Why is Jeff Beck suddenly everywhere?

Cafe Society
1

Admittedly, I might just be noticing him for the first time.

First off, it’s probably important to mention that I’m 36. Born in 1980, but when my friends started getting into music (I recall hearing names like Metallica and Black Sabbath getting tossed around), my dad was introducing me to Chicago/CTA, Bachman Turner Overdrive, The Guess Who, so Classic Rock, but IMO, not ‘real’ classic rock. In the 90’s I was very much into Alternative Music. Marilyn Manson, Live, Smashing Pumpkins, Offspring, (pre Kid-A) Radiohead etc. However, in a bizarre search to find a band I loved when I was younger, Chicago, I nearly always had the classic rock station on while I was driving around. That turned into a lifelong love for (real) classic rock. IOW, not only am I not unfamiliar with classic rock, I really shouldn’t be unfamiliar with Jeff Beck.

Throughout the years, I’ve heard Jeff Beck’s name tossed around here and there. Go read a history of Led Zeppelin and his name comes up in the early days with The Yardbirds, he also seems to be loosely associated with people like Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, even David Bowie and the Rolling Stones as well as quite a number of others. On top of that, he always comes up in top ### lists and I’m not doubting his guitar skills…it’s just that you’d think with how deep into classic rock I’ve been over the years, I’d know a bit more about him. My only thought is that he jumped around so much, even to the point just doing a song or two one person and another with this other person, he was basically on par with a studio musician.

However, in the last few years, it seems like I hear his name constantly. I believe he is (or was) on tour. He was at the Crossroads concert (as part of the tour) that gets played on MTV Live, they play him on XM quite a bit as well now.

So, was he a household name in the 60s/70s? If he was, has he been a household name since then and I’m just noticing him now? His wiki page shows that he’s been active the entire time (and won multiple grammys). Of course, he doesn’t do vocals which basically forces him into a ‘backup’ position so that could be part of it. I see that he’s played on plenty of current pop tracks.
It should probably be noted that even though I’m a fan of the style, in general, (both classic rock and jam), what I’ve heard from him, specifically, I’ve never been a big fan of, so I may have tuned him out.
Probably also doesn’t help that he looks similar to Ronnie Wood, so there may have been times that I’ve actually seen him accompanying a big act and just assumed it was Ron.

TL;DR, is it just me or has Jeff Beck suddenly become really popular (again?)?

2

He was and is great. Welcome to the party.

3

Jeff Beck is an amazing player but not an amazing pop/rock songwriter (IMO), so he kind of flies under the radar of the pop culture zeitgeist. Even when he was contributing consistently to pop and rock music (1970s thru the mid '80s, IMO), he was still a name that people would know but not really know why. He is so talented that he can pretty much work with whoever he wants, both in the sense of access and across musical genres.

I fully expect WordMan in here any minute now, which is good; he can do a much better job of encapsulating and recommending Beck’s tunes than prolly anyone else on the Dope, although 1969’s Beck-Ola is indispensable, as is 1975’s Blow by Blow.

4

Yep, I had a friend who referred to beck as: “The most talented white boy to ever pick up the guitar, but he can’t write a song to save his life.”
I was introduced to Beck sometime before the OP’s birth when I bought a box of cassettes from a church garage sale when I was a tot. Among a wide array of things like classical and flamenco tapes, there was a home made tape of Led Zeppelin’s first album backed with Beck’s Truth. Both sides of that tape changed what I thought of music at the time.
As to why you see more Beck today than you did previously: He seems to be more out in the public eye these days, and is one of the acts of his age that is touring while still producing new music, and hasn’t shown any real decrease in his skills. During the 80’s and 90’s, he did seem to pick who he worked with carefully, and I remember him stating in an interview that he was more interested in his cars than the guitar at the time. He seems to have renewed his interest in the guitar in recent years, and has produced some pretty tasteful recordings for someone who is a guitar virtuoso.

5

As Bo anticipated, yeah, I had to come into this thread! Jeff Beck is my favorite guitarist and, IMHO, the best ever.

I will riff a bit on some basic stuff about him:

  • Grew up in Surrey a couple of miles from Page and Clapton. Beck and Page have been friends since their teens.

  • The Yardbirds are famous as a 60’s Brit Blues band mainly because Clapton, Beck and Page all ended up in the band. Beck was famous for playing the sitar part on Heart Full of Soul with his Fender Esquire, and for his rave up lead at then of I’m A Man where he goes so hard and does some interesting stuff. Sort of the beginning of folks realizing he was more than just good.

