Mick Morris
Blue Tree Books
£18.99 (black & white edition); £26.99 (colour edition)
465 pages
ISBN-9798879225730 (colour edition)
Jeff Beck was one of the most gifted, inspirational and influential electric guitarists of the twentieth century, and his death on 10 January 2023, unleashed a torrent of grief across the music world.
Like Miles Davis, Beck was musically curious and artistically restless, constantly exploring new musical genres, even if that meant breaking up a successful band or music project in the process. Beck’s musical journey encompassed blues, rock and roll, rock, reggae, folk, Eastern music, techno and classical. Jazz fans will be especially interested in Beck’s 1975-1980 period, when he released a trio of jazz-rock fusion albums, and collaborated with jazz musicians such as Jan Hammer, Max Middleton, Stanley Clarke, Narada Michael Walden and Tony Hymas. In 2007, Beck had a critically acclaimed, one-week residency at Ronnie Scott’s.
Despite his standing in the music world, there are surprisingly few books on Beck’s life and music. Annette Carson’s Crazy Fingers, was published in 2001, but ends at the start of the twenty-first century. Martin Power’s 500-page tome, ‘Hot Wired Guitar’ was published in updated form in 2014. Mick Morris’s Jeff: The One, Alone, is the first biography to be published after Beck’s death.
Mick Morris has a number of advantages over many Beck biographers. First of all, he is both a writer and a professional musician, having written several previous books (fiction and non-fiction), and played guitar in numerous bands since the Sixties, (including stints with the late Tony Coe during the Seventies and Eighties). He also knew Beck, having first met him in Folkestone in August 1967 (‘Folkestone’ became Beck’s nickname for Morris).
Biographers of electric guitarists have to draw a fine line when it comes to their target readership. Do they write for guitar nerds and pack the text with technical descriptions of guitar models and playing technique? Or do they aim at the general reader? Morris has opted for the latter, but there is still plenty of information for interested musicians. If you want to know the three models of guitar Beck played on his best-selling Blow by Blow album, this book has the answer. If you’re interested in learning about all the tweaks behind the modified Fender Stratocaster Beck played on the 1985 album Flash, Morris informs you.
Morris has produced a highly readable tome – it’s like a highly knowledgeable friend talking to you about Beck’s musical career – the tours, the bands, the albums, the concerts (he peppers the text with personal anecdotes and observations). Musical descriptions are clear and many include information on a song’s time signature and key. Morris has produced a transcription of Beck’s manic playing at the intro to the track ‘Scatterbrain’ (with a warning not to try playing it at home…) but non-musicians will find this book an easy read. The book is also packed with photos, including a number taken at Beck’s final home, his estate in Wadhurst, Sussex.
The book is divided into six parts. Parts One and Two, cover Beck’s early life and fledgling musical career, and take-up the first 80 pages. Beck was a war baby, born in Wallington, Surrey on 24 June 1944 to Arnold and Ethel Beck, who already had a daughter, Annetta. His mother played classical tunes on a small family piano, and while his father didn’t play a musical instrument, he was a fan of jazz pianists like Fats Waller, Art Tatum and Jelly Roll Morton, and their music filled the Beck household.
Various relatives tried to get Beck to learn to play the piano, violin and cello, but growing up in an age of rock and roll, Beck hankered after a guitar (even making a home-made one), and in his teens, he forged a lifelong friendship with a fellow guitar fan who lived a bus ride away from home – future Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page.
Morris paints a vivid picture of the heady days of the British music scene during the Fifties and Sixties – the rise of skiffle , rock and roll, blues and rock; the bands, the clubs, the pubs, the cafes; the musical instrument stores where budding musicians would meet to check out the latest gear; the arrival of the LP record, and the electric atmosphere (both literally and metaphorically) that permeated the entire musical landscape. It was during this period that Beck played in various bands and developed his craft.
