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Jimi Hendrix<\/p>\n When I saw Jimi<\/a> we knew he was going to be trouble. And by \u2018we\u2019 I mean me and Eric [Clapton], because Jimmy [Page] wasn\u2019t in the frame at that point. I saw him at one of his earliest performances in Britain, and it was quite devastating. He did all the dirty tricks \u2013 setting fire to his guitar, doing swoops up and down his neck, all the great showmanship to put the final nail in our coffin. I had the same temperament as Hendrix in terms of \u2018I\u2019ll kill you\u2019, but he did in such a good package with beautiful songs.<\/p>\n Reporters got the number of my flat the day he died. I was suicidal at the time, because my girlfriend had dumped me. And to have to the deal with a call saying \u201cJimi Hendrix is dead. How do you feel about that?\u201d At first I thought it was a bloody hoax, but as the day wore on I realised it was tragically true.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to say that I knew him well, I don\u2019t think anybody did, but there was a period in London when I went to visit him quite few times. He invited me down to Olympic studios and I gave him a bottleneck. That\u2019s what he plays on Axis: Bold As Love<\/a>. We hooked up in New York and played at Steve Paul\u2019s club The Scene.<\/p>\n Sly Stone<\/p>\n Carmine [Appice, drummer with Beck, Bogert & Appice] knew that I was a big fan of Sly so he arranged the session. We went to San Francisco to do some recording and we were stuck in a hotel for 10 days and never saw him.<\/p>\n Eventually we got into the studio and Sly saw Carmine\u2019s drums and said: \u201cYou can take half of that away, we don\u2019t need that.\u201d Then he disappeared into a back room and never came out again. He eventually called me through his microphonic system. I remember sitting in his office cross-legged, with his wife giggling, and we played for about two hours. I\u2019ve got it on tape somewhere.<\/p>\n \n Jeff Beck with Ronnie Wood at Beck\u2019s 60th birthday in London in August 2007 (Image credit: Dave Benett\/Getty Images)Ronnie Wood<\/p>\n We did a gig in Florida and there was this monsoon-type rain going on; there was a lot of condensation in the air. Ronnie<\/a> did this fabulous bass solo, I slapped him a high five and 400 volts went across our two hands and blew us both off the stage. We\u2019ve both got small pockmarks on our hands where the sparks hit.<\/p>\n I\u2019d seen quite a lot of him and then, to my amazement, his marriage took a left turn and he\u2019s ensconced in a new relationship, so I haven\u2019t so much of him recently. But he did induct me at the Classic Rock Awards, and that was fun.<\/p>\n Keith Moon<\/p>\n \n This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock magazine issue 133 (May 2009) (Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n I\u2019ve got plenty of stories about Keith<\/a>. There\u2019s the one about when he wanted to sell me a car. It started off in the gents at the Speakeasy \u2013 as most of his stories do. He came up to me and said: \u201cI\u2019ve got a roadster I want to sell you.\u201d I said: \u201cI don\u2019t want it.\u201d He said: \u201cAlright, come down the house tomorrow and I\u2019ll give it to you.\u201d So I drove down. Right on time he turned up in this white [Rolls-Royce] Corniche with this beautiful blonde-haired girl and said: \u201cShe\u2019s yours. This is my house-warming present for you.\u201d<\/p>\n That night he put me in this room with a jukebox in it and a single mattress on the floor. I went to sleep, and right in the middle of the night Beck\u2019s Bolero [Beck\u2019s first hit single] started up and it played over and over again, it wouldn\u2019t stop. So I unplugged the jukebox. The girl came in and said: \u201cWhy did you unplug that? Keith and I were really enjoying it.\u201d Then she said: \u201cBy the way, I\u2019m not to go back up to Keith\u2019s, I\u2019ve got to stay with you.\u201d It was a very enjoyable weekend.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Cozy Powell<\/p>\n I was auditioning for drummers and I was late. When I finally arrived there were 15 drum kits set up and one double kit in red glitter. I said to my assistant: \u201cWhose is that flash-bastard kit over there?\u201d And she pointed and said: \u201cHe\u2019s the guy you want.