The night Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck played in the same band: “Jumping all over the place”
The Fender Stratocaster has seen many players select it since it debuted in 1954 and craft influential sounds. Undeniably, the most iconic of the lot – a word not used lightly – was Jimi Hendrix. While he had always been a talent, refining his sound with several outfits, it was after he was whisked to London by Chas Chandler that he would step out of the shadows. After touching down on Blightly, his rise was meteoric, with his frenetic and technically brilliant style blowing every established guitar great out of the water.
One man who was particularly transfixed by the pulsating magic of Hendrix was Jeff Beck. He was one of London’s most well-respected players and helped The Yardbirds pioneer a dark form of psychedelia with his dynamic approach. He would also become one of the guitarists closely associated with the Fender Stratocaster. Over time, it became his weapon of choice and helped him explore a range of differing sonic environments thanks to the broad scope of its three single coils and effective tone control.
In the right place at the right time, Beck witnessed one of Hendrix’s first shows in the UK at the suggestion of his girlfriend. It was at the small club Blaises in Queen’s Gate, known to be frequented by fashionistas, and unsurprisingly, the largely unknown American fit right it. It proved to be a formative experience for Beck, who knew he had to do better with his work.
He told Rolling Stone in the 1980s: “He came on, and I went, ‘Oh, my God.’ He had the military outfit on and hair that stuck out all over the place. They kicked off with (Bob Dylan’s) ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, and I thought, ‘Well, I used to be a guitarist.'”
In 1967, Beck left The Yardbirds and formed The Jeff Beck Group, another outfit in which he would enact significant innovations and impact the direction of rock with its heavy and often spacey take on R&B. Although the band had many lineup changes, it is noted for being fronted by Rod Stewart and featuring future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood on guitar and later bass.
As Beck was one of the greatest guitarists out there, Hendrix was already a fan of his when performing at Blaises, and they became friends. When The Jeff Beck Group played a run at the Manhattan club The Scene from June 19th to 23rd, 1968, Hendrix was in attendance most nights. During this stint, he regularly jammed with the band and played Beck’s Les Paul guitar one evening, as he was without his own. There’s a grainy monochrome photograph from that night, where Wood is seen smiling, peeping out from behind a stack of amps, with Hendrix shredding in the foreground. That night, Beck ended up playing bass. Remarkably, this wasn’t the first jam the pair had shared, either.
The run at The Scene followed The Jeff Beck Group’s US debut supporting the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East a few days prior. Due to their excellence that night, they were drafted as a last-minute replacement for the Grateful Dead at the Daytop Under the Stars festival on June 16th, on Staten Island. The extravaganza was held from the 14th to the 17th, and saw the likes of Duke Ellington, Pete Seeger, and Blood, Sweat and Tears take to the stage in aid of recovering drug addicts.
When speaking to Guitar World in 2014, Beck described the benefit show as a “secret” and recalled how he got to the Daytop Village rehabilitation centre. He said: “Jimi drove me up in his Corvette… that was the best moment. His driving was terrible. We were stuck in traffic in the middle of New York City, and he had this brand-new 427 Corvette boiling over, and I thought, I hope it doesn’t blow up right here! [laughs] I was thinking, Why did you buy a Corvette in Manhattan?”
At this point, The Jeff Beck Group’s US debut at the Fillmore East was fresh in the memory only two days before, and despite agreeing to be the Dead’s stand-ins, Stewart’s voice had gone. This meant an impromptu supergroup of Hendrix, Beck, Wood, and drummer Mickey Waller formed.
“It was a concert for reformed drug addicts, but that was the least of it,” Beck told Time Out in 1973. “They were fantastic people; they just sat for two hours, and Jimi played ‘Foxey Lady’. He was playing bass, and he played a couple of my things. It just went on and on. We were jumping all over the place.”
A review of the jam in RPM Weekly reads: “The session at Daytop ended up in one of the longest jams on record. The crowd wouldn’t let go until two in the morning. Hendrix and Beck, old friends from London days, made the day a successful one for the Festival, which was put together by Scene disco impresario Steve Paul.”
Following the festival at Daytop, Hendrix continued to join his friends in The Jeff Beck Group at The Scene, with Beck later stating that playing with the ‘Purple Haze’ star was the best jam he’d ever had. Wood also has fond memories, recalling that Hendrix would convince Beck to let him, the rhythm guitar player, take on the solos.