Part Three covers Beck’s time with The Yardbirds, which started out as a blues band but morphed into a rock/pop/psychedelia band. The Yardbirds are famous for having three giants of the electric guitar in their line-up – Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page (for a time, Beck and Page played together in the band). When the band scored a hit in 1965 with ‘For Your Love,’ Clapton – a blues purist – left in disgust at the band’s new musical direction.
Beck was recommended by Jimmy Page and it was a great fit. Beck was encouraged to experiment and he used effects like feedback and fuzz, and introduced new guitar sounds, some of them encompassing Eastern influences. Beck’s playing would astonish fellow guitarists and inspire many of them to explore new ways of playing the instrument.
The Yardbirds had more hits including, ‘Heart Full Of Soul’ and ‘Shapes Of Things.’’ But Beck’s tenure would come to an end during the band’s US tour in October 1966, when the burnt-out guitarist walked out of the middle of a gruelling tour. Morris states that ‘There seems no doubt that he had suffered a serious breakdown.’
Part Four, ‘Starting Over’ begins in 1967, with Beck at a low point, having left The Yardbirds and unsure about the future. What’s more, the explosive arrival of Jimi Hendrix on the London music scene and the rise of Clapton’s super-group Cream saw the guitar spotlight shift from Beck to other players. During this period, Beck formed the first of two bands, each known as the Jeff Beck Group. The first, featuring Rod Stewart on vocals, got off to a sticky start, with the band working with the highly successful but totally unsuitable producer Micky Most. Most was a pop hit-maker (he was the man behind Herman Hermit’s ‘I’m Into Something Good.’); the master of the three-minute pop song. He instructed Beck’s band to record a pop single, ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining.’ What’s more, he forced Beck to sing the lead vocals. In contrast, the single’s B-Side, ‘Beck’s Bolero’ was a rock instrumental that became one of Beck’s signature tunes. ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ became a top twenty hit, but also a musical
albatross for Beck, who once described it as, ‘[Like] having a pink toilet seat hung around your neck for the rest of your life,’ although he did occasionally perform it in concerts.
Other band members included the top session pianist Nicky Hopkins, and Ronnie Wood, who played bass (he would go on to play guitar with The Rolling Stones). The band recorded a couple of albums and did several US tours. It was during the band’s final US tour that personality and monetary issues between Beck and the rest of the band came to a head, and Beck broke up the group, shortly before a scheduled appearance at the Woodstock Festival.
In 1970, Beck began assembling a second Jeff Beck Group, recruiting drummer Cozy Powell. The two musicians and Most flew to Detroit to record at the famous Tamla Motown studios, but the project failed, and none of the music from the sessions has been heard publicly. Beck recruited more musicians, including keyboardist Max Middleton, bassist Clive Chamen and vocalist Bobby Tench.
In 1972, the band toured the US, supported by Stevie Wonder. Wonder was recording his next album, Talking Book, and asked Beck to play guitar on the song Lookin’ for Another Pure Love.” In return, Wonder said he’d write a song for Beck. Wonder and the Jeff Beck Group worked together at Electric Lady studios in New York, where Wonder composed the song ‘Superstition,’ for Beck. But Motown saw the song’s huge hit potential (and they were proved right) and insisted that Wonder release it as a single.
The Jeff Beck Group version two recorded two albums, including one with Steve Cropper, guitarist with Booker T and MGs, and disbanded in July 1974. Beck formed another band, originally featuring Middleton, bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, but this soon morphed into a power trio, Beck, Bogert and Appice. That band lasted a couple of years.
Part Five, Going It Alone, is of greatest interest to jazz fans, as Beck embarks on a new musical direction playing jazz-rock fusion. Beck was inspired by the playing of John McLaughlin and his band, The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Beck was also enthused by McLaughlin’s playing on ‘Right Off,’ from Miles Davis’s Jack Johnson album. Another influence was drummer Billy Cobham (another Mahavishnu member) and his 1973 album Spectrum. The sounds created by guitarist Tommy Bolin and Moog keyboardist Jan Hammer (also from Mahavishnu) on the album captivated Beck.
