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1 I was taken there by a girlfriend, as a tourist.

1966, she took me in and I wandered in onto the stage

and it just struck me,

"This is the most famous place in Hollywood, ain't it?"

And I just thought, "We'll never play here."

50 years later, I had my own show there.

He's a maverick.

A maverick guitar player, who doesn't like to repeat himself,

who takes big risks all the time.

Has done so all the way through his career.

The guitar player who builds hot rods, I mean...

the two go very well together.

There's been a lot of wakeup calls for me

watching Jeff, listening to Jeff play,

and working with Jeff.

It's always intriguing.

And he's a great musician.

He has so much to offer

that he's been able to carve his own path.

Music draws people together

and somebody who likes to touch play,

they go "bang" and that's it.

He makes you feel important,

like what you have to offer is a beautiful thing.

Most guitar players just play, but Jeff can make it sing.

Jeff had got a fix

up the ying yang when he's recorded,

but live, he brings it to a different level.

Part of Jeff's mystique

is that he likes being mysterious.

He's a bit of an unsung hero to the masses.

Part of that is due to many albums not having vocals.

I told him that he was the Pablo Picasso of electric guitar.

And he said back to me:

"I would think I was more the Jackson Pollock."

And I was like: "Touché."

It's so instinctive and so exciting to be around

'cause you don't know what's gonna happen next.

This is not paint by numbers.

This is the muse.

And the muse is gonna say what it's gonna say.

And he lets it happen, and next.

He's such a forward thinker, and an innovator.

He's just always reaching for new things.

Jeff's an incredible artist

and I always have an affinity for male artists

who can find fantastic female artists to accompany them.

Jeff's the guy who look the instrument of guitar

to the furthest reaches of guitar universe.

And nobody even comes close.

Everybody respects Jeff.

He's an extraordinary musician and he's developed a technique,

which is so complex.

It's just a beauty to behold and to hear and to feel his playing.

He's having a conversation with you when he's playing,

it's just he's not singing.

He gets sounds that no other guitar player gets.

He bends notes like no other guitar player.

He was, and is still, the most original guitar player ever.

My mum played the piano so...

being in close proximity to her, music was always around.

Either playing the piano

or sticking me in the living room with the radio.

So there'd be whatever was on at the time.

She had very strict ideas and hopes

of what she wanted me to be.

I would love to play the piano, but it's already done.

And after I heard Art Tatum, there's a good enough reason

never to ever sit in front of a piano again.

I just thought there's no place for another pianist.

I don't feel that was my destiny.

Whereas guitar, I didn't have to think about it.

I wouldn't have cared if it'd been the worst waste of my life.

I still want to be alone with it

and just pour my feelings into it.

It responds so readily to touch.

The radio was never off.

I think my mum put it there just to shut me up.

And the Les Paul influence was because

some programme or other had 'How High The Moon'

and every time it came on the radio

I would run to the kitchen and say, "Mum, what's this?"

And she'd go, "Oh, I've read about that guy,

he's just a box of tricks,

he's a phoney."

I went, this is interesting, 'electric guitar', 'phoney'.

You know, to a kid it's intriguing.

She said, "Look, it was revealed that he can't play that fast,

it's all sped up."

And I said, "Well, I like the sound he's making.

It doesn't matter if it's sped up."

I was interested in the guitar solos

on the records my sister was playing.

'Hound Dog', for example and 'Rock Around The Clock'.

This was heaven.

And I started to analyse sound in great detail.

Eddie Cochran had a slap echo,

Cliff Gallup had a slap echo.

It was just too good.

Those records still sound astonishingly good.

Once I got to know Jeff

and talk to him about his influences,

he liked that guy that was with Gene Vincent a lot,

Cliff Gallup.

My sister went to the Sutton Granada and saw this film

and she said, "You have to see it,

it's just the most amazing technicolour film

of everything you like, everything we like."

And I went with some friends

to see 'Vincent and the Blue Caps' in colour.

It was life-changing.

That is the best rock 'n' roll film ever made.

Everything that I loved seemed to be coming from America.

The cars, the music.

I couldn't see any way of ever getting there.

I'm talking about no money at all.

My sister came in one day from school

and threw this piece of paper with a phone number on it.

"Here's the number of a geek at school

who's got a weird looking guitar like yours."

And she agreed to take this bus ride over to Epsom,

where we knocked on the door

and this fresh-faced little kid answered the door

and he invited us in.

Well, he came round to my house.

I was living at home, of course, with my parents,

and Jeff came in and he had a homemade guitar

and I also had a homemade guitar there as well.

And we just sort of clicked immediately.

It was like two brothers almost.

It was just a joyous thing

to find somebody else who had this common interest.

He'd come round and we'd hang out

and I'd play records to him.

He had equipment, he had a tape recorder,

all the goodies, and a great record collection.

Mouth-watering collection.

I had such an eclectic mix of records, even as a teenager.

It was a great adventure,

finding other people who might know a different chord to you

or finding a record shop

where they were importing say Vee-Jay records,

the Chicago movement of the 50s, the Blues movement,

as opposed to all the Chess catalogue...

There was lots of pilgrimages involved.

All of those guitarists from that point,

we all learnt from records.

We used to sit there listening and go back over the solo,

never mind the song, never mind the singer.

"What the hell's that going on?"

"How is this sounding like a ricochet effect?"

"Why does it sound so exciting?"

You wanted to see if you could play what was on.

It's quite an accomplishment to hear something

that's really, really, really amazing to you

and really moved you,

but then really actually work towards being able to play it.

You've got a partner in crime,

you've got somebody to hammer out ideas.

When you've learnt something

that sounds reasonably impressive,

you want somebody to see what they think of it.

We were really keen on exactly the same things

with the Gene Vincent records and Ricky Nelson records.

There were always fine guitar solos by James Burton

and one of the things that we would ask of each other was:

"What's your version of 'My Babe'?"

"OK, yeah, what's yours?"

That seemed to be a sort of a communal ground

between most guitarists around that time,

to see how well other guys could cut this solo.

I used to love going over there, to have something that was so...

close to my heart, you know.

And to my ears as well, it hit all the jackpots.

It seemed like everybody was coming out of art school

in the 50s when rock 'n' roll first started

to reach out from America to here.

It was a great way of escaping

any form of work, I think, any form of day job.

I did love it.

