The classic album Jeff Beck wanted to delete from history: “Threw it in a bin”
Jeff Beck never sought commercial success in a traditional sense and didn’t particularly concern himself with chasing the hit parade. As long as he made art that nourished his soul, he was content, and Beck never swayed from following his gut instinct at every juncture rather than worrying about the songs on the radio. Nevertheless, Beck accidentally landed on an unlikely recipe for a meteoric hit.
Most artists spend their careers chasing a best-selling record, but for Beck, it was never at the top of his priority list. After exiting The Yardbirds, Beck went solo in 1968 and didn’t immediately become a star overnight. While his peers in the musical community recognised his greatness even before his stint with The Yardbirds was over, it took the wider general public more time to realise he was a world-class talent.
The one album that enhanced Beck’s reputation the most was 1975’s Blow By Blow, which thrust him into the mainstream despite the niche nature of the record. Although the album didn’t chart in his home country, the United Kingdom, Blow By Blow was a massive hit in the United States and charted in fourth position. Despite being an instrumental record featuring no tracks appropriate for commercial radio, it is the only album from his career to land in the top ten of the American chart.
Blow By Blow was experimental, as Beck tested himself in the uncharted waters of jazz fusion. However, the English guitarist found himself resenting the album that had gifted him such riches. The guitarist later felt it was a betrayal of his blues roots, but at the time, he tried to repeat the album’s success by attempting to recreate Blow By Blow and taking his career down an unwanted alley.
Beck never saw himself as a jazz musician, and it wasn’t until gaining the benefit of hindsight that he realised he’d accidentally rebranded himself as one. He later told Guitar Player: “I was determined not to bore anybody with any jazz. Things like Blow By Blow were just unadulterated jazz, but I didn’t think so at the time.”
The guitarist continued: “If you listen to real jazz, like Chick Corea, or experimental high-art rock and roll, which I consider to be John McLaughlin, then it is sort of Muzaky. ‘Fuzak’, [drummer] Simon Phillips called it. And when I heard him say fuzak, I went pffft – boxed it up and threw it in a bin.”
Explaining his decision to make a jazz fusion record, Beck told the publication: “I guess at that time I wanted some solidification; I had to be playing a tune, not just abstract flurries of noise. There had to be some nice chords to get the listener to draw an ear a bit closer.” If Beck had the opportunity, he’d have turned back time and not recorded Blow By Blow; he explained, “But I shouldn’t have done Blow By Blow. I wish I hadn’t done any of them, because they’re just mistakes on record. I wish I had stayed with earthy rock and roll. I got sucked into.”
At most steps of his career, Beck was the driving force behind his creative vision. However, keeping that level of control was difficult when surrounded by world-class jazz musicians who wanted to sprinkle their own magic into the mix. Beck likened it to being “in a prison, and you have to play along with that.” He added: I wasn’t able to direct them against their grain, so that’s what came out.”
Fusing two genres together was another source of frustration for Beck, who said it’s “not necessarily a good thing” before adding, “It’s like taking a bit of vanilla ice cream and pouring something else over it to cover up the vanilla. You either like vanilla or you don’t.”
If Beck had just made Blow By Blow before returning to his blues roots, his thoughts on the record would likely have been different. Instead, he allowed himself to get drunk on the album’s success by attempting to follow in its footsteps with Wired and There & Back, which both failed to hit the same commercial heights. As a result, Beck wished to erase the entire Blow By Blow era from his back catalogue as it reminded him of a painful time when he lost his creative identity.
