Jeff Was My Beatles

90% of the British Invasion went over or under my head. I was not a Beatles fan, but I liked the Who a lot and Stones fairly well. The rest of that lot was just elevator noise. But Jeff Beck changed my world. And now he’s gone. Since I heard the news, last night, I’ve had my office stereo system on an endless Jeff Beck loop. I own eight of his eighteen albums, plus two Yardbirds records, which amounts to about seven hours of non-stop Jeff Beck. Not nearly enough.

Geoffrey (Jeff) Arnold Beck (24 June 1944 - 10 January 2023) was four years older than me and light years beyond me musically from the moment I first noticed his guitar playing in “Jeff’s Boogie” on the 1966 Yardbird’s record (on Epic Records at the time, in “Simulated Stereo”). A friend and I travelled from Dodge City, Kansas to Denver, Colorado in ‘66 to see the Yardbirds. Specifically, to see the guy who played “Jeff’s Boogie.” Sadly, I don’t remember a lot about that show. It was in a fairly small venue, there were a pile of those weird looking Jordan amps on the stage, we weren’t able to get particularly close to the state, and I didn’t learn a thing from watching Jeff play. He was at least that far over my head when he was 21 and I was 17. I stupidly thought his guitar was fretless, based on his fluid technique and went home to rip the frets out of my Airline electric, rendering it useless.

The second time I saw Jeff in concert was in 1976 at the Music Hall in Omaha’s old Civic Auditorium. He was touring to promote the “Wired” album with the Jan Hammer band; Believe it or not, Billy Joel’s band was the intro act; talk about an odd couple. Mrs. Day and I had front row seats, stage right smack between Hammer’s keyboards and where Jeff stood. There was nothing between me and Jeff except a few feet and I still learned . . . nothing from watching him play. The band I was in at the time covered “Freeway Jam” and often ended our practices with “Scatterbrain.” “Scatterbrain” was slightly past my level of competence, which is why that song did not make it into our setlist, ever. There was a moment when Jeff appeared to be concentrating and I briefly imagined that if I could just get to the point where I could play the song at that speed, I’d have finally caught up to Jeff after a decade of floundering in his wake. Then, he noticed that Hammer was waving a scarf over his head while he played the song’s Lydian scale riff. Jeff walked over to Hammer, had a short conversation, and he laughed and they began to double-time the song (roughly the tempo of this 1976 live recording). At the new impossible pace, he didn’t look even slightly pressured.

Around that time, poor, sad little no-solo-hit-wonder John Lennon was whining about the credit George Martin received for turning their pitiful little bar band into a massive success, “"When people ask me questions about 'What did George Martin really do for you?,' I have only one answer, 'What does he do now?'” What George was doing about that time was Jeff’s “Blow by Blow” and “Wired.” Can anyone remember anything other than “Give Peace a Chance” or “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” from post-Beatles-Johnny? One more reason I do my best to avoid Beatlemania.

This is a quirk, I know, but vocal music rarely connects to me emotionally. Blow by Blow's "Diamond Dust" is one of the songs that practically reduces me to putty, especially when I'm listening to it on headphones. Pat Metheny's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" is another song that effects me that strongly. This Rolling Stone interview has Jeff talking about the clarity of sound, purpose, and musicality George Martin brought to the studio and Jeff's music: "Jeff Beck Remembers George Martin: ‘He Gave Me a Career’." This one of my favorite stories from that interview, "Beck has particularly vivid memories of the album’s last track, the gorgeously orchestrated 'Diamond Dust.' When they first cut the song, Beck thought his band’s version 'sounded a bit lame.' But Martin suggested adding a string section to emphasize the drama in the melody. 'When he finished it, he came wafting in and said, 'This reminds me of a French love movie!'' Beck laughs. 'I said, ‘You’ve just spoiled the whole effect! I might not put it on the album!’ He didn’t realize it was the worst thing he could have said to me. But I thought it was beautiful. George lit a fire under it.”

In 2011, my daughter Holly (through a connection from her Guitar One column of the time), got a couple of amazing seats at the Minneapolis State Theater for Jeff’s group of the moment. I swear my wife was the only non-guitarist in the audience. Every time I looked away from the stage at the audience everyone around me was fumbling air guitar, totally baffled at every note Jeff played. Me too, of course. Finally, I learned something from watching Jeff play, “There are no picks in his fingers!!” said my hillbilly-self probably out loud to nobody in particular. Holly, of course, had figured that out either before or after the interview and we had a conversation about my big breakthrough. I watched some YouTube and learned even more. Jeff’s biography documentary, Still on the run: the Jeff Beck story, gave me more insight than I needed or wanted to know about his genius. As Jan Hammer said, “Jeff is the guy who took the instrument of guitar into the furthest reaches of guitar universe and nobody ever - nobody even comes close.“

 I think I’m going miss his smile the most. Not just that he was having a great time on stage, but that “Did you see what I just did?” look that every guitar player within earshot heard, saw, loved, and desperately wished they could do. Even at 78, he was pulling off stuff nobody else in the world could do. Nobody. We’ll never hear anything like Jeff Beck again.