I did love the fact that there was a place you could go

and draw, and learn the basics of art.

I had 2 years of great fun there,

but the music took over because

mid-week there was a gig in town,

not far from where I lived.

And that kept me going, just that one gig.

Then two gigs a week came in and so on.

And unfortunately I had to bail before the end of the course.

Music was our hobby.

And then we ended up being professionals.

When the Yardbirds came about,

Eric was the force to be reckoned with.

They had Eric, so why did they want me?

I don't understand that.

They were looking for hit records.

And we weren't making any music of that nature.

His name was used as a replacement.

They were telling me, in a way,

that I wasn't that vital to the organisation so...

So I went to see him. He was with the Tridents.

'Cause I wanted to see,

"Was he really as good as they made out?"

And he had all these sound effects going on.

And I thought, "My God, I'm gone, I'm long gone."

I actually thought about retiring then

because I thought I'm in the wrong business.

But seeing Jeff, I thought, "They're onto a good thing."

I like the Yardbirds a lot.

I liked that 'Heart Full of Soul'.

Sitar-like playing of Jeff's.

He's such a distinctive player,

he didn't follow anyone else, really.

He's just completely out there on his own.

They had a sitar player in the studio.

And he was thinking in sort of 13 and 1/4 time signature.

And they said, "No, it's 4/4."

And I said, "It's sort of like this."

And I got the octave, the G octave,

and then played dee-doo-do-di-di.

And I said, "Why the hell have we got him here?

I can play that."

I think he was a hard rock pioneer from day one.

He was doing stuff that didn't exist,

except for him.

When I first heard The Yardbirds,

when I heard Jeff's playing,

it was noticeably different, even then to my young ears.

There was a sound to his guitar that kind of stood out

and was different from the usual pop stuff.

There was something about it, the notes he was playing.

I mean, it was more lyrical to me.

And within a month, we were flying over to America.

I'd not only been to America,

but I'd recorded at the famous Sun Studios

and Chess Records.

Shapes of Things, amazing.

I remember that distinctly.

How is it we've had to come this far

to get the sound we want?

In England, the studios didn't get it.

The engineers back in England were more pure.

They didn't like anything that rattled or squeaked.

I'd be: "Bring on the squeaks, we don't care about that."

Instantly, we hear the playback,

we're all looking at each other going, "This is the stuff."

Jeff would come round

and he'd play me the sort of first cuts of the records.

And I remember him playing 'Shapes of Things'

and when it came to the solo

I thought, "This is the most extraordinary solo."

Ravi Shankar was playing

quite a big part in The Beatles and stuff

and I used to sit over at Page's house

listening to ragas, Vilayat Khan and Ravi Shankar

and just marvelling.

How could this be adopted in the guitar?

This bending of the string

to such an extent that you could play a melody with one bend.

The work that Jeff did in the Yardbirds

was of paramount importance to guitar-based groups

because he had an incredible ear

and he set an amazing standard.

And also that his technique was extraordinary as well.

And I must say, when I heard that,

I really understood what Jeff was really capable of.

The Yardbirds had a crazy manager,

and I remember Giorgio freaking.

Steam was coming out of his ears

when I played that solo he went,

"This is exactly why you're in this band."

"You are opening up surreal avenues,

like avant-garde avenues, for the guitar, in this band."

Giorgio was great,

but I think there was some skulduggery going on

with the money, I don't know.

All I know is I never made any of it.

I think I must've threatened to leave

unless they got rid of him, then Simon Napier-Bell appeared

and agreed to take over.

Within 5 minutes, Jimmy Page is in the band,

and we were on the set of Blow-Up.

Nobody knew what it was gonna be like.

As most movies, they don't really tell you.

I was just told that Antonioni was a great director, surreal,

and it just seemed like a cool thing.

And the cheque for 3,000 was amazing.

I don't think any of the band had ever seen

that kind of money in one lump.

They all went out and invested sensibly in fruit and veg shops.

Shop, it's a business.

And I invested in a '63 split window Corvette,

which was the only sensible thing

for a person like me to do.

I had a girlfriend in LA

and it was a comfortable place, this weather was amazing.

And I left all that to go on this tour

with the Yardbirds.

I'd never played in America before.

It was a shock and really surreal

from everything I thought that it was going to be.

The Dick Clark Caravan of Stars

was a conglomeration of acts that would all get on stage

and do two or three songs.

They would tour in buses.

You had to be a real trooper.

They would go out on the road and do 60 dates in 60 days.

That was very, very odd

because it was a collection of teenybop stars, teenyboppers.

For a very young audience.

In a bus that stank

and it was crammed with people that didn't really like us.

We didn't get on with the rest of the cast.

There was a toilet that got busted

and that didn't work

and people had to sleep in the luggage racks.

But Jeff missed all that because he left pretty early

after just a few dates.

After two gigs, I thought I've just nearly killed myself

to do 15 minutes on stage

for the two hits plus one other song.

That's it. It was a quick turnaround.

Jerry Lewis' son was on the tour.

Gary Lewis and the Playboys.

And I thought: "This is so middle America."

We're telling people that we're part of this, we're not.

The Yardbirds were completely on the road

to forging a unique career, you know.

And they threw it into this ridiculous mixing box.

And I said, "Jim,"

I called him to my room,

I said, "Jim, I've just had the horrors.

Here's my guitar, you take lead tomorrow.

I'm not even gonna take the guitar."

That was the end of me. No girlfriend, no Yardbirds,

no nothing.

But I had my Corvette parked in my mothers sideway.

So I was free to dream again.

Jeff and I met up at the Sheffield Mojo.

When I was doing the circuit up and down the motorway

in my first group, The Birds.

We got on really well

and he was telling me about this gig with the Yardbirds,

and kind of spoke...

"Well, if we ever are not in the setup we're in now,

one day we'll work together."

One of the good things about the Yardbirds times

was that we'd come back from a tour maybe up north

and even at 2 a.m. we'd stop off at the Cromwellian Club.

After the Yardbirds I thought,

there's nothing to stop me from going back there on my own.

And the guy on the door went: "Jeff, nice to see you back."

That night, there was not much going on.

There were Motown records playing and I'm thinking,

"This is sad, I'm sitting alone with a beer."

There was one other guy in the corner

and it was Rod Stewart.

We talked a little bit.

And he said he was forming a band,

he'd left the Yardbirds.

