Bet you missed Jeff Beck

When it comes to the rock and roll, few would argue that the guitar was the central factor in its inception. While the wriggling hips of Elvis Presley certainly drew the nation’s attention back in the mid-fifties, discerning viewers also noted he was playing - and at times, being somewhat suggestive with - his guitar. Add to that the sizzling guitar leads of often unsung guitar hero Scotty Moore fueling those Presley hits and you bet, raucous guitar was vital.

Once Chuck Berry hit the scene with what seemed to be the actual building blocks of rock and roll with his brilliant original compositions “Johnny B. Goode” and “Roll Over Beethoven” and many others, his cherry red Gibson guitar - a prime prop in his famed duck walk - made it official. If you wanted to play the rock and roll, you started with a damn guitar.

As the mid-sixties approached, however, across the pond, there were further developments in the utilization of the electric guitar. Namely that it could be an instrument to be mastered, highlighted, improvised upon in such a loud, brilliant, unconventional way that someone who demonstrated those skills could be seen as almost Godlike. We’re talking, of course, of Eric Clapton, whose fiery riffing genius with the Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, then Cream, seemed to point the way forward for everyone. With graffiti like this…

It was right after that, as brilliantly documented in Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill’s “Blow By Blow: The Jeff Beck Story” another guitarist, two actually, emerged on the British pub scene and were launched into the innovative group the Yardbirds as Clapton replacements. They were Jeff Beck, first, then Jimmy Page, later of Led Zeppelin fame. And the world hasn’t been the same since.

Though of the three, Clapton, Beck and Page, who, somewhat remarkably, grew up within a few miles of one another (Beck and Page were actually teenage friends!), Beck, who died in 2023, was the least successful in terms of record sales and hits. But his restless, innovative, compulsively shifting musical sensibilities probably took the art of the electric guitar way past what anyone would have imagined back in 1956. Nobody played guitar like Jeff Beck. The book “Blow By Blow,” named after the George Martin-produced instrumental album that was probably Beck’s shining moment, brings it all back.

While his fidgety, never-satisfied ways self-destructed his career at crucial times - the Jeff Beck Group, with Rod Stewart on vocals was listed on the posters as one of the participants at Woodstock - Beck disbanded the group just before the festival. As this new biography “Blow By Blow” meticulously wanders through Beck’s winding journeys through hundreds of studio sessions and several band configurations - Tolinski and Gill, mainstays at Guitar Player magazine who really know their stuff - Beck’s distinctive, one-of-a-kind guitar brilliance is constantly there, it just never sends him and his groups up the charts.

“I’ve always been at semi-pro status,” Beck said once. “I’ve never really made it, so I’ve never had to maintain a massive state of popularity. My constant state of being is fine with me, provided that I do make a little bit of money. I’m so set in my ways by now that I don’t care whether I put out any hits or not.”

That sort of attitude is admirable in a way. Beck was going to record when and with whom he wanted. But it also perhaps put a ceiling on his potential audience who might have been thrilled by his always tasty, extraordinary guitar work - if they only got to hear it.

I’ve been in the Jeff Beck camp since “Truth” his first album with Rod Stewart (and Ronnie Wood), a re-release CD with bonus tracks I highly recommend. (Yes, I have the original vinyl, too, good job, Epic Records!) Now, I knew I was a pretty big Beck fan but after reading the book, it turned out, I had almost every Beck album, including a bootleg. I surprised myself.

If you’re interested in Jeff Beck, here’s a great CD with eight bonus tracks.

One of the constant themes throughout the book, which does a masterful job of documenting all of Beck’s recordings is “material.” There was never enough. Since he didn’t really write songs or sing very often, as phenomenal a guitarist as he was, you still need things to play. That was always a struggle.

As you’ll see on “Truth,” Beck and Rod Stewart actually cover “Ol’ Man River” from Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s “Show Boat.” Imagine that? When The Jeff Beck Group with Rod did their second album, “Beckola,” they ended up covering two Elvis Presley songs that may never walk again (“All Shook Up” and “Jailhouse Rock.”) But as difficult as the guy might have been to deal with, he took the guitar places nobody else ever did - if you ask me.

Perhaps the one “might have been” moment described beautifully in “Blow By Blow” is when Beck gets to hear a pre-release of old friend Jimmy Page’s new band, Led Zeppelin and he hears Zep and Robert Plant cover the very same Muddy Waters/Willie Dixon tune “You Shook Me,” that he and Rod did on “Truth.”

“At first, Beck suspected a prank. After all, Page had seen the Jeff Beck Group perform “You Shook Me” live on several occasions and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones had played organ on Beck’s recording of the track. Assuming they were just having a bit of fun, Beck’s incredulity only deepened when he realized this was no joke. Stunned, he managed to mutter “Jim…what?” While musical influences were one thing, the theft of his band’s heavy blues style and their specific material felt like a brazen overstep.”

“When Led Zeppelin did “You Shook Me,” it was flattering in some ways,” Beck said at the time. But then the flattery went out the window when they began to be known for it and we weren’t.”

Oddly enough, I had read a review of the book “Blow By Blow” somewhere and was surprised to see it on the shelves in Tallahassee already. Since I was in the middle of a couple other books, I hesitated for a bit, whether or not to buy it. I did and ended up reading this straight through and have been playing Beck’s music for a week now. It was destined, I think.

When I got in my car, the radio tuned to “Little Steven’s Underground Garage,” what comes on but “The Nazz Are Blue,” a strange 1966 Yardbirds’ track that Jeff Beck actually sings on. It was as if the Universe was telling me, “Hey, give this guy another listen, will you?”

You don’t screw with the Universe.

HERE IS ONE OF BECK’S EARLIEST AND BEST SOLO TRACKS - BECK’S BOLERO

(Jimmy Page on guitar, Keith Moon on drums, John Paul Jones on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano)

HERE’S JEFF BECK ON DAVID LETTERMAN WITH “WHAT MAMA SAID

(A direct line from the film “It’s a Mad, Mad World” - Beck’s sense of humor)