The performance that caused a rift between Jeff Beck and David Bowie
Any stage that Jeff Beck ever set foot on was owned by him until the moment he left. Regardless of how many guitar gods came before him or spawned in his wake, Beck was the embodiment of what a guitar hero should be, constantly innovating his sound to suit whatever song he played at the time. Although Beck could warp his guitar into strange musical shapes whenever he played live, he hasn’t always seen eye to eye with legends of the game.
Then again, Beck was no stranger to storming into a show like a rock and roll troubadour. Although he may have had his time working with bands like The Yardbirds, Beck always flew highest when he was left to his own devices, creating kaleidoscopic layers of sound when working on albums like Blow By Blow.
He was still crafting brilliant musical pieces out of the air even when he wasn’t thinking. When working alongside Stevie Wonder for a jam session at the studio, Beck came up with the riff for what would become ‘Superstition’ on the spur of the moment, taking a basic blues shuffle and turning it into one of the funkiest breaks of all time.
While Beck had carved out his niche by the start of the 1970s, another musical wonder was making waves out of England. Fresh off of falling to Earth on ‘Space Oddity’, David Bowie was creating some of the most expansive musical projects of the time, from blending different musical genres on The Man Who Sold the World to manifesting his musical personas on Aladdin Sane.
Around the time Bowie embraced his glam rock messianic complex, Beck appeared alongside Bowie during a show, sharing the stage with the glam rock idol Mick Ronson. Although Beck was happy to drop in various lead licks whenever he could, the footage from that night eventually resulted in a slight rift between the two.
Once Beck saw the different reels from the concert, he didn’t want the footage to see the light of day, much to the chagrin of Bowie’s people. While the guitar legend at first refused to have his likeness shown on film, the show would be broadcast on television a few months later, leading to Beck trying to sue Bowie.
When talking about his side, Beck felt that he had nothing to gain from the footage, saying, “I mean, there’s a law that says you have the right to refuse any film that’s been made of you. I mean, it could be detrimental to my career. I didn’t think it was that, but I didn’t think it would be any advantage to me at all. There again, I’ve been used.”
Even though Beck thought he was there for Ronson’s sake, he admitted that his fellow guitarist still had a ways to go, explaining, “Ronson is potentially good, but he can’t make up his own things, he’s always… he sounds a bit like me. But then anyone with a Les Paul who bends strings and plays loud… I’ve been doing it for ten years, twelve years.”
While the footage is still open to the public today, it’s easy to see where Beck may have been coming from. Considering how well Ronson was at providing a foil to Bowie’s frontman persona, it’s strange seeing two kings of glam rock trying to rise to the same level as a guitar genius.