I was out of work and I think I may have mentioned Woody

and said he's out of work as well.

So it was three out-of-work musicians

and we formed a band.

His collaboration with Rod Stewart

was kind of legendary.

One of the best things that Rod ever did, as well as Jeff,

on that 'Truth' album.

It was the huskiness that was rare to have in a white singer.

I loved it.

The band, with Micky Waller,

myself on bass, and Jeff on the guitar,

the holes and the spaces that it left for Rod's voice

in its rawness...

Jeff used to really treasure Rod's voice.

And treasure all the things that could happen in those spaces.

He believed in me, he really did.

He wanted a proper singer in his band.

He had a voice that was so...

the vital instrument within the band

that you didn't need a rhythm guitar.

Jeff's virtuoso performances

tied up with Rod's Blues-type vocals on that album.

That was an absolutely seminal album.

'Truth' has 'Rock My Plimsoul'.

It's got 'I Ain't Superstitious'.

It's really my favourite Jeff Beck, stylistically.

You know, it's more in your face rock 'n' roll.

Jeff didn't just wanna play what Muddy Waters had played

and Howlin' Wolf.

He wanted to take it more Chicago-ish and more electric

and just take it out of that basic idiom that it's in.

You know, and electrify it, make it more...

More arrangements.

Even though the song's a 12-bar Blues,

we arranged the songs to sound more interesting.

Right, let's go.

I thought I'd sing it in...

I can sing it in harmony, can't I?

Sing however you want.

But stop me, I'll try something on the first few chords.

If it sounds suss, stop me, right?

Make my voice nearly in the background.

Mickie Most,

he didn't wanna know about Rod at all.

He said, "You're the artist. Your name is on the label."

I said, "No, I'm not interested in that.

I'm interested in being part of a great rock band.

Or a Blues band."

Mickie just believed in the old dollar.

Make it as quick as you can

and really wanted us to be a pop band.

You know, much to our dismay.

'Cause that's not what we wanna do.

He didn't see any point in having me, really.

He wanted Jeff to sing.

Why was he such a reluctant pop star?

I guess that just wasn't really what he ever wanted to do.

I don't know how that song came about.

Some sort of pressure, if you like, from Mickie Most,

to try and come up with a hit,

but I think he very quickly realised

that that wasn't ever going to be what he wanted to do.

Absolutely his prerogative.

But it's given lots of other people

an enormous amount of pleasure.

Much more pleasure than it ever gave him.

It was like being asked to wear a pink frock

and walk on top of a bus down Oxford Street.

It was framing me with this embarrassing pop song

that wasn't me,

but over the years I've become warmed to it

because it makes people feel happy.

Jeff, I believe, asked Mickie

if I could sing 'Hi Ho Silver Lining'...

But Mickie said no.

But you can hear me yodelling in the background on the chorus.

Just when you think you're getting there,

you realise you're about 6 months away.

I kicked off in Mickie Most's office.

And on this particular argument Peter Grant was there

and he was smiling at me and was going...

It was as though the smile was saying: "Give him some stick.

He needs to be put in his place," meaning Mickie.

Shortly after that, he must have had a word with Mickie

and said, "Look, Jeff was in the Yardbirds,

he already opened the door in America for himself

to go back with a band."

There's an underground scene over there.

Steppenwolf was happening, FM radio was happening.

There were venues and there was press

and there were radio stations and

you could build an act by coming and touring.

So this was mind-boggling.

I remember when Woody and I drove across the Brooklyn Bridge

in the back of a limo with Peter Grant, the manager.

I mean it was just heaven.

"Here we are."

But it was a 5-month tour.

It was hard work, but it was great fun.

When we went to America, we opened at Fillmore East.

Talk about jump in the deep end.

That's the famous night when Rod wouldn't come on stage. He hid.

That was the night I hid behind the amps.

Absolutely true story

because I thought, "I'm in America, New York

and I'm trying to sound like a black singer."

And there's gonna be loads of black people out there

and they'll throw things at me." "Phoney!" "Fake!"

But lo and behold, I came out and it was all loads of hippies.

And it was the start of a wonderful, wonderful career.

We stormed the place.

We blew the dead off the stage.

Robert Shelton from the New York Times

gave us a write up.

Peter Grant rang me at 7am, said "Have you read the review?"

"I don't wanna hear it." He said, "No, it's amazing."

He read it to me,

about the Pinter play, the interaction of...

And I read it and I thought, "Right, what do we do now?"

We had it reproduced and sent ahead.

We had it sent through all the places

on the way to the west coast.

So by the time we got to Fillmore West,

we'd already broken the ground,

and broken into the American scene,

which was fantastic.

We all decided to try and write songs

and Ronnie and I sat around his mum's council flat

for hours and hours with a blank piece of paper

until we got a bottle of wine out and we finished that.

Then we were able to write a song called 'Plynth'.

'Plynth', I'm very proud of

'cause that was one of my compositions

where I wrote the words.

Moisture from the ocean fills the sky

Falls back down to the ground as time goes by

I was very proud of my bass sound and that whole thing

with the drums and the guitar.

And Rod's soulful singing, and Nicky's piano playing.

It was a magic combination.

It was an honour to be in the band,

to be quite honest with you,

along with Micky Waller and Nicky Hopkins,

and Ronnie Wood, it was a great band.

If you think about how long ago that was and

what an impact they must have had at the time...

He's so unique and original.

'Truth' and 'Beck-Ola' really stood out,

sort of benchmark rock 'n' roll records.

Definitely big statements for the time.

The sounds of those records are definitely...

I still use them as touchstones for even what I do today

because nothing sounds like those records.

And I was lucky enough to see them live

two or three times and it was really exciting.

You never knew if he was gonna show up or not.

I mean, some of the stories about

quitting in the middle of a tour, I mean that's like...

You know, that's pretty heavy.

But that's Jeff.

There was a rift between me and Rod at that time.

I don't know how it came about.

It cast a bit of doubt, you know, like...

I didn't wanna bank too much on the next tour

in case it didn't happen.

I saw this big festival looming up on the calendar

and I was nervous about it.

I thought we're not ready for that.

We're not ready to go up against Sly and the Family Stone.

The Woodstock Festival was 2 weeks away

when the Beck Group kind of collapsed.

And I thought, "It's a shame,

because there's a big gig coming up in a couple of weeks."

Woodstock.

He disappeared, in the middle of the night.

