“I lost the raucousness”: Jeff Beck on the era that was too safe for him
The main rule about rock and roll should always be about throwing caution to the wind. There should never be any parameters around what an artist can or can’t do, and even when they try something outside of their wheelhouse, it’s better that they try to make something different rather than playing it safe whenever they play. While Jeff Beck always thrived on moving into different areas, he admitted that he started to get a little too comfortable in his artistic skin on certain projects.
Then again, the whole reason why Beck is so revered is because of what a breath of fresh air he was at the time. He may have started off in The Yardbirds. Still, listening to his lead playing he played since leaving the blues outfit, he wanted to become a force of nature in the same way most jazz fusion players were, whether that meant toying with the melody or rethinking the way most people get notes out of their guitar.
Take an album like Blow by Blow, for instance. Most of the songs are focused around Beck playing certain standards, but listening to how he incorporates his whammy bar into the mix on a handful of songs makes the guitar sound like its own separate voice, reinforcing the point that he never really needed a singer in the first place.
That’s not to say that he didn’t have his usual bag of tricks, either. Beck still had a common vocabulary of the blues throughout his lifetime, but every record was a new adventure because of what he would discover about his instrument, which led to most guitarists doing serious homework on what could be done when they have the guitar in their hands.
But it’s called the Jeff Beck Group for a reason, and bringing in other members was always a gamble when Beck worked. As much as Nicky Hopkins had a record of being one of the best session pianists for artists like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, Beck only saw him as getting in the way when he started working with him on the record Beck-Ola.
Despite having some of the most celebrated pieces in his catalogue, Beck thought that most of what Hopkins did on the record led to him oversimplifying a lot of what he played, saying, “The first keyboardist I worked with was Nicky Hopkins, on Beck-ola. He added something, but he also took away something. It was a fair trade at the time. I lost the raucousness. As soon as you hear the piano, it makes things sound civilised. It makes it sound safe and familiar.”
But that’s because Beck’s style never gelled with keyboards in the first place. His best moments came from when he was flying off the handle, so bringing in someone else to play an instrument in the same range as him was always going to either be playing second fiddle with him or clashing with him in the mix whenever he tried to fly off the handle. Still, that doesn’t stop Beck-Ola from being a fine record, especially when he collaborates with Rod Stewart on ‘Spanish Boots’.
If this is the one that sounded too safe to Beck’s ears, let that be a lesson for anyone who’s willing to take a deep dive into his catalogue. He may have a few moments that don’t hit the mark, but even during times when he claimed not to be giving it his best effort, he was still one of the greatest to ever touch a six-string.
