The artist Jeff Beck considered ahead of his time: “Not as well-known as I’d like”
Any musician is going to want to make songs that reflect their time and place whenever they make a record. Anyone could leave their mark by having a few hits on the charts, but the true mark of an artist is going back to their records decades after the fact and finding a snapshot in time from what the world looked like back then. But it takes a certain amount of extra strength to make the kind of record that exists outside of one’s time altogether, and Jeff Beck is one of the few guitarists to have had a few throughout his career.
Although much of his finest work in The Yardbirds feels more like a product of the British invasion half the time, what he contributed to his first solo bands was where the depth started to come in. Some albums may not have received the proper recognition they deserved, like Truth, but after trying to escape the shadow of bands like Led Zeppelin, Beck knew that the best way for him to innovate was to go to the lip of the stage.
Whereas most guitarists feel far more comfortable having a frontman to bounce off of, the best work Beck ever did involved him using the guitar as the main instrument. While most instrumental albums usually have a limit on how far they can be sold to the casual music crowd, albums like Blow By Blow and Wired showed him taking more aggressive leaps with his music, usually taking the theme of a melody and expanding on it every single time the main section came back around.
But Beck’s style was about more than simply playing instrumental music. His touch and tone on the guitar were in a class by themselves, and once he started working in influences from world music and any other genre he could get his hands on, his instrument almost stopped sounding like a guitar altogether. This was a new vocabulary, but it was still no match for what Beck heard John McLaughlin doing during his prime.
While Beck was never far away from jazz when making his fusion records, McLaughlin’s style felt like music was being beamed down to him by a musical god. There were certain sections that made a bit more sense than others, but he would also have moments where he would fly off the handle and come up with the kind of lick that was either too fast for human comprehension or had the most unconventional harmony one had ever heard.
“John is so far ahead of his time — he really is. He’s not half as well known as I’d like him to be. Those songs are played with the most heartfelt respect.”
jeff beck
Compared to the other fusion players around the same time, Beck had the highest reverence for what McLaughlin was doing when performing his songs, saying, “I’m just a messenger for John on those songs because I want people to listen to him. If people enjoy my version of it, then my job is done. John is so far ahead of his time — he really is. He’s not half as well known as I’d like him to be. Those songs are played with the most heartfelt respect.”
Even though Beck had his own voice when making his masterpieces, there were always bits of McLaughlin’s playing slowly creeping in. A tune like ‘Scatterbrain’ had the same bluesy soul that Beck had when he started, but the breakneck speed and the flurry of notes could have easily been something the Mahavishu Orchestra could have come up with during their prime as well.
Beck may have only been looking to McLaughlin as his indirect teacher when making classic songs, but those moments of jazz in his playing were a case of him never stopping his learning process. No one can claim to know everything about music, and the best way to keep one’s chops up is to learn something that would have never been on your radar.