Next morning, he was gone.

We get a phone call, "Jeff gone home."

When I saw the film

I just thought, "Thank God for my integrity.

Thank God that the little birdie whispered 'Don't do it'."

Because I'd have been up there

dated and frozen with that image,

with the music not being quite right.

I did the right thing.

He could've explained it to us and that would've made sense.

But I do agree, I'm glad we didn't do it.

Once again, I'm back to my mum's house again.

He's not particularly wrapped up in his success.

Just assume not discuss music and the guitar.

Rather talk about the movies that he likes

and certainly his cars.

My gran used to take me to the cinema

and she took me to see a posh film,

but the supporting film was Hot Rod Gang.

She just freaked out and said, "This is not suitable."

Because the word 'gang' was in it.

And she said, "Right, we're leaving."

"Let's go out of the cinema

and come back when the main feature starts."

I clung onto the seat.

The opening sequence shows these two hot rods

racing one another on opposite sides of the street.

Totally cool.

And I was hit, smitten right away.

For a B movie, it was pretty nonsensical.

I still watch it from time to time,

as it was such a massive impact.

Come on, let's go!

Hot Rods has always been his passion

from when he was really young,

and then he started building them.

The way he puts it most of the time,

you know, music and guitar is his job

and that's his pastime

when he gets back home off tour.

He's always tinkered with his cars

since as long as I've known him.

I think the first time I went to his house

the hood of his Corvette was open,

he might've been under the hood.

The fact that

Jeff builds those cars and does it so well,

it's obvious he's a man of two passions, I think.

Guitar and cars.

Your senses are sharpened because you built it.

Even if you had a professionally built car,

you're still driving an early car.

Maybe a Ford or a Chevy, 30s.

And they don't handle the same as a late model car.

And I'm going over this hill, no top of the car,

just 30 mph over this little gentle incline,

get to the top of it and the car starts to go

straight onto the oncoming traffic,

without me touching the wheel.

I turn the wheel in the opposite lock and it still kept going.

I hit this poor chap in this Morris Traveller, head on.

Broke his legs, broke my face up,

back injury, leg injury.

I got taken into Maidstone General, who were amazing.

I mean, just incredible.

We had a cheerful chappy that used to come round

and shave you and bring you tea.

I was recovering

and then this guy decided to bring me a music paper.

He was a Scouser, he went:

"Your mate's gone joined The Faces."

I went, "Terrific."

You didn't need to hear that right at that particular time.

I think the biggest problem for Jeff is finding somebody

to front the band that really fit what he's doing.

He had arguably one of the best singers at the time in his band.

How long did that band last? A couple of years?

Rod Stewart was great, but more often than not,

I think one of the reasons

why he ended up being an instrumentalist

is just that it was hard to find anybody

that really interpreted the music correctly,

or just had the right energy, or whatever it was.

I got to Epic in mid '72

and the Orange album had come out a few months before that.

The name of the album is Jeff Beck Group,

but we all always referred to it as the Orange album

because there was a photo of the orange on the cover.

I started looking round for players that could really...

Like drummers, I was always focused on drummers.

They are the life of the band, they are the driving force.

You get your drummer right, you're pretty much set for life.

We obviously lost

a lot of regular contact, but when I did see Jeff,

he'd always be keen on his latest line-up.

He'd always rave about different drummers.

He'd say: "I've got this guy called Cosy Powell.

Listen to what I'm doing."

I loved Cosy.

I picked him out of a line-up of 20-odd drummers.

Mickie Most's secretary organised this whole audition.

And she said, "Jeff, I know you're late

but you don't need to look at anybody else.

There's your brother over there."

Looking like the same, same hair.

"Alright, hi, Jeff, I'm Cosy."

Then he started playing.

And you saw people putting their cymbals

back in their cases.

They were packing their drums ready, they knew that was it.

Then Max Middleton came up with the idea

of a simple melody, a bluesy thing,

with a bottleneck.

And he said, "Why don't we write three melodies?"

And there are three melodies in there.

One plays the counter melody

and then there's a third descant on top of that.

And I remember thinking this is a cacophony of noise.

Steve Cropper came down and said,

"Man, this is really amazing."

Because I was doing these parts individually and dubbing on.

And I wasn't hearing the blend, I was only doing individually.

Because if I'd heard guitar number 1,

I would not have been able to play against it.

And when I went up and heard all three put together, you know,

"Let's buy Max a round of drinks for that one."

I think there's no question

that 'Definitely Maybe' led the way to 'Blow by Blow'.

With a detour, with Jeff there's always a detour.

Well, I've always liked

playing on other people's records and not being named.

I mean, that thing where Stevie calls out Jeff

on 'Looking For Another Pure Love'

Do it, Jeff.

And it is actually great when it happens but I think...

I, like Jeff, like playing on records

where we're just kind of the mystery agent

and we like the idea... I like the idea of someone

being able to identify me by what I'm playing.

Stevie's record company needed him to do something.

And I wasn't doing anything.

And Epic said, "What if we got you in the studio with Stevie?"

I couldn't wait for this to happen.

So the deal was I was to play a couple of tracks

on Stevie's album 'Talking Book'

and he'd write me a couple of tracks,

one of which was 'Superstition'.

He said, "What about we write a song,

we get a song with superstitions that you know about?"

"That we Americans maybe don't know about."

And I said, "Well, we don't walk under ladders for bad luck."

And I said, "If you dropped a mirror,

that would be 7 years' bad luck."

I started playing the drums

in a break, he'd gone out for lunch, and he'd come back

and he was clapping along to my beat...my rhythm.

I said, "Stevie, it's not... I'm not a drummer."

He goes, "Yeah, you are now.

Don't stop."

He just grabbed the clavinet and started playing that vamp.

And I'm thinking, "Christ, I'm playing drums

to Stevie Wonder."

They were pretty cool,

just a simple thing that I could play.

And then he went, "OK, I'll lay the track down."

'Cause I was messing up with the fills and stuff.

And he came and sat at the same kit

and played exactly what I was playing,

but better.

And he made space for a five-chord turnaround,

all right away,

and then he went straight in and put a bassline on

and that was it.

When that bassline came

the whole studio turned upside down.

Then he went and put the lyrics on,

and that was how that song was made.

Jeff, do your thing, son!

But then, when the demo went back to Motown,

Berry Gordy heard it, he said,

"This is the best thing you've ever written."