This is one of the few moments I wish I could believe in a life-after-death. The world would be far less empty if I could imagine Jeff is still playing guitar somewhere, anywhere. Today, his live version of “Elegy for Dunkirk” seems particularly sad and relevant. When I saw him perform this song live at the State Theater in Minneapolis in 2011 (not listed on the setlist, but he did play it), it was heart-stopping then. Today, a part of me wishes my heart had stopped with his.

Flashing Backwards

While doing some cabinet making in the shop, I listened to Chicago’s self-produced “documentary” (or promotional video, depending on your perspective) “Now More Than Ever: The History of Chicago.” For me, the movie could have stopped about 1/3 way through, when the story got to Terry Kath’s suicide/accidental death/whatever it was. Kath died in 1978 from a self-inflicted “accidental gunshot wound to the head.” Do what you want with that, but I have a hard time imagining accidentally shooting yourself in the head. 

Kath played and sang on Chicago albums from CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) to Chicago VI. Most of the ballsy Chicago vocals were Terry’s, from “I’m A Man” to “Make Me Smile” to “Color My World” to “Now That You’ve Gone.” The other male vocals were Peter Lamm. After Chicago VI, the band went for whiny tenor almost-male vocals and I mostly forgot about them from 1974 on. It’s possible that Chicago did something I liked post-Kath, but I can’t think of what it would be.

In 1970, I was a married trade school dropout with a first kid on the way. I was offered a job in Hereford, Texas with an agricultural equipment company. When my wife and I drove to Texas for my interview, we passed through Amarillo at the moment a local AM radio station decided to play The James Gang’s “Funk 49.” That song allowed us to fool ourselves into imagining that Amarillo and west Texas were at least as hip as western Kansas. It wasn’t. West Texas was and is as backwards as Alabama; and that might be insulting Alabama. I’ve written about my R&R screw-up in “The Last Wagon Wheel Gig.” I haven’t written about what drove me to trying out country music during that miserable period of my history. This is that story.

After we settled into our new home and I got moderately comfortable in my new job, I started looking for a band to join. From the local music store, I quickly learned that there were only three options for a pop musician in Hereford, Texas: C&W, high school kid rock banks, and two horn bands mostly populated by college players from West Texas A&M in nearby Canyon. The kid rock bands didn’t play for money and the horn bands pretty much only worked the college circuit from Amarillo to Canyon to Lubbock and back. The good news was that the horn bands made some money, intermittently. Not much, though, since the cash was shared equally among seven to nine players and a management company out of Oklahoma City.

My last rock band was a fairly successful power trio in the Cream/ Led Zeppelin vein. To be honest, I thought I was a pretty hot guitar player. I could reasonably accurately reproduce Clapton, Page, and everyone British except for a few Jeff Beck solos, I’d been picked (by local musicians) for local All Star bands (on bass) for several years running. Before that, I’d played in a couple of bands that were considered R&B bands, doing Motown and Muscle Shoals hits without a horn section. I played bass with those groups, too. With a recommendation from the music store guy, I got a tryout with both of the horn bands as a guitar player. They both already had excellent bass players.

To make a short story honestly short, I got my ass handed to me during both tryouts. Songs like The Ides of March’s “Vehicle” were right up my alley, but both of those groups were keyed in on Chicago before I knew much about the band. “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is” got a little radio play, but not enough for me to recognize how great a song it was. The first audition started off with the band leader putting the Chicago Transit Authority record’s charts in front of me. With about a minute to study it, he counted off the tempo and away they went with the intention of doing the whole record straight through. By the time they got to “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” (the 2nd cut on the record), it was obvious I was out of my league. I thanked them for their time and slithered away with my tail between my legs. The 2nd band tryout didn’t get past introductions when they realized I didn’t read music and would need to hear the songs they wanted to play, practice them until I mastered the changes and solo, and come back a few weeks later ready to audition. Again, slithering away.

Several years later, when I was working with the Sum Fun Band in California, I learned that horn players often have an unfair advantage: they are committed musicians rather than guitar hero wannabes. They have been playing their instrument, often, for most of their lives; practically all the way through K-12, college, and adulthood. They read, they know theory and composition, and have been playing in a variety of performance settings from jazz clubs to college marching bands at the Rose Bowl. Using the horn player musicianship standard, most guitarists are as close to being a musician as donkeys are to being unicorns. It’s freakin’ scary how many hours a horn player has practiced by age 20.

