is an amazing guitarist. Two years ago I had the privilege of seeing him in Oakland, California and was blown away by his playing and by his band. He closed the show with Lennon & McCartney’s ‘A Day In The Life.’ Doing such a classic as purely an instrumental would seem a daunting ask but Beck’s monumental rendition breathed new life into the music and stunned the audience.
That tune is also included on Beck’s latest live album, Performing This Week: Live At Ronnie Scott’s, and the recording gives you a feeling for just how great a player Beck is. While there are other guitarists who play more notes there are very few rock guitarists who have his feel.
One of things that surprised me when I saw him was that he used only one guitar – his white Fender Stratocaster - for the entire show. Just a week earlier I had seen a show from Tom Petty where he changed his guitar after every song and completely lost the vibe.
“I can’t see the sense in changing as long as the string don’t break,” laughs Beck when we catch up by phone to talk about his forthcoming tour. “I don’t like to see whole loads of guitars on racks on the stage - I think it looks really stupid, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Most of us probably first heard Beck in the mid-‘60s when he replaced Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds. Though he was in the group only 18 months, he certainly made his mark and his distinctive style can be heard on hits such as ‘Heart Full of Soul’ and ‘Shapes of Things.’ He recorded the classic self-titled album (aka Roger The Engineer) and then left in 1967 soon after Jimmy Page joined.
Beck enjoyed some solo hits with ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ and ‘Tallyman,’ then founded his own group that featured him on lead guitar, Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano, and Micky Waller on drums. Truth came out in 1968 and features ‘Beck’s Bolero,’ a cover of ‘Shapes Of Things’ (the Yardbirds hit) and a slashing version of ‘You Shook Me.’ The album has been recently re-released with eight bonus tracks.
Beck-ola, in 1969, cemented Beck’s reputation, though soon after its release he disbanded his group but continued to work with Stewart until he left to join The Faces. The albums Rough and Ready, The Jeff Beck Group (recorded in Memphis) and Beck, Bogert and Appice followed but it was Blow By Blow (recorded with George Martin) and Wired which teamed him with Jan Hammer that took Beck into the jazz-rock realm and expanded his repertoire.
Beck recorded sporadically in the ‘80s, releasing three albums and then largely disappeared until 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 another long hiatus Beck returned in 1993 with Crazy Legs (a tribute to Gene Vincent and his guitarist Cliff Gallup), recorded with the Big Town Playboys.
In the past decade beck has been relatively prolific with Who Else! (1999), You Had It Coming (2001), Jeff (2003), Live at B.B. King Blues Club (2006, an official bootleg) and now his superb live album recorded at Ronnie Scott’s.
For his Australian tour Beck will be bringing most of the players on the new live album: Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and young Australian bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, along with David Sanchez on keyboards (replacing Jason Rebello, who has other commitments).
“She is absolutely gonna knock ‘em dead out there,” Beck says of Wilkenfeld, whom he recruited to replace Pino Palladino, now touring with The Who. “The fun is there. She’s enjoying music that was around before she was born and it’s just a vital ingredient. What’s the word? It’s like a spark that keeps me happy and also drives Vinnie - because Vinnie’s a groove player and she grooves as well. It just it wouldn’t be the same without her it really would it?”
Beck says that he encourages improvisation in concert and adds, “I do I think that’s what people want to hear. I don’t want to be the band that plays set parts. I can’t think of anything more boring than that. Music is all about teasing and suggestion and creativity on the spot and I think when people see that they feel part of it. It’s a creative process going on rather than laboriously playing away……like the record.”
It might seem surprising the an artist of Beck’s talent would ever consider retiring but when I talk to him on the phone he confesses that there was a stage when he seriously thought about giving it away.
Around the time of You Had It Coming, Beck claims that he was ‘coming to grips’ with the fact that he didn’t want to stop playing. I ask him if he had seriously considered retiring.
“Yes, well, quitting the business anyway,” he replies. “I just thought, ‘Well, what’s the point of trying to put my foot right in the door’ when the likes of Madonna were big and Britney Spears and all that and on the other side of the scale there’s Slash and the Black Crowes. I thought, ‘No, no, no! I don’t belong there! I just don’t belong there, I gotta find a place where I feel I belong’.”
There’s a pause and then Beck adds, “I think I’d better stop before I say the wrong thing.”
Thankfully, he decided to remain in the business and we are the beneficiaries.
Jeff Beck Interview Continued:
I noticed when I saw you a couple of years ago there was still a lot of improvisation within the band. Do you encourage that on stage?
Yeah, I do I think that’s what people want to hear I don’t want to be the band that plays set parts. I can’t think of anything more boring than that. Music is all about teasing and suggestion and creativity on the spot. I think when people see that they feel part of it. It’s a creative process going on rather than laboriously playing away like the record.
One piece that blew me away and I wasreally pleased to see it included in your latest live album was 'A Day In The Life' - although I think it must be pretty daunting to play something like that but you do it. You really bring something to the tune don’t you?