So, out comes Stevie's single

and it's a smash, number one,

and it still is the biggest seller, I think,

of all time of his singles.

And it worked out OK because it was a much better version

than the one we did, I think.

We did a heavy metal version.

I don't think he cared for it too much.

When I heard Stevie Wonder's version of that song,

that's a definitive version of that song, you know.

Nobody should ever cover it, just leave it alone

otherwise it'll just sound like a bar band butchering it.

Not so with Jeff Beck. Not so.

And when Beck, Bogert & Appice recorded it,

it stood on its own like another entity again.

They were great.

They were just incredibly exciting to play with.

I'd seen the Fudge three or four times.

They blew me away.

It's pretty powerful.

Unknowingly,

maybe Stevie had written the ultimate power trio song

because the double bass drums that Carmine used were perfect.

Timmy's busy bass playing with that riff.

What more could...

They sang as well, so we got two singers,

a bass player and a drummer.

Good morning, it's over.

I mean, there's a certain amount of "fuck you-ness"

to everything Jeff does.

And I think there's a big dose of that in that song.

But unfortunately,

we couldn't match any song to that level, that quality.

So there was never really a proper album.

We toured and we were knocking people out the park.

It was great.

We played Crystal Palace

and, you know, girls swimming across this pond

to get to the front of the stage.

It was great.

And I thought, "Well, this isn't gonna wait."

And we were getting a ridiculously good response.

And then along comes the mental writer's blocks.

We weren't writing very good songs.

They were making a second album

and it just kind of petered out.

The managers had to get together and effect a divorce.

The record company didn't have a whole lot to do with it.

We were observers, spectators.

It just exploded, you know.

Sadly, it did.

He's not as wrapped up

in being a rock star and that whole thing.

He can be true to his art and still take...

He leaves it there, then he goes home,

works on his cars, lives out in the country.

So I think he's found a really good balance between the two.

I was working on

the wrecked rod of the '69 accident

and I had a transistor radio playing.

I was lying on the ground doing something,

doing this back axle or whatever.

Rainwater was streaming past me and I thought,

“I'm in the gutter, I've ended up back in the gutter."

And it almost washed the radio away.

And it was McLaughlin playing on Jack Johnson.

That amazing album.

Miles, I mean please. It's a wonderful thing.

And then you hear McLaughlin going in there.

And it was a moment where I just went in,

stopped work, went in and made a cup of tea

continued listening,

and that was it, I just thought there's a door open now.

This is what I wanna do.

It's more focused on guitar only,

and it negates the necessity for a vocalist.

There's no point in going round the world

trying to find another Rod Stewart.

What a great line-up of musicians.

The brilliant Max Middleton playing keyboards.

Richard Bailey and Phil Chenn on drums and bass

and produced by George Martin at AIR Studios.

I gave the album the title 'Blow by Blow'

because the word 'blow' means many things.

But I was using it in the sense of a jazz thing.

When you do an extemporary bit, you are giving it a blow.

To look at the joy on George's face

when he discovered that we were gonna have fun.

Jeff and I met up and he invited me to the studio

and he was telling me how George

was really just letting him play and stretch.

He was recording all the things

and then making the finished version.

He was somebody who would really understand

the precision of Jeff's playing

and just how different and how separate it was

from anybody elses.

George Martin really understood

that Jeff was a serious musician.

He wasn't a producer with a singular vision

of how he thought it would be that he would want to impose.

I don't suppose anyone would have much luck

imposing their vision on Jeff.

Jeff could be temperamental, but never a big problem.

I mean, if he felt frustrated

because he wouldn't be getting what he wanted,

sometimes he would get very upset

and in fact he did fling his guitar

right across the studio at one point.

But people are temperamental, that's all right.

They blow off steam.

As long as they don't throw it at me, I'm all right.

We didn't have any problems, we got on very well.

He loves exploring the guitar

and when he does hear something that catches his ear

or gives him a new idea, he gets deeply into it.

John McLaughlin was kicking my back at the time.

The Mahavishnu Orchestra, that played a big part.

Jeff's always said

the Mahavishnu Orchestra is like his 'one'.

He still holds it as his Holy Grail.

"This is what inspired me to start pushing things

to the next level."

One tune that has some of that Mahavishnu feel

is 'Scatterbrain'.

It started as a schizophrenic run that I did

when I was nervous in a dressing room.

2 seconds before going on, I went...

And Max being the calculated S.O.B that he is,

he said, "You know that annoying scale you play,

I've written some chords underneath it."

He said, "If you move it up a semi-tone,

I can make a track out of it."

And before we knew it, we had this song.

Yeah, that's a really... It's a chop buster, that song.

He really was getting away

from the straight rock stuff that he was doing.

And he wanted to open it up to a more melodic

and a little softer and jazzier angle.

George loved it.

And he started putting the string arrangements to it.

Just bare bones creativity on the spot.

When I suggested to him that we use an orchestra with it,

he was a little bit taken aback, I think.

And for me, it was a fairly risky thing

because Jeff had never done this before.

And I wondered whether the audience would accept

the fact that Jeff Beck was working with a string sound.

George was open to anything

and the most encouraging, the most kindest person.

And boy, did he get a great sound.

'Cause We've Ended As Lovers'

is the stand-out track of all time for me.

I mean, I just think that is Jeff

at his most beautiful, lyrical...

It's a Stevie Wonder song, of course,

which must be pointed out.

When I heard that album I just thought, "Oh, wow."

Her voice was like a crystal stream flowing.

And I started playing 'Cause We've Ended As Lovers',

playing the melody that Syreeta sang.

Max Middleton said, "That's beautiful, what is it?"

And I played him the Syreeta version, he went,

"Why don't we do that as an instrumental?"

Jeffs an amazing person

because he can get the most incredible sound

out of an electric guitar.

Even after he's flung it across the studio,

he will still pick it up, wiggle it a bit,

and make great sounds.

And he uses the guitar as his voice.

He sings with his guitar.

And I don't know any other guitar player like it.

'Blow By Blow' was an instantaneous success

upon release.

It really look off like a rocket,

shot up the charts.

Turns out that lots of Jeff Beck fans out there

were just waiting for an album

in which they could hear him play maximum guitar.

Max and George,

the two of them were like two peas in a pod

because of their musicianship, the keyboard...

