The album that made Jeff Beck dislike Led Zeppelin: “Not being ready”
It’s not necessarily hard to argue the reasoning why Led Zeppelin was one of the greatest rock and roll bands to walk the Earth. They had started in blues like every other group that came before them, but with practical virtuosos on every instrument, Jimmy Page guided them through some of the most adventurous music that the 1970s had ever seen. While it goes without saying that almost any hard rock act took pieces of what Zeppelin had done, Jeff Beck was never going to be the first one lining up for tickets.
Then again, it’s not like Beck was absolutely cold towards Page. They had both started work in The Yardbirds and made for a great duo behind their instruments half the time. But after things started to move more towards pop music in the group, it wasn’t hard for them to look at the model that Eric Clapton had set up with Cream and convince themselves to do their own version of that.
Beck’s only problem was not being able to get things off the ground at the right time. Even though he had the opportunity to join bands like The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd during their prime, his genius could not be confined to one band, so putting together the Jeff Beck Group was the next best thing. There were still virtuosos to be found in the band like Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart, but there was no doubt that everyone was coming to see Beck teach a clinic on how to make a guitar cry.
And compared to every blues act at the time, Truth was the moment everything started to congeal. Stewart may have been timid at the beginning, but listening to his voice on record, it was clear that Beck had his own blues belter he could bounce off of. Even though he managed to find his own blues-rock feet after The Yardbirds, Beck was blindsided once Page started Led Zeppelin with the same idea.
When listening to Zeppelin’s debut and Truth back-to-back, it’s clear that Page was copying his old bandmate’s homework. Outside of focusing on blues covers, the fact that they covered the same songs like ‘You Shook Me’ was more than a little bit on the nose. Beck may have put together a great album, but once people heard John Bonham thundering behind the kit and Robert Plant opening his mouth, there was no debate about which band was winning in the court of public opinion.
While Beck could still appreciate what Zeppelin were doing, he said that it did tamper his enjoyment of the group, saying, “It’s water under the bridge now. The Zeppelin fans don’t want to hear anything to spoil their life-long belief that they are the greatest band ever, you know. It did [prevent me from being a fan]. I’d just had the Devil’s own job thinking what I was gonna do, and that added to the frustration of not being armed and ready. I was ready mentally to play and blow everybody away, but I didn’t have a bass player or drummer.”
As fate would have it, though, not being able to keep up with Page may have been a blessing in disguise. There were only so many places Beck could go with the blues, so being able to work on records like Blow By Blow helped him shine brighter as a player, especially since he had a lot more wiggle room in terms of where could take his music.
And given the amount of work he put into craft later on in his career, it’s safe to say that Beck came out as the superior guitar player. He may not have the same legendary status that most people think of when listening to Zeppelin records, but anyone who has ever picked up a guitar is bound to have a certain reverence for how Beck turned his loss into his transformation into one of the greatest six-stringers of all time.
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