Beck-Ola

Whether a member of the Yardbirds or a leader of a group, British guitarist Jeff Beck, who died last week at 78, was content to let vocalists take front and center stage.  But whether is was Keith Relf, Rod Stewart or Bob Tench singing out front, Beck's guitar was the star of the show.

 

Beck, along with fellow Yardbirds alumni Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, was one of what Creem magazine once dubbed the Unholy Three - the trio of British  guitarists that redefined rock and roll by taking it out of the realm of pop and taking into heavier territory.  But while Clapton remained a purist and Page turned amplified blues chords into heavy metal, Beck pursued the free-form, blues-based experimentalism commonly associated with Jimi Hendrix.  From the beginning, when he played the solo on the Yardbirds' recording of "Heart Full of Soul" (written by Graham Gouldman), he was driven to be innovative; he developed a sound on his guitar that emulated the Indian sitar and was like an accompanying voice for Keith Relf.   His pioneering work on the debut album of the first Jeff Beck Group, which featured Rod Stewart on vocals, created an array of sounds full of reverberation and feedback that set the template for blues-based rock that many thought Jimmy Page merely replicated on the first Led Zeppelin album.   

As a solo artist, Beck would occasionally bring in a singer but he mainly recorded instrumentals, preferring to let his guitar do the talking.  Beck already knew to make his guitar speak, and the sounds he emanated from it yielded memorable tracks.  At a time when guitar heroes are becoming harder to find in a pop world that has turned its back on guitar rock, it's worth revisiting Beck's vast catalog and (re)discover and appreciate what made him so great.  RIP. 😢 

Then Play On

Many American fans of Fleetwood Mac don't know the history of the band before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined it in 1975, though some might remember the band's first American member, guitarist Bob Welch, whom the duo replaced.  But the man who put Fleetwood Mac together in the first place, Peter Green, was a giant in his own right.

Green, who died Saturday at 73, was an accomplished guitarist and an impeccable singer, and he founded the band that would once characterize seamlessly crafted Los Angeles rock as a British blues band after a tutelage with John Mayall.  He influenced numerous guitarists with his clean, crisp style, but unless you listen to Sirius XM's Deep Tracks channel, you're not likely to hear much of his work, given the emphasis by terrestrial radio on the band's pop period.  However, you may not know that you already have heard his work, in a way.  Santana's "Black Magic Woman?"  That's actually a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song written by Green. The Beatles' "Sun King?"  Not a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song, but the gentle guitar solo that precedes the vocals was an attempt by the Beatles to copy Fleetwood Mac's style on the Mac instrumental "Albatross."  Green must have been modest in presenting his own melodic and vocal gifts as Fleetwood Mac's original frontman - what else can you say about a man who names his band after its rhythm section (in this case, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie)? - but he was the catalyst for the band even getting off the ground.

Sadly, Green left his own band in 1970 after being diagnosed as a schizophrenic.  He spent much of the seventies dealing with his illness, re-emerging at the end of of the decade doing session work - including, ironically, an uncredited appearance on Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album - and eventually forming in 1997 the Peter Green Splinter Group, a blues -rock band that lasted for seven years.  He remained active, to some extent, after that band broke up. But Fleetwood Mac remains his greatest legacy, and it's one that will always define his influence on rock and roll. RIP.