Max would come up with these twisted chords,

enter the Pork Pie Hat with the Charlie Mingus stuff.

'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat', written by Charles Mingus,

is an ode, really, to the great sax player, Lester Young.

It really stands out

as being something very special and different.

Something unexpected from Jeff.

After we finished, there was dead silence.

I went, "Oh..."

And George went... You could hear the button go,

and he said, "Jeff, that was very tasteful."

To this day, I tell people, "Boy, if you wanna learn guitar

there's all the scales and arpeggios and stuff,

but you need to learn two solos."

And they're both relatively easy to learn because they're slow,

'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat' on 'Wired'

and 'Cause We've Ended As Lovers'

'cause that's where the feel is.

I got a letter from Charlie Mingus,

and it said, "Dear Jeff,

I was so knocked out with your version of 'Pork Pie Hat'."

That's when we had the world at our feet.

We could do anything we wanted.

Jeff is like a rock 'n' roll musician who understands jazz.

That's a very rare animal.

We went to see Mahavishnu Orchestra in Zurich.

We were playing in the same week

so we ended up being at a party in the same hotel.

We had the greatest time.

I got to know the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

McLaughlin, Jan Hammer, Billy Cobham, Jerry Goodman.

It was just amazing.

I ended up getting really great contact and talking

because we really had very much in common.

Jan knew me.

He said, "Course I know you, the Yardbirds,

I know all the stuff."

So this is the great bonding session that took place.

This was before 'Wired'.

He was pretty much finished. I think he had some rough mixes.

The album was virtually done, but not finished.

George Martin had to leave.

He was committed to do an album by America.

George left, without the finishing touches

being applied to the album.

There's still some overdubs, certainly some mixing.

So I had to say goodbye to George.

Jan was interested,

I would fly over there and watch this magician

do his stuff on this record.

I just did quick mixes of this, and basically all those mixes

ended up being the masters for the album.

So more than half the album was mixed here.

And then we did one tune from scratch,

which was called 'Blue Wind'.

And he said, "Play this riff."

The two notes, and I said, "Come on, Jan.

This is kiddie stuff." He went, "Trust me."

And I didn't like it at all.

It was a very simple riff and a combination of things.

And by the time I added the drums to it

and my keyboard synthesisers...

He got these Auratones and stuck them on his mantelpiece.

He cranked it and these speakers were shaking.

I went, "OK, I get it now."

It gave a great platform for solos.

It was all about embellishing and showing off,

taking flight with your solos.

It just turned out to be a great tune

that has been living on for decades now.

It was incredible to play with Jan Hammer,

with Jeff Beck at the Hollywood Bowl.

Jeff had always talked about Jan before.

Jeff loves Jan, obviously, they have a great...

...and vice versa...

...they have a great relationship.

I'm sitting there, looking at both of them

and watching them interacting.

You can see the years of friendship and mutual respect

and adoration that they have for one another.

'Star Cycle' was interesting

because again, I recorded the whole track here,

in the old studio, with a sequencer, and I played drums.

Then I took the tape to Ramport, The Who's studio, in London.

And we added all the lead parts on top of it.

That song has a very particular melody.

And again, the whole thing Is about the trade-off

between Jan and Jeff.

How their minds work together is incredible.

They can really bounce off of each other and it's just...

It's like fireworks.

He's just inspired

by whatever the dynamic is that's on the stage.

That's what he's looking for, he's looking for inspiration.

A reason to strike that string and make that next sound.

That's the reason I always love playing with him

because it's gonna be so fresh.

And he's gonna pull something out of his sleeve

that makes you say "How did you do that?"

You think that guitar is so limited

and people sometimes even demonstrate

how limited guitar is by playing basically a couple of riffs

and that's the whole career.

Jeff has opened it up to so many areas

that it's really hard to keep up.

I came back to Epic in 1980

after the 'There and Back' album,

during which time I failed to convince Jeff

to do even one album for Epic.

Years had gone by

and I didn't wanna go along with that.

The '80s, you know,

'push button music' and all that.

I certainly visited Jeff at his home.

He was a most gracious host,

showed me his cars in the garage,

which he was spending a significant amount of his time

working on, very happily.

There was no place for me

so I just buried myself in my workshop.

And it got to the point

where I think they forgot I was even on Epic label.

And I ended up driving to different sessions.

Any artist would be thrilled

to have Jeff contribute to their work.

So the fact that over the years he's guested on albums,

from such a diverse array of acts,

from Stevie Wonder, to Stanley Clarke,

to Diana Ross, to Mick Jagger,

to Tina Turner, on and on and on.

And I loved guesting with them. I loved every minute of that.

He's kind of guided his career the way he wanted.

And there's something to be said for taking time off

and regrouping,

rather than having a record company breathing down your neck

for a new record every year.

Epic Records thought it'd be a great idea to get an artist

to drop me a broad hint by painting this surreal garage

with a guitar up on the ramp, instead of a car.

I loved it, I love that cover.

It was me, I mean that was it.

They couldn't have... They hit it bullseye.

That was me.

Without a doubt, 'Guitar Shop' was a real return to form.

And that was their jolt, you know.

I put my back into the album

with Tony Hymas and Terry Bozzio.

The results were really groundbreaking, in a way,

for a three-piece to put out so much power.

It was a power trio with keyboards instead of bass.

His approach is super, super rhythmic.

So in order for that to work,

you have to have a back line that gets it.

I think Terry Bozzio had a lot to do with that.

He's worked with amazingly great drummers.

So, I mean, I've stood in some tall company.

When you hear the song, it lives up to its name

of 'Big Block',

which obviously refers to a large-sized engine

in an automobile.

His playing is amazing.

The 'Big Block' riff is fuckin' awesome.

The heavy, sexy riff in the middle,

that was all my stuff.

Big Block' is great. What a classic.

What a classic.

A powerhouse tune.

That's a pure example, I think,

of a lot of power and energy that's in Jeff's show.

It's full of aggression and spirit.

It's got a nasty overtone to it.

There's this underlying,

reoccurring riff that's happening the whole time.

The main riff on the bass that's low enough to give space

for the guitar to do absolutely anything.

So he just goes mental.

The sounds he gets out of that instrument still shocks me.

It's so definite, and he so definitely sounds

like he knows where he's going and exactly what he wants to do

and he's going to execute it perfectly.

It's always got melody, but it's also got great attack

and a sort of aggressive fire to it.