  • He left the Yardbirds and began The Jeff Beck Group, with Rod Stewart on vocals and Ronnie Wood on bass. The two albums Truth and Beck-Ola, are essential - Truth is a personal favorite. He also did Beck’s Bolero with Page, Keith Moon and John Entwistle and had a huge UK hit that is still sung a lot in pubs, Hi Ho Silver Lining.

  • His album produced by Sir George Martin of Beatles fame, Blow by Blow, was another big hit and considering one of the first Fusion crossover hits. He came to regret the genre, but this album still sounds wonderful.

Since then he has just done his own thing, different albums, etc. But as a player, Beck has been seen as the straight line through the best guitar players of their day, from Eddie Lang to Django Reinhardt to Les Paul. Beck idolized Les Paul and Paul asked Beck to induct him (LP) into the RRHoF.

So his place in the Pantheon has been locked in through having sufficient hit songs or albums and because he has always been seen as a guitarist’s guitarist. Recently, with the death of Les Paul and the tribute concerts Jeff did, his DVD Live At Ronnie Scott’s, his participation at Crossroads, yeah, he seems to be popping up a bit more. It is nice to see that when he does, he: a) is so respected; and b) he still has it; really sharp and on his game.

I’ve talked about no one can do what Beck does - his right hand is doing so many things as he plays it is uncanny. And as for his tone and phrasing, I think of him as a vocalist who happens to sing using a guitar.

6

I will also add that when I surf the various music/MTV-type stations on my cable, there is often a Crossroads concert video playing. And Beck’s Live at Ronnie Scott’s seems to get a lot of play, too. Not sure why those videos get more play vs. other guitar-oriented stuff, but I run into him more than I would expect when I surf during football-game commercials.

7

I think it all boils down to this:

I first heard of him in the late 80s, reading an interview at the time Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop came out. Now, that was precisely when I was getting into both 60s-80s rock and guitar playing. I don’t know why but something about the interview made me want to know more about him. I think he was named as one of the Big Three Guitarists for the 60s, along with Clapton and Hendrix. That may have been the reason for my interest, since I was already familiar with these two.

I asked my dad about him and, while he’s no encyclopedia of rock, he was in his early twenties when Beck started making a name for himself, so he remembered all of the bands from that era that I was discovering at the time but when I mentioned Beck, he merely said: “No, never heard of him.”

8

Beck may be the original model of what I call “Roy Buchanan disease.” Buchanan was just a terrific technical guitarist who never hit it big because he was only so-so when it came to writing songs. There are several others who fit the model.

Beck was higher profile partly because of the Yardbirds and partly because of the original Jeff Beck Group (with Rod Stewart as his vocalist). But he also was gravitating toward jazz and jazz-rock, which has a smaller audience.

The thing was, he never had a real hit album. The Jeff Beck Group (Truth and Beck-Ola)got a lot of FM airplay (especially “Beck’s Bolero”), but never broke out (and, as the singer, Stewart was the star). His later stuff was unlikely to break out, being too much of a niche music.

9

True. That was my point: he had enough songs that people remember to stay on the general radar, and his overall Guitarist’s Guitarist rep kept him in the public eye.

A quick check of Blow by Blow says it went to #4 on the Billboard charts and went platinum; not bad for an instrumental jazz-fusion album. Part of his high spots that kept him in the public eye.

10

Does 1972 count as sudden? I knew the name but don’t think I’d heard him play until his lovely solo on ‘Looking for Another Pure Love’ on Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book. Since then, well… he’s Jeff Beck, man!

MiM

11

I grew up in a college town (late 60s early 70s) so I was exposed to a lot of good music, including the early Jeff Beck stuff. But, in 1973 I saw Beck, Bogert and Appice live…it was an amazing concert!! I was hooked.

12

At the risk of repeating what’s already been said. He has always been well known and respected by the best guitarists out there.

As an example: A few years back I saw him open for ZZ Top. The last 15 minutes of ZZ Top’s encore performance had Beck on stage with them. They played some of ZZ Tops most popular songs. During the entire time they were performing together Billy Gibbons religiously stayed on rhythm while Beck handled all of the lead. I think Gibbons not only did that out of respect for Beck but also for the chance to see how Beck would improvise Billy’s lead work.

I’m not completely ready to say that Beck wasn’t capable of writing good pop/rock. I think that he just didn’t want to.

