The guitarist Jeff Beck thought was creatively “stuck”
Jeff Beck never owed any guitar player anything throughout his career. Considering his penchant for making the most outlandish noises that have ever come out of a guitar, he was more than happy to find his groove and stick with it throughout his career, constantly changing up his style whenever the time called for it. While Beck could appreciate the fretboard magic coming out of someone like Eddie Van Halen, he felt that the shredding legend tended to get musically typecast too often.
Then again, Beck already had to outrun where he had been before he was even a solo artist. Since he had turned in time in The Yardbirds, he was looking to shake off his reputation as strictly a blues player, going on to make albums that were indebted to both jazz and fusion across his solo material.
While the blues was still an essential part of his sound, Eddie was already transfixed by what he could do. Although his taste in music gravitated towards what Eric Clapton had done both in The Yardbirds and with Cream, Eddie knew that no one could truly touch what Beck was doing, including his use of the whammy bar and that human tone he possessed between his fingers.
At the same time, those same accolades seemed to be showered on Eddie the moment that the first Van Halen album was released. Outside of being the world’s introduction to his lead guitar style, Eddie was playing the kind of solo runs that no one had ever thought possible, playing various lead lines with both of his hands on the fretboard that sounded like controlled chaos whenever he launched into one of his solos.
Even though Beck had been a legend for a few years when Eddie hit the scene, he already knew that he was something special that no guitarist could have equalled. Once Van Halen started to become a major force in rock music, though, Beck started to see the support of Eddie’s talents become all too predictable.
When talking about his playing style later, Beck thought that Eddie was trapped playing the same kind of music that people expected from him, saying, “I suppose what people are pointing at is Van Halen for being the innovator. It’s something he should get the credit for…I mean, those guys like Van Halen are so great. But they seem to be stuck in that kind of stuff. Still, he’s got the most amazing technique.”
Eddie would eventually innovate his sound in new ways…just not on guitar. When working on albums like 1984, Eddie would introduce the keyboard into the mix, learning to master the ivories just as much as the fretboard on songs like ‘Jump’ and ‘I’ll Wait’. Though the creative decisions led to David Lee Roth leaving the band, Eddie would continue to flex his muscles both on guitar and keyboard with Sammy Hagar on tracks like ‘Right Now’.
Still, Beck had to admit that no one could touch what Eddie could do, even saying that he could afford to steal a few licks from what the Van Halen guitarist had done. Eddie may have been raised listening to Jeff Beck when he was young, but by the time he hit the big time, he ascended to be on an equal footing with his musical inspirations.
