In April 2014 Jeff Beck returned to Australia to appear at Bluesfest after he had toured with Brian Wilson.
Beck spoke to Brian Wise for the March 2014 issue of Rhythms.
Master guitarist Jeff Beck laughs when I ask him to tell me about his tour with Brian Wilson last year. It was one of the most unusual combinations in recent history; Brit rock guitar idol and genius West Coast composer. At the very least it was a sign of Beck’s exceptional versatility, though he does reveal that there was darker side to the tour for him.
“Well, it was an unusual combination,” chuckles Beck, who was asked to play on some tracks by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, who had been commissioned for some of Wilson’s new recordings. “Whatever the deal was, I don’t regret being there.”
Immediately after Beck played (with Beth Hart singing in his band) at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festivalin New York last April, he flew to Los Angeles for four or five day’s session work on Wilson’s new album.
“What happened,” explains Beck on the phone from his estate in the UK, “was that during the sessions a photo was taken and it went straight out onto Brian’s website. The next day at the session they said, ‘The whole of America’s gone crazy!’ Everybody thought that we were coming out with a combined album, which was not the case.
“So, we were in trouble from the beginning. I actually only played on two or three tracks. It was incomplete, but they still went ahead and offered the tour. I thought two things are going to happen: it’s either going to be a mismatch but at least we are going to be able to play with a new band and get on the road. So, that’s what happened and it was weird. But it got less weird as the tour unfolded because people started to see and understand it was two people playing music, not necessarily in one another’s pockets. I was playing ‘Surf’s Up’ and stuff like that. We just had a party, you know?”
“You can say that again!” he laughs heartily when I suggest that it sounds like one of the more unusual experiences in his music career. “The trouble was that on the contract it said that we had to play three or four songs to a paying audience at a pre-gig, like a meet and greet. So, there were two hundred guests paying megabucks for the ticket just to watch us rehearse.
“So that robbed me of all my time and sleep. I sleep in the afternoon mostly. For some reason I don’t sleep until the daylight on the road. So, it was brutal. After about three weeks I was losing sleep. About three days before the end of the tour I ended up in Chicago General Hospital. So, it wasn’t all happy memories, but I still wouldn’t have changed it because it’s got us our boot print back in the States again. We got great reviews and that’s all that really counts.”
Playing some of Brian Wilson’s surf classics seems a long way from the humble origins of the lad from Wallington, near London, who joined The Yardbirds and played on some of their finest recordings before going solo, worried that the band was becoming too commercial.
Forming his own group, he gave a start to another budding young talent in singer Rod Stewart, then went on to forge a formidable career, establishing himself as one of the greatest guitarists in rock history. Rolling Stone ranks him at Number 5 in their Top 100 – just behind Keith Richards but ahead of BB King and Chuck Berry! (Number 1, of course, is Jimi Hendrix).
Over the decades, Beck’s albums have explored rock, blues, jazz-rock fusion and rockabilly. His later albums have featured guest singers such as Imelda May, Imogen Heap and Joss Stone (with Beth Hart occasionally in his touring lineup). Australian bassist Tal Wilkenfeld has also been in Beck’s touring band.
If the tour with Brian Wilson seemed unusual, then Beck’s forthcoming Australian visit should be no less interesting, but a lot less weird. The guitarist has set himself the challenge of paying tribute to another guitarist in John McLaughlin and his Mahavishnu Orchestra.
That is some kind of challenge. If you have ever listened to Mahavishnu on record or seen them in concert, you will be aware of not only what an amazing group of musicians McLaughlin assembled and how intricate the music was, but also how incredibly fast McLaughlin played. (He had just recently left the Miles Davis group.) I recall seeing him at Festival Hall sometime in 1974 (I’m guessing), and it was mind-boggling. If anyone can replicate what McLaughlin did, then Beck surely has the ability to do so. His new drummer is Jonathan Joseph (“He’s pretty amazing”), formerly of Joss Stone’s band who Beck says is like a cross between Vinnie Colaiuta and Billy Cobham (“Which isn’t a bad combination”).
The bassist is Rhonda Smith from Prince’s band. Nicholas Meyer is on back-up guitar and Lizzie Ball is the violinist. “Because I am still hooked on some of the playing,” replied Beck when I ask him why he chose to pay tribute to McLaughlin. “He gave us Billy Cobham. He gave us Jan Hammer, who I teamed up with and had a two-year career with. Those players have never been equalled, I don’t believe. Rick Laird, Jerry Goodman. They were above the game in a million ways back then, in ‘70-‘71. The fire that was coming off the stage… it was probably too much for a lot of people that didn’t really understand the time signatures. It could be cacophonic or whatever, but to me it was groundbreaking almost in the way that rock ‘n’ roll was. It was as radical as rock ‘n’ roll was when it came out. They fused all these different styles. You can listen to it now and you can still enjoy it, I think.
“The thing is that, John [McLaughlin], it seemed to me like he went underground in the late ‘60s when Jimi Hendrix was doing amazing fireworks and just genius displays with the guitar.”
“The thing is that, John [McLaughlin], it seemed to me like he went underground in the late ‘60s when Jimi Hendrix was doing amazing fireworks and just genius displays with the guitar. There was Zeppelin and all that and he probably thought, ‘I’m not having this. I’m going to go underground and I’m going to show you guys what it’s all about.’ He came back with that and was like a bit of Hendrix and a bit of Zeppelin all in one, but with the firepower that nobody had ever seen before.”
Yet despite Beck’s flair, ambition and undoubted ability as a guitarist, I was surprised when I first saw in concert some years ago that he basically only used one guitar for the entire night – his signature Fender Stratocaster. (He only changed it for a version of Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing’.) A few days earlier I had seen a great Tom Petty & The Hearbreakers show that could have been elevated to brilliant status except that Petty took about a minute after every song to change his guitar. It killed the crowd vibe and annoyed the hell out of me.
“You can’t even tell the difference,” laughs Beck again when I tell him the story and how I particularly noticed that he used just one axe, apart from that one Hendrix tune. “Maybe I could use it more, but it’s just boring plugging and unplugging,” he says. “I’m glad you noticed!”
“It’s a phenomenon,” answers Beck when I ask him why he thinks some guitarists feel the need to change their instrument so often. “Maybe they think they feel different, like a clean shirt or a different pair of shoes. I don’t know.”
As well as including a tribute to the Mahavishnu Orchestra in his set during the forthcoming Australian tour, Beck will also be joined at some gigs by singer Beth Hart, who will be here with her own band and who toured with Beck for three weeks last year. Hart sings some of the songs originally sung by Rod Stewart on the album Truth when Beck includes a short career retrospective in his set. “She can blow most of the guys off the stage,” he says of Hart. When I ask Beck if Hart’s energy reminds him of Stewart in his heyday, the guitarist has a simple answer. “She’d wipe the floor with Rod!”