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When Led Zeppelin jammed with The Jeff Beck Group
There are many instances in which bands or musical artists are linked in one way or another. Be it The Byrds and CSNY through David Crosby, Fugazi and Minor Threat through Ian MacKaye or Deep Purple and The Mothers of Invention via ‘Smoke on the Water’, these instances are countless. Another classic example is Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, or should we say, Led Zeppelin and The Jeff Beck Group.
During the ‘Swinging Sixties’, a time when London was brimming with creatives in every field such as music, fashion and otherwise, Page and Beck, aside from their counterpart and friend Eric Clapton, were hailed as London’s foremost six-string wizards. In fact, the friendship between Page, Beck and Clapton would be one of the most definitive of the era.
When Clapton abruptly left The Yardbirds in 1965 to join John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, he recommended the hotshot session guitarist, Page, to replace him. At the time, though, Page saw no reason to give up his lucrative session work, as well as concerns about his health (he was recovering from glandular fever) and the internal politics of the band, so he turned the offer down. Instead, he recommended his Jeff Beck, and only two days after Clapton’s departure, Beck had played his first show with the band.
In June 1966, after Paul Samwell-Smith quit The Yardbirds, Page joined the band. After a stint on bass, he eventually moved on to the guitar. Now, he and Beck formed the most formidable guitar duo in all of Britain. Together, they’d breathe life into avant-garde psychedelic tracks such as the inimitable ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago’ and ‘Psycho Daisies’.
Their partnership wouldn’t last long as Beck quit the group late that year, wanting to pursue a career with The Jeff Beck Group.
Only a couple of weeks prior to Page joining The Yardbirds, he and Beck had already written themselves into the history books. In May 1966, they, alongside Keith Moon, Nicky Hopkins and John Paul Jones, recorded the iconic instrumental ‘Beck’s Bolero’. During the recording sessions, the group toyed with the idea of forming a “supergroup” that would potentially involve The Who bassist John Entwistle as well. Entwistle commented that it would “go over like a lead balloon”, with Moon remarking that they should name the band “Lead Zeppelin”.
Page would stay in The Yardbirds until their demise in 1968. The new band he formed, The New Yardbirds, would eventually become Led Zeppelin, and the rest, as they say, is history. He wouldn’t be apart from his old friend Beck for long, though.
Over the course of the time they spent seperated, both had risen to become global names, guitar heroes in every sense of the word. On July 13th, 1969, at The Singer Bowl in New York, Led Zeppelin jammed with The Jeff Beck Group.
A press review from the time read: “Sunday’s (13th) Jeff Beck, Vanilla Fudge, 10 Years After, Edwin Hawkins Singers concert at Singer Bowl resulted in an unexpected jam amongst members of The Jeff Beck Group, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull. The music excited Zeppelin drummer John Bonham to the point where he started tearing his clothes off. He was carried offstage by friends before he could get past his underwear.”
If the aforementioned names weren’t dizzying enough, there were a couple of other glamorous figures who participated in the jam, Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. Remembering that momentous day, Beck said: “…it was one of those riotous sort of days. Everybody’s energy level was one hundred per cent and we were throwing things at each other on stage; I threw a mug of orange juice at Alvin Lee and it was all over his guitar. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page and Bonham came on the stage at the end of our act and (Rod) Stewart and Planty were singing the blues together and I was playing a duet thing with Pagey.”
To have been there would have been truly something. Witnessing a cast of the era’s biggest stars jamming whilst at their creative peak sounds nothing short of magical. Given that the time Page and Beck spent in The Yardbirds together was short, this performance was of life-affirming proportions, it’s a shame they didn’t have video cameras back then.
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