It's brilliant.

Jeff not using a pick, I learned a lot from that.

So I actually alternate

between using a pick and not using a pick

because you're just that much more connected

and there's an emotional thing that happens

when you do it that way that sings and soars

above and beyond using a guitar pick.

The early days in the Yardbirds,

he was still playing with a pick,

but then he developed playing without a pick.

Then he concentrated more on Stratocaster.

And he had the guitar so fine-tuned

to every nuance,

and the tonality of it, the tension of it,

that he developed a style

that was totally unique.

And that's pretty magical.

'Where Were You', basically, ls impossible.

It's just an impossible tune.

It's that song where he plays a melody with harmonics.

He's got such a sensitive ear

to know exactly when things are in pitch.

The way he has his Strat set up

for whammy bar stuff is quite extraordinary.

His playing whole melodies on harmonics,

which are pulled through two or three tones

in perfect pitch all the time.

And believe me, I've tried it.

He makes it sound easy.

He was invited to come along and play

at a memorial service for Richard Wright after he died.

I mean, Rick loved that track.

Rick often said that he was his favourite guitar player,

much to my chagrin.

He came and played it live and it was just like the record.

And perfect.

Just to know that that piece, which I wrote, reached people,

that was very satisfying.

And Elton told me that he

and Freddie Mercury used to sit and listen to it.

I went, "Oh, right?"

It's amazing, isn't it?

That some idea ends up on a record

and then people's lives are affected, in some way.

Jeff's always tried to challenge

what the stereotype of guitar playing is,

or the stereotype of music or just...

find new ways of expressing

his take on what's happening in music right now.

Whether it's collaborating with different people

or finding new sounds.

He's always got something in his mind

that he wants to do and change.

He will listen to everything.

I mean, he will intake anything

from Ornette Coleman to the Spice Girls

and anything in between.

And he's able to filter it into something usable.

Me and Jennifer got on quite well doing this crazy stuff.

I've got a big sound system in the car

and 'Nadia' started up.

This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard.

And I played it again and again on the way to the studio.

And I said, "Listen to this.

I'm going to mimic that singer."

It was the most difficult thing I've ever done.

Those Indian singers, they twist and turn.

It's almost beyond belief what they can do,

leaping from note to note in the scales they sing.

The Indian vocals are very hard to emulate.

There's such subtle nuances and little tiny bends.

I actually made him loops of each little chunk of melody

and looped it maybe 10 or 15 times

so he could focus on just that,

which I don't think he ever did before,

to break it down so scientifically like that.

But of course, he's gonna make it his own.

It's a perfect example of expanding the instrument

beyond anybody's imagination.

That it took his hands and his brain

to be able to take it that far.

When I talk to other guitar players about him,

there's no question.

I mean, there's everybody else and then there's Jeff Beck.

I don't even know how he's doing it half the time.

He's combining the tremolo arm with bending,

and with volume.

There's so much going on

between his left hand and his right hand

and what the right hand is doing,

all the independence that it has.

It's all about making that voice.

Playing 5 nights at Ronnie Scotts,

Jeff always wanted to play at Ronnie's, you know.

The fact that we pulled that off was pretty amazing

'cause it's just a little jazz club.

Everybody's been there.

Rollins... I saw Art Blakey there.

And I saw Elvin Jones.

These people belong in there

and there's Jeff Beck up there, no, no, no.

How wrong was I?

Amazing.

I can't believe this, I just... You know, you people,

but on top of this, I'd like to welcome to the stage

somebody who knows their way around a Stratocaster.

It was an honour to get up with him in that venue.

And the fact that he asked me to play.

I mean, tremendously touching

that he would want me to get up and play with him.

Mr Eric Clapton is here tonight.

I may as well fuck off home then.

They were trying to figure out what to play and Clapton said,

"Why don't we play 'You Need Love'?"

We had basically all of Led Zeppelin there,

all the surviving members.

And it was funny playing 'You Need Love"

because it was where they got 'Whole Lotta Love' from.

That was their influence for writing that song.

Jeff and I, we go back to really early teens.

And let me tell you, that was a long while ago.

But we must've been about 13-14 when we first met

and we stayed friends all the way through and...

That was a surprise,

the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, to have Jimmy go up there

and call me up to present me with the award.

I was really flattered.

And what he said really brought me to tears.

You'd sort of listen to Jeff along the way

and you'd go, "Wow, he's getting really good, Jeff."

And you'd hear him a few years later

and he'd just keep getting better and better,

and he still has, all the way through.

He leaves us as mere mortals, believe me,

just wondering and having so much respect for him.

And I tell you, I'm really honoured to be here

to induct Jeff into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

'cause he's done so much for rock 'n' roll and always will.

The plan was, at sound check, that we play 'Beck's Bolero'.

And I thought, "Yeah, OK.

I'll bring over the original guitar I played it on,"

which is a Fender 12-string, electric 12-string.

And so I took it over there and we had a rehearsal.

Somehow, I think me and Tal called up Jeff.

And I said, "It's really a shame

that we're not playing a Zeppelin song."

I mean, we're gonna play with Jimmy Page.

I got a phone call just before we were due to go.

And he said, "I've been having a chat with the band

and they thought it might be a good idea

if we, instead of just doing 'Bolero',

if we did 'Immigrant Song'.

And I said, "Oh yeah?

Well, this is really gonna be interesting."

Because we hadn't had a rehearsal.

Right here, Jimmy!

Great!

The tech behind the stage apparently is freaking out.

The sound guys, they're like...

Nobody knows what's going on, but the audience went berserk.

He was just soloing everything.

He'd throw the vocal lead in,

just to show everybody how on top of it he was.

I still get goose bumps

when I think about that right now.

The band are having great fun doing this riff

and then we segue through into Bolero'

and it's absolutely amazing.

These people that came out of that same era

with the same influences

and look at the voices that emerged.

Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck.

And then there was Clapton and Hendrix.

These guys all look that same raw material and did that.

Just distinct different branches.

Every time I think of it, it's mind-numbing.

And Jeff really is just totally a voice like no other.

I love his big, vast swing.

He'll go from something so rocking and so aggressive,

down to something so tender and so sweet

and everything in between,

and it really is a perfect mirror on all the emotions

of being a human being and being alive.

It just covers the gamut of human emotion.

You could recognise Gilmour and Hendrix,

the same way you can recognise Jeff within a phrase, a note.