13

ZZ Top’s Rough Boys (a live version), featuring Beck in on pretty heavy rotation right now on the radio. Promoting a new live Top album.

14

I’ll just leave this here. Beck at the peak of his rock powers, before he met Jan Hammer and Michael Narada Walden. Max Middleton is here tho.

15

The takeaway that I’m getting from this is that even with my familiarity of the genre, I didn’t have to be wearing blinders to not get to know Beck that well. Don’t get me wrong, I know the name, I know of the existence of The Jeff Beck Group, I hear is name tossed around in ways such as I (in the OP) and others mentioned (doing guitar tracks for random songs here and there), but it seems that his lack of familiarity to me (and probably to the general public) is because he didn’t do a lot of solo work (probably because he wasn’t a vocalist*) and moreso, because he jumped around so much. It’s not like I was asking who Jimmy Page or Pete Townshend are. Jeff was kind of all over the place.
*Of course, Carlos Santana and J. Geils aren’t vocalists and most people know who they are, so there’s that. (Just to differentiate them from Page and Townshend, these two named bands after themselves and stuck with them for years). Also, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that was surprised that J Geils wasn’t the front man of the J Geils band.

16

Another thing about Jeff is that he has a knack for picking great band mates. His line-ups over the years have been filled with some fantastic players.

17

Flat out technically one of the best, maybe the best, guitar players ever. I have played for many years, so I know how to make the parts work, but last time I saw him on TV, there were times when I wasn’t sure how he was making the sounds that were coming from his guitar. As WordMan pointed out above, he does amazing things with his right hand that set him apart from all the other pickers and strummers out there.

18

Yeah, I would say that sounds about right. Someone present enough to know about and to pick out with some songs, but you might not dig in unless you chose to. When I was 16 I was talking guitar with a substitute teacher and mentioned (sigh) Ted Nugent. He got my address and showed up at 6pm. After a nice talk with my mom, we went upstairs and he played the records he brought. Why, yes, times have changed ;). BBKing Live, Cream’s Disraeli Gears, a few others. Truth was in that set and it reached into my brain and shook it up. I sought him out ever since.

Yeah, most didn’t know J Geils was the guitarist. Kinda like REO Speedwagon - I think of them as a them more than individuals (although Gary Richrath was a great player).

19

I was going to thank you for getting an REO Speedwagon song stuck in my head 10 seconds after I woke up, but after 10 minutes of searching, turns out it’s a Boston song. Boston, REO, Foregner (<-less so), Journey. They all blend together for me. At least to the point that when a song comes on that I don’t know is by one of them, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to figure out which one it is.

And can we talk about Journey for a second. So, a few years ago I turn on Palladia/MTV Live and see, well, hear a Journey concert and I’m thinking, who is this guy. I don’t think that’s the guy from Journey, sure sounds like Journey (doing all the regular Journey songs). I’m confused, it’s on, I just keep on watching cuz either this guy is really good, or I really know a lot less about Journey than I think I do.
Then, all of a sudden I’m like, wait, Journey is with Steve Perry, the guy that no matter what year it, he had perpetually 80’s hair (Farrah Faucet-esque), always. So I grab my computer and found out not only did Steve Perry have to leave due to some personal health issues, Arnel was the second lead singer since Steve Perry.
Anyways, I’ve seen two concerts on TV with Arnel, he’s doing an amazing job. Now, maybe it’s just the high vocal range he has (like Steve Perry), but they pulled some AC/DC shit there, finding a new singer that sounds a whole lot like the old singer. As a casual AC/DC fan, put a song on and I’m not going to know if it’s Bon or Brian (though just based on years active, the answer is usually Brian, but that’s not the point).
So, to sum it up, I tend to mix up bands, Arnel is great, I’ve got a song stuck in my head in my morning daze, I’m reminded of why I don’t type at the internet before I get to work, I’m now running late and still not really awake yet. Also, it’s still strange seeing Steve Perry listed under ‘Former Members’ on Journey’s wiki page.

20

A lot of Rod Steward’s best work was with the Jeff Beck Group.

And my uncle is a huge Jeff Beck fan, and one of my musical mentors, so I did grow up with Beck as a household name. In high school in the 90s, I dug out my parents’ copy of Blow by Blow on vinyl and wore it out.

And if we’re talking about famous guitarists who can’t sing but who nevertheless have famous bands named after them, you can’t leave out Eddie Van Halen.