Beck’s next album was going to be an instrumental recording, combining jazz and rock. Max Middleton was recruited to assist Beck, and ex-Beatles producer George Martin handled the album’s production. The resulting album, Blow by Blow, released in 1975, was both an artistic and commercial triumph, and became Beck’s best-selling album, shifting more than a million copies. The album featured two songs by Stevie Wonder, including ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers,’ a ballad about lost love, which Beck played at almost every concert afterwards. Morris describes Beck’s playing on the tune, ‘Jeff’s opening notes are like forlorn cries of distress before his guitar becomes the actor playing both parts in the ex-lovers’ dialogue, calling and responding in their different voices…[it is] a quite brilliant piece of work that would come to define Jeff as a phenomenon of the instrument for decades to come.’
The success of Blow by Blow led to Beck touring the US, supporting the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Beck’s band included Max Middleton on keyboards, Wilbur Bascomb, bass and Bernard Purdie on drums. Part-way through the tour, Blow By Blow became a huge hit and Beck was promoted to headline act. But such was the respect between McLaughlin and Beck that they agreed to alternate the bands’ running order each night and also played together on-stage.
Beck’s follow-up album Wired (released in 1976), saw him diving even deeper into the jazz-rock sound, and the music had a harder edge than on Blow by Blow. George Martin, not entirely happy with the new musical direction, bowed out part way through the sessions, and Jan Hammer became the album’s de facto producer. Wired was dominated by the Mahavishnu sound. Hammer composed ‘Blue Wind’, (soon to become a Beck concert staple) while Narada Michael Walden (who replaced Cobham in the Mahavishnu Orchestra) played on most of the album and composed four numbers.
Wired also featured Beck’s exquisite cover of Charles Mingus’s ‘Goodbye Porkpie Hat’ (Mingus later wrote to Beck to congratulate him on the recording). Beck would continue exploring jazz-rock fusion. He forged a strong musical association with Stanley Clarke, appearing on three of the bassist’s albums, and touring with him in 1978.
The Beck/Clarke tour band included two new members who would play a key role in Beck’s next album. Keyboardist Tony Hymas had played with Jack Bruce, and Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth, and drummer Simon Phillips had worked with Jack Bruce.
In 1980, Beck released his third and final jazz-rock album, There & Back, produced by Ken Scott and featuring three numbers by Hammer (including another concert favourite, ‘Star Cycle’). The rest of the album was composed by Hymas and Phillips, including ‘Space Boogie’ and ‘The Pump.’ The studio band was completed with bassist Mo Foster, who had played with the British jazz-rock band Affinity (who were managed by Ronnie Scott), and Ray Russell.
The There & Back band toured the US, Japan and Europe to great acclaim, and Hymas, Foster and Phillips were keen to record another album. But Beck decided to go to ground and spend more time on his Sussex estate. This pattern of abandoning projects – including highly successful ones – continued throughout Beck’s career – bands were folded mid-tour; recording projects scrapped before completion, or Beck would simply walkout with little or no notice – including an infamous incident when he was due to audition for The Rolling Stones. Morris has some sympathy for this strategy, arguing that is better to leave a situation you find intolerable than to endure it and the destructive forces it can engender.
The 1980s were a relatively quiet time for Beck. It would be five years before he released his next album, Flash. The Eighties saw the electric guitar playing second fiddle to synthesisers, drum machines, samplers and sequencers. In an effort to get
Beck moving with the times and generate a hit album, Beck’s record label Epic partnered him with Chic co-leader Nile Rodgers, then one of the hottest producers around, having worked with Diana Ross, David Bowie and Madonna. During the production of Flash, Rodgers left to tour with Rod Stewart, and producer Arthur Baker took over.