Well, the thing is, it’s a dramatic tune: it was when John Lennon sang it and it transports well into an instrumental because the melodies so sweet. Then you’ve got that hideous climb and then the big chord at the end. I did it for George Martin on his album and never thought I’d ever make it work live with a small band - but it works pretty well
It’s surprising to see this person onstage who’s got this massive reputation as a guitarist using just one guitarwhen I expected a rack of about twenty guitars there.
No, no, no, no, no! There’s something really wrong if you gotta [do that]. Obviously for rockabilly then I’d use the same guitar for that - there’d be a Gretsch.There’s some extras that will be on the DVD where there’s a whole section of like half an hour of rockabilly on it. You use the guitar for the right job -you choose the instrument for the job. It was a 55 Gretsch Duo Jet I use for that but that’s because the tone suits the music for my show. I use a Fender Strat and that’s it.
Well it was fantastically refreshing Imust say. Can I ask you about the selection of tunes for Live at Ronnie Scotts?Does that reflect your eclectic taste in music?
Yeah, it does. Some of the stuff that I left off was too techno for Vinnie. I wouldn’t insult him by expecting him to play some of the stuff I do with the techno stuff. It’s so not him and I want to hear human feel. A lot of the stuff that I did recently is very difficult to duplicate on stage and there’s more richness in the earlier stuff, there’s more expandability really.
Are you talking about things like 'Beck's Bolero'?
Oh no. No, that was put in as a kind of opener it works as a sort of a salute to the past and it’s got melodies, got a nice heavy part in the middle, and it makes a nice opener but that’s what it is - it’s an opener.
Well let me ask you about one tune called ‘Led Boots,’ which I guess is a homage to Led Zeppelin by Max Middleton, who would’ve been well known to English fans, not so well known outside that scene.
He knew that I loved John McLaughlin and also was frustrated with the success of Led Zeppelin and, somehow, he managed to write this brutal melody and people love it, the version that was on Wired.
And tell us about Max.
Well, he helped me put the Blow by Blow album together. I introduced him to George Martin at the time wemade that record so that I had somebody who could play chords and work withGeorge..... I came up with a lot of the ideas on that album and Max would listen to me practising and then he would come to the sessions with ideas that he’d heard from my practising. So a lot of that was given birth by me but when the melody came to be played that particular tune was written by Max.
Also the track on the new album that’s really interesting is that you’ve chosen to do a Nitin Sawhney tune. Now, that’s a perfect example of the eclectic taste that you have which ranges from jazz through to what you might call world music. How did you come across that?
I’ve got this friend in America who’s more of a fan more than anything and he sends me boxes of CDs. It’s difficult. Even if I spent every waking hour I couldn’t play all the CDs he sent, so I just take a fist full of CDs in my car and I just grabbed this one - Nitin Sawhney came out and I played it and then when ‘Nadia’ came on -which is the track you’re talking about - I just had to pull over and listen to it. I played it over and over again and there was the birth of another song for me. Really, I just copied this track from the Nitin Sawhney album - it was a vocal.
So, I assume that for a song to be performed by you if it’s not an original that it really has to make an impression on you immediately.
Yeah, it does. I look for the melody and see what it does to me or the rhythm. I’m impressed by anything. I mean, I listen to the Chemical Brothers deep, deep dance music because although I’m not going to copy it I just find it inspiring to listen to whether it’s just rhythmic power or ifit’s some ancient stuff - Bulgarian choirs - there it is. It’s all there to be used as a kind of colouring book. You just take this melody from there and you’re kind of custom-making music really.
So it’s interesting that you listen to so much music because a lot of guitarists won’t - or some singer songwriters won’t listen to a lot of music because they don’t want to take in those influences.
No, no. I think that’s narrow. I think wider is better than narrow - it’s better for me anyway. I love big band stuff. I listen to Gene Krupa from the 40’s. I love the swing and I empathise with all that stuff - from Ella Fitzgerald to Django Reinhardt - all the stuff that was rated highly the 30’s and 40’s, right through Elvis Presley, right through to the present time. I’m having the best time ever.
What are you listening to this week?
I’ve got about four albums by Johnny Otis, who had a big rock review in 1958. He had it all. It was like a whole two-hour rock review and there were kids screaming like The Beatles - Beatlemania in1958. Just amazing stuff - really, really great.
You also love music as a fan as opposed to anything else?
I do. I’m a fan really. I’m just dabbling in music professionally.
Jeff Beck tours Australia this month. Live At Ronnie Scott’s is available now. Australia & New Zealand Tour Dates:
Friday January 23rd - Perth Challenge Stadium
Sunday January 25th - Adelaide The Barton Theatre
Monday January 26th - Melbourne Palais Theatre
Tuesday January 27th - Melbourne Palais Theatre
Thursday January 29th - Brisbane Brisbane Convention Centre
Friday January 30th - Sydney Enmore Theatre
Saturday January 31st - Sydney Enmore Theatre
Sunday February 1st - Sydney Enmore Theatre
Tuesday February 3rd - Auckland ASB Theatre-Aotea Centre