“My hero”: the experimental album Jeff Beck adored
When you go to a gig and see guitar players today, if somebody walks to the front of the stage in a bid to solo and flaunt their technical ability to the crowd, it’s a direct result of the contributions that Jeff Beck made to music. Before his stint in The Yardbirds, the guitarist contributed to a band but wasn’t held in the same regard as the frontman. Beck changed that with his invigorating solos and excellent stage presence.
Beck is one of the most difficult guitarists to copy. He doesn’t just have technical ability when it comes to playing guitar; he is also able to act with spontaneity in a way that makes it feel as though the guitar is an extension of his thoughts rather than a separate instrument. Every beat feels in tune with his own heart, and his mastery over the six-string is unlike anybody else’s.
A lot of high-profile musicians agree. Brian May once said that he thought Jeff Beck was one of the greatest guitarists on Earth. “If you wanna hear his depth of emotion, sound and phrasing, and the way he could touch your soul, listen to ‘Where Were You’ of the Guitar Shop album… sit down and listen to it for four minutes,” he said. “It’s unbelievable; it’s possibly the most beautiful bit of guitar music ever recorded…”
It’s true that Beck was an incredibly talented musician, and this is likely best reflected not in the music he did release but in what he didn’t. Listening to the music he put out into the world blows our minds because there is no way we could ever replicate it. Beck was impressed by the music he couldn’t replicate, which is why when he tried to push himself on the guitar, while he was impressed by the complex nature of his creation, your average listener might struggle to engage with it. It lacks melody and emotion, which is what people like about his music.
When he worked with George Martin, he took some of what he thought was his best guitar work. While technically, it may have been some of the best guitar ever committed to a recording, it would have been difficult for the average listener to latch on to anything. George Martin had to see through the complex nature of the music and pull out the sections with which the public could connect.
“He saw through the mist and said there might be something there,” admitted Beck, when discussing the album they made together, “He showed interest at a point where I was really wondering whether I should continue in the business […] Some of my favourite solos got trashed because he thought they were hideous – not musical. He’d say, ‘That’s really the most dreadful noise I’ve ever heard’. And I’d say, ‘That’s what I want!’ But I’d usually come round to his way of thinking.”
When you consider Beck’s mindset here and his affinity for music that he struggled to explain, it shouldn’t be surprising that some of his favourite records lean on the more experimental side of music. One record that stood out to him was the product of musical influence and occasional collaborator Jan Hammer. Beck spoke highly about his synth-heavy experimental record, The First Seven Days, which is worlds away from the kind of music he made.
“The music on this is so graphic,” he concluded. “Jan became my hero when he was in John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra. He was playing bendy notes with a keyboard, so it sounded like a guitar, and I became obsessed with how he did it.”
