(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sun 23 November 2025 3:30, UK
Jeff Beck was always going to be a lone wolf in rock and roll.
He could have made for the perfect lead guitarist in any other rock and roll band, but whenever he collaborated with everyone from Tina Turner to Roger Waters, it was clear that he was somewhat of a free agent, jamming among friends rather than trying to carve out a spot in a band. He could entertain a crowd all on his own from the very start of his career; all he needed was that one extra push to get himself over the line into guitar hero status.
Because when looking at his role in The Yardbirds, you’d have thought that the band was a hub of the greatest guitar talent that the world had ever known. There had been countless people that were trying to tap into the same bluesy vein as their heroes, but any band that has Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Beck go through their ranks clearly knew what went into making a fantastic guitarist.
But while Clapton left the band for purist reasons, Page and Beck always seemed to want a little bit more out of guitar. They had the potential to be great band members, but when they looked at where the band was going, it was clear that Beck wasn’t looking to play blues for the rest of his life. There was a whole world of music out there that he hadn’t seen yet, and that meant that he needed to get out of the rut of being in a pop band.
The money may have been good, but Beck wasn’t in the business of making money every time he played his guitar. He wanted to express himself in any way he knew how, and while not having any vocals on a record like Blow by Blow would have been career suicide back in the day, Beck was more than happy to continue on once he heard of all the great names in the world of fusion.
While the prog-rock movement gets a lot of credit for putting playing back on the map, the likes of Weather Report were also making waves around the same time Genesis were roaring up the charts. There was hardly anyone in the world who could compete with what technicians like Jaco Pastorius could do, but when looking at the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Beck understood the road he needed to go down for the rest of his life.
This is what music could hold for him in the future, and he was ready to dive headfirst into instrumental work, saying, “The Mahavishnu Orchestra was a clear lesson that there was life after singers. I thought if I could make a more simplified version of that – because there’s no Billy Cobham where I live, I don’t know about you – it would be good. The emphasis on great playing rather than making sensational pop records appealed to me. It was more important to be part of that inventiveness that was going on musically.”
And while Beck would be one of the first people to say that he didn’t know the first thing about jazz, he does have the spirit of a jazz player whenever he performs. He would have his occasional moments when working with a common theme on any of his records, but listening to tracks like ‘Scatterbrain’, he clearly knew the difference between writing a catchy tune and playing songs to test himself.
Although he could have spent his entire life with Rod Stewart at the lip of the stage with him, it was going to be much more satisfying to get the audience jumping through the pure power of his guitar. Vocals would have been nice, but there are still few songs that can manage to elicit tears without singing in the same way ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’ could.
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