The one guitarist Angus Young said was never boring: “He sure knows how to do it with guts”
Angus Young always knew the importance of getting to the point when he played guitar.
The whole point of being a rock and roll guitar player is to pump out the riffs that everyone wants to hear, but if you play lead, you’re in danger of coming close to pure musical wankery if all people hear onstage is you playing the same licks over and over again. While AC/DC have been accused of making the same songs over and over again, Young always knew that the important part was changing things around to keep things fresh.
Granted, AC/DC might be the perfect example of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. The band have been pumping out letter-perfect rock and roll since the 1970s, and while there are albums that blend together for some people, it’s hard to really fault them when they sound incredible. The pairing of Angus and Malcolm’s guitars were a match made in heaven, but you could also hear echoes of rock’s past in their delivery.
Sure, Bon Scott was no Elvis Presley, and Angus didn’t even try to match the kind of intensity that Jimi Hendrix had, but there was always room for them to pull from their favourite acts when the time called for it. And while Angus had a deep love for Hendrix’s music, some of the biggest names in his record collection all circled back to the blues in one way or another.
While blues-rock is probably the most apt description for what AC/DC does, Angus was the one taking it to new heights whenever he played. The blues scale was the only one he really needed, but his lead breaks took the basis of what Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy did and paired it with the kind of lyrical approach that you’d hear out of someone like Mick Taylor of The Rolling Stones.
But whereas Eric Clapton was considered the reigning king of blues guitar when Angus was growing up, Jeff Beck was the one taking things to new levels. He had the blues as a foundation, but when looking through his solo discography, he was far more interested in stretching out, playing with different elements of fusion and turning the guitar into a voice whenever he performed.
Any instrumental artist on Beck’s level was never going to get the same reaction as Scott singing about sex, drugs and rock and roll, but Angus knew Beck could always keep things interesting, saying, “There are guys out there who can play real good without boring people. Jeff Beck is one of them. He’s more of a technical guy, but when he wants to rock and roll he sure knows how to do it with guts.”
Angus’s tastes were far more catered to Beck’s earlier years when working on albums like Truth, but even outside of those bluesy tunes, his best material actually came from flipping blues rock on its head. ‘Freeway Jam’ wasn’t like anything that he had made before, and when he embraced the more technical side of guitar, he was still trying to create songs that told a story with sound rather than a tune that simply melted your face off.
That was reserved for the shredders of the world, but Beck was the precursor to what someone like Eddie Van Halen would be doing later. Both of them were fantastic at what they did, but they never sacrificed their hooks for their chops. A great guitar solo might sound phenomenal in the right circumstances, but it’s about serving the song above everything else when you walk into the studio.
