Jeff Beck once explained his “uncomfortable rivalry” with Eric Clapton
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The nearly career-changing advice Eric Clapton gave Jeff Beck
Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck are two of the most esteemed guitarists of all time, and for anyone who is readily familiar with their work, they will know that they are connected by much more than solely being wizards of the six-string.
The pair were heroes of swinging sixties London, both cutting their teeth in a variety of groups, and at different points, both had stints in the capital’s most eminent rabble of rock ‘n’ roll hellraisers, The Yardbirds. In both their respective stints, Clapton and Beck made considerable strides both in their personal creativity and in the development of the broader form of rock music.
Given that they were both two of the hottest prospects that London and the United Kingdom had to offer, understandably, the pair were acutely aware of each other’s work and were great friends. Along with the city’s other foremost guitarist and future Yardbirds member, Jimmy Page, they formed a lifelong trifecta that would be mutually beneficial to all involved.
When speaking to Total Guitar back in 2016, Jeff Beck discussed his life and times and revealed some nearly career-changing advice that Eric Clapton once gave him. When the attention turned to the burden of writing the material for The Yardbirds, Beck revealed that Clapton tried to convince him to sing, despite Beck hating his voice.
Beck recalled: “It’s so difficult because I didn’t sing. Eric [Clapton] said, and it was words of great wisdom, ‘Get used to the fact that you hate your voice, because I did.’ And I went, ‘But you sound good, I sound unbearably bad. I loathe it. I would never enjoy it even if we had another single like ‘[Hi Ho] Silver Lining’, I just couldn’t bear it.’”
However, the typically forthright Clapton maintained his point: “He said, ‘I’m telling you, if you don’t, it’s going to be tough.’ And it was tough, but then I can turn around and say, ‘Blow By Blow, put that in your pipe and smoke it, mate.’ But he’s right, if I did come up with a song and everybody loved it, it would instil confidence automatically and I might even get to like what I sound like but letting that out there is more than I can bear.”
Beck then turned his attention to his favourite artist of all time, Jimi Hendrix, and noted that the ‘Purple Haze’ singer didn’t necessarily have a “great” voice: “It’s just not me. I listen to Jimi who had a peculiar voice and it wasn’t a great voice but it was just magic. He never did scream, it was always the guitar that screamed for him and I still marvel at him even today. I never listened to more Jimi than I do now because I’ve got some really rare recordings, it’s just humiliating to know that he was doing that up to 1970, all in a period of about three and a half years.”
He concluded: “Things took a funny turn in the early ’70s. It all turned out well when I heard John McLaughlin, because his performance on the Miles Davis Jack Johnson album and with Mahavishnu Orchestra said, ‘Here’s where you can go’. And every musician I knew was raving about them. I thought, ‘This is a little bit of me, this. I’ll have some of that.’ The mastery of the playing, it was unequalled”.