The resulting album (which included tunes by Jan Hammer and Tony Hymas) was a disappointing hotchpotch of vocals and instrumentals, saved only by Beck’s guitar playing (the album doesn’t even merit a line in Rodger’s autobiography). It would be another four years before a new Beck album emerged and it was arguably his last great studio album. Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop – released in 1989 – was a trio album featuring Beck, Hymas and drummer Tony Bozzio, who had played with Frank Zappa.
The band wrote the songs in the studio and then recorded them. One of the best, the haunting ballad ‘Where Were You’ came about after Hymas heard Beck idly picking on his guitar in the studio and composing a tune around Beck’s noodling. Beck deploys a dazzling range of techniques on the song, as Morris explains, ‘Employing both natural and artificial harmonics to produce long, sustained notes which are not supposed to exist on the instrument, and then, unguided by the frets, pulling and pushing them into place with the tremolo arm so that they move as a wave, rather than in a series of discrete steps, to form a melody, all the while carefully controlling the volume as the note decays – not a job for the faint-hearted.’ The album was a critical success but sales were disappointing. The Guitar Shop band toured and would later reform in 2002, and tour in 2003. But there would be no second album.
In 1995, Beck played on the opening track ‘Django’ on John McLaughlin’s album The Promise, but he wouldn’t release another studio album until 1999’s Who Else, which saw him mixing rock guitar with techno. His next two records were in a similar genre. In 2005, Beck began collaborating with two musicians who had their feet firmly in both the jazz world and the pop/rock world. Keyboardist Jason Rebello and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta had both played with Sting. In 2007, Beck, Rebello, Colaiuta and twenty-two year old bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, played for a week at Ronnie Scott’s.
The band was joined on-stage by a guest artist each night, including Joss Stone and Eric Clapton. The sold-out gigs were a huge success and generated CD and DVD releases, Performing This Week, both of which sold well. In 2010, Beck released the album Emotion and Commotion, which featured several classical pieces, including ‘Nesum Dorma’ and ‘Corpus Christi Carol.’
It has to be said that Beck’s final two studio albums, the highly political release Loud Hailer in 2016, and 2022’s 18 – a collaboration with actor Johnny Depp – were a disappointing end to a magnificent career. At the beginning of 2023, Beck fell ill with bacterial meningitis and died less than two weeks later.
This book is a terrific overview of Beck’s musical career, but when it comes to learning about Beck the man, it reveals little more than was already known – Beck didn’t care much about material things, including his guitars; he was a vegetarian and cared about animals (at one point, turning his home into a cat sanctuary). He loved Hot Rod cars and spent much of his time building and repairing them (you sometimes wonder whether Beck toured and recorded simply to fund his love of cars) and he was a very private person.
He also championed women musicians and many of his bands and concerts included female artists: guitarists Jennifer Batten and Carmen Vandenberg; bassists Tal Wilkenfeld and Rhonda Smith; drummers Anika Nilles and Veronica Bellino; singers Beth Hart, Imelda May, Imogen Heap, Olivia Safe, Nancy Sorell, Rosie Bones and Joss Stone, and classical musicians like Lizzie Ball (violin) and Vanessa Freebairn-Smith (cello).
Beck was married twice, and his second marriage to his long-term partner Sandra Cash, was a low-key event that took place in 2005. He also had a 24-year relationship with Celia Hammond. But we know little about his partners or their memories of Beck.
The book’s last part, The One, Alone, attempts to address this by quoting various musicians who had either played with Beck or were fans of his music. They recall their recollections of Beck as a man and as a musician. But in the end, if you really want to know who Jeff Beck was, then simply listen to his guitar playing – the heart and soul of the man surges through the incredible sounds he created. As Morris concludes: ‘Jeff expressed his emotions through his instrument, able to make his guitar sing, laugh, shout or cry, to sound both angrier and more beautiful than anyone else ever could and, in return for having reminded us that Jeff really was.’
Anyone with an interest in the music of Jeff Beck should read this book.
