“Everyone would freak out”: The musician Jeff Beck thought overshadowed him
In the beginning, Jeff Beck felt like it would never end. Rising from the humble beginnings of a lesser-known Surrey town to domineering coveted spaces with other sought-after musicians, Beck enjoyed being the name on everybody’s lips, and the guitarist young hopefuls looked up to with the dream of one day following suit. For a while, he was untouchable – until one other figure stepped into his spotlight and dared him to fight for his place centre stage.
Replacing Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds might have seemed an extraordinary feat, but, at the time, no one other than Beck was equipped for the job. Although, by this time, he had enjoyed a significant venture transitioning from a guitar-playing protégé to one who could bend, slide, and apply vibrato without even using a pick, his recruitment alongside Jimmy Page introduced a new era of for the band, blending Beck’s experimental style with Page’s versatility.
Despite his various successes within The Yardbirds, it was his formation of The Jeff Beck Group that saw his emergence as a coveted clique frontier alongside Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. Unintentionally laying the groundwork for what would eventually become the hard rock and metal explosion in the years that followed, the members of this new act saw that blended genres could be innovative and exciting, not just a sign of another tryhard rock ‘n’ roll outfit that didn’t have a clear vision of how they fit in.
At the same time, Beck and his band of brothers knew how to put on a show that would have people talking for years to come. Their innate talent and prioritisation of creating an experience that was as energetic and chemistry-driven as it could possibly be made audiences feel they were really part of a moment and something big, mainly because they each exuded a mesmerising flow of rigid mastery and fluid improvisation.
As with all leaders, however, another will always emerge and threaten the crown, and in Beck’s case, it was the unknowing and unsuspecting force of Jimi Hendrix. As fate would have it, Beck and Hendrix would end up comrades with mutual respect enough to occasionally jam or collaborate, but in the beginning, his presence knocked Beck back for six. This wasn’t just because he wanted to enjoy his share of the limelight independently, but something about Hendrix’s abilities made him feel genuinely frightened.
“Jimi would come in just about encore time and everyone would freak out,” Beck told Guitar World, reflecting on the shows they would perform Manhattan’s rock scene at the same time Hendrix began infiltrating their circles. “He’d come onstage and completely overshadow and undermine what we’d done. But nobody cared; it was so great. And to have Rod singing as well, two guitars blazing away… forget it. It was just crammed to capacity every night,” he added.
Beck’s fear of Hendrix’s potential wasn’t a gradual thing; he witnessed one of his first live shows in the UK after relocating from America and immediately felt ousted. Watching Hendrix pull all of his usual tricks, like playing the guitar behind his head and then smashing it up, he was hit with a sudden sense of unfathomable unimportance. From the moment he kicked off with ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, Beck apparently gazed on astounded and muttered the fatal words, “Well, I used to be a guitarist.”
However, although many of Beck’s suspicions about Hendrix were justified—Hendrix would go the whole nine yards—his concern about being pushed aside seems more like a case of catastrophising. While Beck had to acknowledge the new kid in town and make way, his own achievements and talents were never going to be completely overshadowed, no matter who came along to challenge him.