There wouldn't be icons of guitar playing

if they didn't have their stamp.

And that's what I think every aspiring guitarist,

including myself, wants to achieve one day.

So I think they're all unique, but Jeff's is...

a little bit more 'out there'.

He was doing his set

and then I had to go on after 'Nessun Dorma'.

I was like, "You must be kidding, man.

This is a showstopper, I can't follow that."

There's not too many musicians who can do that.

That's a vocal tune for a reason.

It's really about just his sort of...

these two hands and a piece of wood

and the things he's able to do with it,

but he does it with a lot of emotion and soul

and expression.

All those years ago you had a band that featured

Rod Stewart as your vocalist.

It's always seemed somewhat self-defeating to me

to attempt to replace Rod with another male vocalist.

Jeff has a really cool knack for picking female singers

with his choices like Imelda May, Joss Stone,

and Beth Hart.

There's a perfect example of three absolutely amazing females

that go with his style,

and the type of energy that he wants to portray

and the type of energy he wants his band to portray

at that particular time.

The type of fire he wants to have.

I had an opportunity to go write with Jeff.

We wrote a couple of beautiful songs together

and I thought that was It.

Then he called me and asked me if I'd be his singer.

That was incredible.

I didn't get to sing a lot of songs,

but I did get to sit on the side of the stage and watch him play

and understand why he's the most innovative guitarist

of all time.

Jeff really appreciates singers.

You know, he's always listening to singers

and the way that they articulate.

Beth Hart is somebody I've actually worked with before

and she's great and she's very soulful.

As a singer,

he knows what kind of song will be best for you.

And he turned me onto that song and I loved it.

Here he is 50 years later,

after his girlfriend takes him out on that stage

and he looks up and he says "God, I wanna play here so bad",

and 50 years later he plays there.

Sold out, gorgeous, kills it.

It's just wonderful.

One of my favourite records that he's done is 'Loud Hailer'.

It's incredibly modern.

And having a singer like that to work off of,

he's chosen well.

There's a lot of pressure opening Jeff's show.

This is like 50 years of Jeff Beck.

Rosie's stomping around the Hollywood Bow/

and all these top of the heap rich guys down at the front

not knowing what's going on.

He always decides to do

something which nobody'd expect him to do.

Working with us, this unknown band from Camden.

Jeff's always supported young artists, especially women.

He's had a history

of having really great female musicians with him.

Female singers, guitar players, bass players.

And not only the point of just the criteria

of someone being a female,

but someone being female and very talented.

And that get along great with him and his wife.

What time do you call this?

I met Jeff at Roger Taylors birthday party.

It was a funny encounter because Roger said,

"Here, come and meet Jeff", then I turned around,

and realised who I was talking to.

I think the first thing I said to him was,

"Oh fuck, you're Jeff Beck."

I've installed the engine in your absence,

so that bit's now done.

Who do you like? She said, "Albert Collins."

Ding! A light went on and I thought, that's unusual,

to have a female young guitarist that likes Albert Collins.

Then she said, "If you wanna see me play in my band,

I'm playing in this pub."

So we go up there, totally blown away.

He's always trying something new.

The most recent album, 'Loud Hailer',

is not like any album he's done before.

He's collaborating with people who are like himself,

venturing forward info new musical territory.

That'll keep you young.

The whole point is that, Jeff still, at his age,

is trying to pioneer things and do things differently,

not just playing the same stuff that he always plays.

He's pushing it a bit, getting excited about new people

and making new music.

Looking back, it feels like fairyland.

Like, "How the hell did that happen?"

Just sitting around a fireplace drinking Prosecco

and writing music with a legend.

There was a lot of chatting about things

that were Interesting him in the world

and after that, everything came quite easily.

It was done under this roof.

It was a beautiful, very natural experience.

That was Carmen's chord sequence, I think,

then I came up with the little fills and stuff.

I wasn't expecting that.

The depth of that song.

I love the sentiment behind 'Scared For The Children'

Something that we all felt quite close to.

I play the least amount of notes

that actually mean something, I suppose.

If there was any game playing that'd be it really.

The chords are so nice.

Just to sit on the chord and do it.

I mean, that's what I do.

Jeff's solo in 'Scared For The Children' suave at first,

and then explodes in the second half.

That hint to Jimi Hendrix, kind of that quote.

The best time is on a really nice-sounding stage,

live, that's when I can really pour it on.

Jeff is probably one of the most influential guitar players

alive today.

And whenever I get to play with him it's an experience

that affects my drumming and my musicianship.

He makes me play better.

Every time I see him his averages are so high,

but every performance is one place where he is transcended

and I go, "Oh, OK.

I'd better go home and pick my guitar up again.""

He's just naturally interested in making music

and has enough faith in his music to know that

all that stuff about the business just doesn't matter.

To have the attitude that he has

where he's always ready for something new

and he doesn't know it all, even though he does,

I think that's magical.

There's a difference between playing music and being music.

And that's how he is set apart because he is music.

Jeff seems to embody the sound that he produces.

And I've watched him take someone else's guitar,

who was just playing a moment before,

pick it up, with no effects, no nothing,

and start playing

and the sound of that same instrument

is just completely different.

It's this unique talent,

this unique musical sensibility, vocabulary,

inspiration and willingness to take risks.

Jumping off cliffs.

And that all shows up in his music.

People do need to...

up their awareness about him.

I mean, where have they been?

There is no one else that has been as consistently good,

exciting, out there, looking for new things,

adventurous, maverick,

since he started in the 60s.

He just loves music.

I think...

If you stop wanting to play,

if you're not inspired by what you hear

then you might as well sit at home by the fire and watch TV,

but obviously he's still got something left to say.

I haven't given up hope, Jeff.

"The voice, The guitar."

The good thing about guitarists

is that everyone's got their own character playing.

That's something which we all do understand.

But we could all be talking for hours and hours,

and years and years, decades and decades,

but the most important thing,

the thing that you can't actually put into words,

is what you actually hear in that music.

And that is the key to all of this,

of Jeff's playing and why Jeff is so brilliant.

Because it's what he manages to convey with his guitar.

And that has to be heard to be believed.

I always keep a guitar in nearly every place in the house

to remind me that I should be doing that.

And the guitar is always a constant challenge.

Every time I pick it up,

I pretend I've just started playing.

And it seems to work.