\u201d I said: \u201cLet me hear him first and then we\u2019ll go from there.\u201d Cozy<\/a> and I played for about a minute and you could see all the other drummers packing up their kits. He looked the part as well as being the part. Cozy had the image and he played great. We struck up a friendship from that time on. His idol was John Bonham, and I guess he was my John Bonham.<\/p>\n Jimmy Page<\/p>\n My sister knew Jimmy<\/a> from Epsom Art School. She came to my room one day and said: \u201cThere\u2019s a weirdo at school, he\u2019s got a weird guitar like yours,\u201d and then slammed the door. I ran after her saying: \u201cWhere is he?\u201d She said, \u2018I\u2019ll take you over there because I\u2019d like to see him play. I don\u2019t believe he can play.\u201d We went over there, he opened the door and we got tea and cake. We visited regularly from then on. His mum had bought him a really good-quality tape recorder, so we\u2019d record there. I don\u2019t know where those tapes are now but there\u2019s some rare stuff on them.<\/p>\n When I first heard what he\u2019d done with Led Zeppelin I thought: \u201cThat\u2019s a little bit more than inspired by the [Beck\u2019s] Truth album.\u201d When I finally got over that I realised I needed more than I had. I needed a frontman with girly appeal. Plant certainly had that in abundance \u2013 the bare chest, golden locks and all that. We [the Jeff Beck Group] had Rod Stewart [laughs].<\/p>\n Eric Clapton<\/p>\n I know he didn\u2019t like the fact that I took over from him in the Yardbirds and we did great. The general buzz of the band was that they thought they were finished when Eric left. At my debut with the Yardbirds at the Marquee I showed them what was what and I got a standing ovation, so that was the end of that.<\/p>\n Two months after that things took off in the States, which pissed Eric off big time. I think he was hankering after going there \u2013 like we all were. That was our holy grail, going to America to see the blues<\/a> players. Within a week we were down in Chicago looking at Howlin\u2019 Wolf. So I think Eric was a bit jealous on that front. But then along came Cream and he blew everybody away.<\/p>\n Nowadays he\u2019s a changed person. He seems a lot more mellow and happier with himself. I think he\u2019s realised that you don\u2019t have to be mean or in anyway guarded, you can offer yourself in so many ways. And he\u2019s given so much pleasure with his playing and deservedly got the accolades.<\/p>\n Frank Zappa<\/p>\n I loved his political outbursts. From what I could read between the lines he probably could have made the best American president ever. He was very knowledgeable about world affairs and he had a deep cynical streak.<\/p>\n Me and Ronnie Wood knew no fear when we were together [in the Jeff Beck Group] in \u201969. I knew where Frank lived and I drove up to Laurel Canyon in a rented Camarro and did a rubber burnout outside his house. He of course heard it, and came out and said: \u201cYou can cut out that shit,\u201d and invited us in. He took a shine to me and Ronnie big-time.<\/p>\n \n Jeff Beck with Stevie Ray Vaughan (Image credit: Robert Knight Archive\/Redferns)Stevie Ray Vaughan<\/p>\n I met him at a CBS convention in Hawaii in 1981. He was a little worse for wear. He was eating KFC out of a box and then ate the box as well.<\/p>\n We went on the road together in \u201989. He\u2019d got a beautiful new girlfriend and he was as straight as a die. We were on the road for about three months. And then the tragic story was when he went in that helicopter he didn\u2019t want to get on it. The people around him talked him into it by saying: \u201cLook Eric [Clapton] has just got on one.\u201d So off he went and never came back. I think Stevie Ray was the closest thing to Hendrix when it came to playing the blues.<\/p>\n Eddie Van Halen<\/p>\n He was the great white hope when he did the solo on [Michael Jackson\u2019s] Beat It. I\u2019d seen him, and I don\u2019t like the speed tapping style very much, but he had it down. I once saw him play a blues solo and it was astonishing, he really can play. But he was on the booze, and objectionable a lot of the time.<\/p>\n![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/CzyuURGFiQdZbaLySNU2v.jpg\")
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