THE WASHINGTON POST • FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
6
MusicMaker
Jeff Beck: Still
bending genres
by Ernest Suarez
As a teenager in England, Jeff Beck used cigar boxes, a fence post, aircraft line wires, glue and bolts to build a guitar. That precociousness and ingenuity signaled the shape of things to come. In 1965, a 20-year-old Beck replaced Eric
Clapton in the Yardbirds and promptly began experimenting with fuzz tones and feedback, paving the way for bands from Led Zeppelin to Nirvana. After leaving the Yardbirds, Beck re- cruited future Zeppelin founders Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, the Who’s Keith Moon and keyboardist Nicky Hopkins to record “Beck’s Bo- lero,” an instrumental that changed rock compo- sition. In 1968, the Jeff Beck Group, featuring Rod Stewart and Ron Wood, mixed blues and hard rock, anticipating heavy metal. During the decades that followed, the ever- restless guitarist delved into sundry genres, in- cluding soul, fusion, Tin Pan Alley and electron- ica, inspiring other bands to explore new direc- tions. Yet despite his wide-ranging influence, Beck says he has never achieved the level of com- mercial success some of his former bandmates have enjoyed. Today, however, Beck says he sees a positive side to remaining an “out-rider, like a scout for a wagon train, making whatever I could out of the fact that I never got caught up in the big wheel of rock-and-roll.”
“I sidestepped heavy metal, glam rock, what-
ever it was,” he says by phone from New Orleans, where he played in the Jazz & Heritage Festival. “It allowed me to reflect a lot and wonder what happened and how to get on with it.” Beck points to 1974-78 as a particularly rich period, when he often teamed with John McLaughlin, Jan Hammer and Billy Cobham to “stretch the limits of rock-and-roll.” He praises the acumen and loyalty of legendary producer George Martin — a.k.a. “the fifth Beatle” — for helping him fashion the genre-melding “Blow by Blow” (1975) and “Wired” (1976). “George picked me up during a period in the
1970s when I had no sales to speak of,” Beck re- calls. “George loves melody. He’d tell me, ‘We can always get them with melody.’ ” But Beck says he was “more interested in us- ing sound to knock down buildings.... At that age, you want to rule the world with power. I was quite horrified that he suggested I use strings on my album, but I was very wrong.” He relented, however, and both records went platinum, be- coming two of the best-selling instrumental rock
albums of all time. More than three decades later, Beck is back near the top of the charts. His latest release, “Emotion and Commotion,” peaked at No. 11 on Billboard’s Top 200 in April, and in February he received his fifth Grammy Award for his version of “A Day in the Life,” an instrumental from his platinum-certified DVD, “Jeff Beck Performing This Week . . . Live at Ronnie Scott’s.” Beck, 65, traces his recent success back to
Martin’s emphasis on melody. But on “Emotion and Commotion” he pushes beyond pop melo- dies to create complex arrangements. Beck says that when composing, he considered “what it is in the chord progressions that move the song without melody, and how it suggests where one should be going. When the chord progression and the melody take off together is where there’s powerful music.” Ever the perfectionist, Beck laid down guitar
riffs while using a synthesizer to emulate an or- chestra. Later, actual orchestral parts were add- ed to ensure precise timing between the songs’
components. The result is an evocative foray into subtly paced jazz showered with lush strings. His interplay with a 64-piece orchestra is intricate and romantic. Among the album’s highlights: a sensuous, moving version of the Middle English hymn “Corpus Christi Carol”; an original jazz-rock instrumental, “Hammerhead,” that highlights Beck’s slashing, soaring guitar pyrotechnics; and coloratura soprano Olivia Safe’s haunting vocals on Dario Marianelli’s “El- egy for Dunkirk.” Rock vocalists Joss Stone and Imelda May perform on select tracks. Beck, who is on a world tour that stops at Wolf
Trap on Monday, says he has enjoyed venturing into melody and performing before burgeoning audiences. But despite the increased sales and the expanded appeal, he is unsure where his next project will take him. “We’ll just see how it goes,” he says. “But I’ve enjoyed it, and I’ve en- joyed seeing many more ladies in the audience.”
weekend@washpost.com
Suarez is a freelance writer.
JEFF BECK
Appearing Monday at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center, 1551 Trap Rd., Vienna. Show starts at 8 p.m.
Tickets: $25, lawn only. 703-255-1868.
www.wolftrap.org.
The Download:
For a sampling of Jeff Beck’s music, check out:
From “Emotion and Commotion”:
“Corpus Christi Carol” “Hammerhead”
From “Truth”:
“Beck’s Bolero”
From “Blow by Blow”:
“Thelonious”
CHRIS GRAYTHEN/GETTY IMAGES
Guitarist Jeff Beck has experimented with different musical genres, including jazz, soul, fusion and electronica, since making his debut with the Yardbirds more than four decades ago.
“I never got caught up in the big wheel of rock-and- roll.”
Jeff Beck
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