Why Jeff Beck always knew Jimi Hendrix was better than everyone: “He swept us all aside”
The entire landscape of any rock and roll guitar player is usually rocked the minute they listen to Jeff Beck for the first time.
Most of what Beck played in the beginning may have been straight-ahead blues, but by the time that he struck out on his own, all bets were off as to what he could get out of the guitar. He was creating sounds that seemed like they were being beamed in from Mars, but even if he had contact with extraterrestrial guitar sounds, he was no match for when a pure musical alien crashlanded in front of him.
Granted, a lot of what Beck was doing was always going to be impossible to decipher. For one thing, he never set foot in one sound for too long, and even when he got a bit jaded about Led Zeppelin ripping off his album Truth, it didn’t matter when he was already miles away from that when he made records like Blow by Blow or Wired. He was in the business to wow people, but he wasn’t alone, either.
There were bound to be other guitarists who were willing to show people how it was done, and even years after he debuted, everyone from Eddie Van Halen to Joe Satriani to Steve Vai has all tried their hand at making something new and exciting that no one had ever tried before. But anyone who has ever come within a few feet of the electric guitar is always going to be tempted by what Jimi Hendrix could do.
Even with his background playing with people like Little Richard, it’s difficult to quantify what Hendrix brought to the table when he made his way over to England in the late 1960s. His music still sounds like some of the most advanced guitar lines that anyone had ever heard, so if it sounds ahead of the curve today, it’s a wonder that people’s brains didn’t melt the first time that he kicked off tunes like ‘Purple Haze’.
Some of the tunes were familiar to the guitarists in the audience, but Beck had no problem saying that Hendrix tore apart every single player that had come to see him, saying, “It was a horrible time, really. Not because of him, but because of the fact that he swept us all aside and put us in a bin. I think that was more the case for us than for the public at large, who were happy to have us all. But I know how it felt having a girl ring up and ask, ‘Did you hear Jimi Hendrix?’”
Then again, that might still be an understatement for what Hendrix brought to the table. His technique was otherworldly, and even when standing next to another legend like Eric Clapton, it was impossible to discern what he was doing, whether he was playing the guitar behind his head, playing the whole thing with his teeth, or even those moments when he lit his guitar on fire in front of the crowd.
A lot of it may have been pure spectacle, but it was never about showmanship over musicianship, either. Hendrix was equally attuned to what he could do as a musician, and every time he entered the studio, there were always new opportunities for him to push rock and roll in another direction on records like Electric Ladyland or the collaboration with Miles Davis that was bound to happen had he not passed away so soon.
But that’s sometimes the nature of someone who has the most talent that anyone has ever seen. No one may have expected Hendrix to burn himself out so quickly, but everyone from Beck to Van Halen to Satriani are beyond grateful that records like Are You Experienced are set in stone. Because when all is said and done, Hendrix’s records will always be benchmarks for what could be done with an electric guitar.
