The guitarist Jeff Beck thought was out of everybody’s league: “It was unequalled”
There can’t be many guitarists in the world who have been as highly regarded in multiple different scenes and styles as Jeff Beck, and his ability to shift between disciplines with ease was something that understandably attracted attention from a variety of places.
His origins all stem from his musical adventures in the 1960s, playing with a variety of blues-oriented groups before being recruited by Jimmy Page to replace Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds. While this understandably drew attention to his abilities, he was constantly flanked by other exceptional players who were competing for the spotlight.
He’d eventually find himself leaving The Yardbirds under acrimonious circumstances, having repeatedly blown his fuse while on tour with the band, refusing to turn up to shows and having an untameable sense of perfectionism that the other members didn’t take kindly to.
However, this departure led him towards experimenting more with a hard rock sound, and he’d later slip into the world of jazz fusion, where he was able to show off the true depth of his talents through playing elaborate parts in groups alongside some of the most extraordinary ensembles.
It may have been during this period in the late 1960s and early ‘70s that he flourished most, but it was also where he would encounter several players who humbled him, and who would make him realise that there was still plenty of work to be done in order to fully establish himself as a guitarist capable of playing at an elite level of musicianship.
Just because he was surrounded by other esteemed guitarists on a consistent basis doesn’t diminish how good he was himself, but there was one guitarist in particular whom he always believed was not just a cut above him, but also above every other active guitarist at that moment in time.
Best known as the leader of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, as well as having played on records by other jazz legends such as Miles Davis and Tony Williams, John McLaughlin was the sort of player who other musicians feared, not because of his attitude or temper, but because of how exemplary his playing ability seemed to be.
During an interview with Music Radar, Beck expressed an unending admiration for McLaughlin’s work and explained how he’d first stumbled upon the majesty of his work. “Things took a funny turn in the early ‘70s,” he recalled. “It all turned out well when I heard John McLaughlin, because his performance on the Miles Davis Jack Johnson album and with the Mahavishnu Orchestra said, ‘Here’s where you can go.’ And every musician I knew was raving about them. I thought, ‘This is a little bit of me, this. I’ll have some of that.’ The mastery of the playing, it was unequalled.”
There was little that McLaughlin couldn’t do as a guitarist, and with Beck constantly striving for perfection, it’s understandable that he wanted to elevate himself to the next level by following in his footsteps. The two would eventually tour together in 1974, and while there aren’t many examples of them playing together on record, it would arguably have produced one of the finest examples of guitar playing ever committed to tape.