Some time passed and Chicago came to Amarillo. I got tickets, partially because the James Gang was the headline band (or the opener, I don’t remember which). My wife was either pregnant or tending to our first daughter, but she was definitely not interested in either band. Probably, especially Chicago because, to this day, she isn’t a fan of horns or B3 organs. So, I was there on my own, which meant I found a spot near the stage where I could closely watch Kath with Chicago and Walsh with James Gang.

All I remember about Joe Walsh was that he was incredibly drunk and had roadies pretty much propping him up against amps or stage gear. His guitar playing was nothing interesting.

Terry Kath, however, ruined my day by demonstrating how much better he was than guitar playing I’d seen to that moment and any chance I ever had of getting into his league. There were guitarists of practically all sorts and Terry Kath was so far into extreme territory that he seemed like he was floating by himself. I couldn’t guess where he was going anytime during Chicago’s performance. I can count on the fingers of my hands how many times a guitar player has left me so damaged, confused, and demoralized.

Somewhere between the Wagon Wheel Gig and seeing Chicago and Terry Kath, I decided I wasn’t going to put much hope into my music career and I began to concentrate on my electronics career. I started a music equipment repair business and sold my electric guitar and amp. At the time, I thought I was through with bands and music. That sabbatical lasted two years, when I changed employers and we moved to central Nebraska. In Nebraska, I hired a kid who turned out to be a drummer. He introduced me to what he was listening to in 1974 and we started a band together. And so it goes. A few years later, I was in eastern Nebraska, met another kid, started another band, canned the band and started a sound company and recording studio. The kid tired of music and we closed the sound company and recording studio. I moved to Omaha where I started another studio with another kid and we wrote and played jingles and made some money. He moved to Washington and I moved to California. And so my quitting and returning to music looped a few more times until I ended up retiring in 2013.

Though it all, that evening watching Terry Kath play has stuck with me for almost 50 years. When I watched the Chicago documentary, it brought back some of the feeling of heartbreak and disappointment I felt in 1978 when I heard Terry Kath had died. Chicago was something amazing with him and something ordinary without. I can still imagine myself competent enough to play with a horn band, I just don’t have the energy or time to get there from here.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Jeff Beck at the State Theater in Minneapolis (3/9/2001)

Many of us own guitars, last night I saw someone play a guitar. In fact, I believe on Friday night I sat among one of the larger gatherings of Minnesotans who own guitars. I also suspect a fair number of guitars were bought and sold in Minnesota on Saturday morning.  Some of us probably felt fairly discouraged at how little we know about the limits of our instrument. Some were encouraged at the previously unrealized capabilities of our instrument. 

In the "historic Minneapolis State Theater," Jeff Beck, and band (Jennifer Batten - guitar/synth, Andy Gangadeen - drums, and Randy Hope-Taylor - bass), may have put on the best show I've ever seen. What Jeff Beck does with fingers and a Strat is physically impossible. He putzed around a little with a wah petal, otherwise, every sound you hear comes from his hands. His fingers, in fact, since he doesn't use a pick. Ten quick fingers creating more sound effects and tonal variations than George Lucas gets from a team of effects engineers and a space ship full of computers.

For 30 years, I've studied Jeff Beck interviews and attended his rare Midwestern concerts, trying to glean something that could apply to my own music. He's so far above my capabilities that I rarely come away with much more than inspiration.  Again, this year I am inspired but uninformed. 

One of the great disappointments in seeing him live in the past was that he's always said that he wouldn't mess with a slide on stage. This show, he gave us two nothing-but-slide-guitar songs and he liberally used the slide on a half dozen other tunes. Compared to any other human playing guitar with a bottleneck, Jeff Beck is unbelievable. During Hip-Notica, I swear, he played with such incredible precision, within millimeters of the bridge, that he bordered on performing the impossible.

A spacey Minneapolis kid intro'd the show, doing something a guitar style and technique somewhere between Michael Hedges and Stanley Jordon. I thought Jeff might have lost his marbles, putting someone that good in front of his show. The kid described the set he was going to do as something where he would just try to "love you up, because Jeff is going to kick your ass." And he followed that by playing some wonderful two-handed tapping stuff. Still, he was right. Jeff took an audience full of guitar players and had them beating their hands till they were raw and he had us yelling for more till a few of us sounded like refuges from a TB ward.

Two encores, a 2 1/2 show that never let up. Fun lighting and visuals, lots of car stuff and 50's movies. It sort of reminded me of the kind of show that ZZ Top always tried to do but didn't have the chops to pull off.

A lot the stuff on Jeff's new records sounds sequenced, it's so complicated and polyrhythmic. It's not. The fucker is unbelievable. He is a ten fingered rock and roll orchestra. I wish he were going to be where ever you live, I'd rag on you to see him till he was back in France playing with hot rods.

Somewhere I read that Andy Gangadeen played drums for the Spice Girls. If so, he's redeemed himself.