I was a crappy guitar player and I had flunked out of college as an English major, so I figured I had what it took to make it as a music journalist. When the guitar magazines were coming of age, I was there. I was in the right place at the right time. I’ve been there ever since.
Photo: Jeff Beck and Steven Rosen
Chapter 1: Jeff Beck and the Sounds of Silence or Why Didn’t I Hit the Damn Record Button?!
May 3, 1973, Hollywood, California—The drive from my guesthouse/cottage in the hills of Hollywood to the then-hallowed Continental Hyatt House took maybe four minutes. It was 240 of the most anxiety-laden seconds I’d ever experienced. I rolled down Laurel Canyon to Sunset Boulevard, made a right and headed west for about two miles. There it was, north side of the street, a cement and chrome monument to everything that was wickedly wonderful and over the top back in the ’70s. Dubbed the “Riot” House by the parade of English bands winging their way across the Atlantic on ever expanding American tours, the hotel was the only accommodation in Hollywood that not only provided room and board for these visiting musicians, but willingly sought out their business. The management delighted in the destruction of hotel rooms, the torching of couches, the high-velocity burping of motorcycles being ridden up and down hallways. Musicians may have caused physical damage but they were also fiscally responsible: trash a room, pay cash to it.
And it is precisely in one of these suites where Jeff Beck awaited me. It was 1973, and the Englishman had finally formed his long sought after trio with Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice. He’d been trying to assemble these players for years but the project was ultimately put up on blocks when he found himself muscle-to-metal in a devastating car crash.
I elevatored myself to the 11th floor and shuddered as the Otis doors opened. I made the long walk down the hallway to room 1123. I was armed with a $29 cassette player, a $2.00 plug in microphone I bought at Radio Shack, and a .29-cent cassette. Totally unprofessional gear—an audio disaster waiting to happen. I glanced briefly over my list of questions. They seemed inane, superfluous, absolute drivel. I knocked timidly on the door.
And then, suddenly, there he was. Oh my god, there’s Jeff Beck, the most masterful, inspired guitarist who ever lived. He was shorter than I’d imagined.
Jeff grasped my hand in a cordial shake and it disappeared entirely inside of his. His hands were huge. He offered me a gin and tonic and I gulped it down. Jeff sensed my unease, and was cool. I sat down on the bed as underwent the process of preparing my gear. Cassette inserted, microphone plugged in, Play button tapped, we started talking.
Jeff was great—insightful, funny, relaxed, generous. It was an amazing interview. As we were wrapping up, I looked down and noticed that the tape had already ended. Just to ensure all was fine, I rewound a touch for playback. I hit Play and … silence. Utter, unalterable, unbelievably humiliating nothing. I had never hit Record! I’d punched Play but not Record. The rotten bastard button loomed there like a taunt. I couldn’t speak, embarrassed into a state of mild catatonia, and couldn’t even look at Jeff. He’d witnessed the entire process. I sat there stunned, waiting for him to laugh out loud and throw me out.
Instead, he suggested, “Let’s just continue from here and you can come back tomorrow and we’ll go over what you missed.” He was totally cool about it. I thanked him, and thanked him again, profusely, endlessly, and I think the thanking started to irritate him.
I returned the next day with my tape player and accessories in my left hand and a guitar case in the other. Upon entering, he immediately saw the case and his eyes lit up. I told him, sheepishly, that I played, and I thought he might like to check out this Fender I just bought. He opened the case, removed the 1973 all maple Strat.
There was no amp in the room but even on an unplugged electric guitar, there was no mistaking the technique and attack of Jeff Beck. That tone, that indescribable touch, it was all there.
He noodled through delicate little blues riffs and funky honkin’ rhythmic chops. I asked him to play the syncopated line from Donovan’s “Barabajagal” and he plucked out the phrase. I was grinning so wide my face hurt.
He loved the guitar and jokingly said he was going to keep it. I probably would have given it to him. We went back over the unrecorded material and the entire time he messed around on the guitar. Listen closely and you can hear it. In fact, the interview just about got in the way of the playing. I should have let tape roll and just recorded Jeff Beck conjuring his magic for an hour.
But Jeff has a dry and sardonic wit and a pretty self-deprecating sense of humor. Here, he talks about his early experiences with feedback.
While in the Yardbirds, Beck first began experimenting in earnest with the guitar’s sonic possibility. Occasionally, these effects were created when a guitar neck deliberately encountered an amp cabinet. Though Jeff had the reputation of being a moody and petulant player on stage, he sometimes had his reasons. Imagine the following scenario—Jeff Beck, in the throes of an expressive solo section, is distracted by the sounds of singer Keith Relf’s asthma inhaler.
On-stage, Beck doesn’t dance around or do splits or twirl his guitar. But there is understated showmanship to his performances. This is simply the end result of spending thousands of hours standing on a stage. There was a time when he did make a half-serious effort to broaden the physical aspects of his performance. And it worked.