The guitarist Joe Perry said was in a different league: “The genius”
When talking about the greatest guitarists in the world, Joe Perry tends to get lost in the shuffle a little bit.
Compared to Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, he is much more riff-oriented when it comes to a lot of Aerosmith’s work, but it’s hard to think of any song in their catalogue where he isn’t locked into the groove with the rest of the band whenever he plays. His role was best served being the guitar-toting badass that could play the perfect lick at just the right time, but he at least had a good idea for what made all of his idols one-of-a-kind.
If you look back at where Perry started, though, it wasn’t like the world was lacking any new blues players on the scene. There had already been years of rock and roll bands pulling from the likes of Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy, but when that music was sold back as the British invasion, Perry felt like there was some magic in taking the majesty of Led Zeppelin and combining it with Steven Tyler’s approach to music.
They weren’t going to be rewriting Bach or anything, but some of the finest musicians that he pulled from were those who were relying on the rhythm of everything. Compared to every other rock and roll band at the time, Aerosmith could swing like nobody else, and that came from listening to bands like The Yardbirds and giving them a healthy dose of American boogie when playing tunes like ‘Somebody’ or ‘Last Child’.
Because, really, The Yardbirds were as important to Perry as The Beatles and The Stones. Their music wasn’t exactly the most commercial in the world, but a song like ‘Train Kept A-Rollin’ was the prototype for what Aerosmith would become. All the pieces were there, but even with all the comparisons made between Perry and someone like Jimmy Page, he was always much more fascinated by what Jeff Beck was doing whenever he put out a new record.
Then again, any guitarist practically needs to have Beck as a part of their musical diet at least once in their lives. He might have had the reputation as one of the founding fathers of blues rock guitar, but on records like Blow By Blow and Wired, he wasn’t only trying to emulate the greats. He wanted to discover some new magic that wasn’t there yet, and Perry could only look on with his jaw on the floor half the time.
Beck was always secretive about his playing abilities, but even if most people saw what he could do, Perry thought they still couldn’t figure out what he was doing on guitar, saying, “That’s the thing about Jeff: he’s on this journey and always has been, discovering new stuff. That’s the genius, that’s why there’s all of us other guitar players and then there’s him. Every time you see him he’s doing something different. That’s the thing that inspires me the most about Jeff.”
And that’s the kind of mindset that every great aspires to when they are making their greatest stuff. After all, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen weren’t going to remain stagnant once they reached the top of the world. They wanted to find something new whenever they made records, and even on later Aerosmith records, you can hear Perry trying to use the guitar in a different way, like breaking out the lap steel when working his way through ‘Rag Doll’.
He and Tyler may have helped Aerosmith reach the top of the charts, but writing hits wasn’t Beck’s mindset whenever he made a record. He wanted the chance to blow people away from the minute that he kicked on his guitar, and for any guitarist wanting to improve their game, his discography may as well be musical homework on what the limitations of the instrument truly are.
