Jeff Beck fans ...

Winny_Pooh

I'm in two minds about Beck. Half the time his solos sound like unstructured noodling but he has a great way with playing melodies. 

However

The harmonica bits on that ZZTop vid blew me away. So last night. I sat for an hour with my music man and wangled the trem. Outcome: got 30% of the way there, said "Fk me but how does he do that !?" and went to bed.

anyone keen to try and tab out what's happening after 3:25? 

@octatonic ;

DavidRees

I like him and find him musically inspirational - just saying ... saw him jamming with Bernard Purdie in a pub in Nunhead back in the early 70s and to be that close to the man was mesmerising ...

springhead

I was lucky enough to see him at the Indigo2 in 2009 with Imelda May, sort of pre-cursor to the Rock and roll Party thing.  They played 50's and 60's rock, Apache, Walking in the Sand, Train kept a Rollin', Rock around the Clock, Green Onions, all sorts of stuff.  Bit of white strat activity but also Tele, Les Paul, a Gretsch.  Fantastic playing and he was clearly having a great time.  He said that Page and Wood were there but wouldn't play " 'cos they're chicken"!  I'd seen him previously in his funk, fusion kind of mode with all the strat/trem cleverness and much preferred the stripped down rock style he played with Imelda and her band.

ChuckManual

57Deluxe said:

Jeff Beck's playing and phrasing is just like Van Morrison's singing - irksome, nasal and tuneless...

Wow.

I wish I was as bad a guitarist as Jeff Beck.

10% as bad would do me, to be honest...

matt1973

Just saw a great little tutorial for anyone into Jeff Beck whammy technique.

https://www.facebook.com/marbinmusic/posts/1662718513823616
.

Chris777

I'm going to be definitely buying and listening to his albums, I am blown away.

axisus

Finally saw this on iPlayer. Fantastic documentary, absolutely loved it. He is so his own man, with all those 'crazy' decisions that he made along the way. To be honest it has reignited my interest in him again, not played any CDs for a while, and I need to get digital versions of my old LPs that I haven't played for 20 years or so.

Anyone who criticises Jeff, the playing is clearly going right over their head.

Philly_Q

axisus said:

Anyone who criticises Jeff, the playing is clearly going right over their head.

Depends what you mean by criticise.  It's perfectly possible to acknowledge his genius but simply not enjoy listening to some, or a lot, of what he does.

Jez6345789

https://youtu.be/lM9IFk73tac?list=LLa8nQReq-Jh_u5kmZf50Tsg

Just love over this version of Nadia the work with the trem is sublime

fandango

Jez6345789 said:

https://youtu.be/lM9IFk73tac?list=LLa8nQReq-Jh_u5kmZf50Tsg

Just love over this version of Nadia the work with the trem is sublime

From 3:10 on its not just the trem vibrato bar - he is also working this in tandem with the volume. Beck takes this to a level no other guitarist even thinks of going.

Love the tone - the way those high notes are so smooth and dont sound piercingly high. Seems like he’s got amp and pedal settings sussed with the right amount of treble, mid and bass, and goidness kniws what else to help him create some sublime sounds. But who am I, but a mere mortal who bumbles and futches my way through another poor unrecognisable rendition of the Stairway solo?

Heaven help the rest of us. Maybe Tommy Emmanuel has a chance.

Jez6345789

Yeah working the bar was an over simplification of it there is so many  subtleties even how he moves up and down the bar to control movement range as you say volume and phrasing it’s pretty comprehensive mastery

mudslide73

Some great insight into the fake slide side of his playing in this. Very workman like but making the most glorious sounds.

Jez6345789

Until all this I had sort of lost track of beck over the last few years.

someone said he is using stacked humbucker which ones?

richardhomer

Jez6345789 said:

Until all this I had sort of lost track of beck over the last few years.

someone said he is using stacked humbucker which ones?

The pick-ups in his main Strat were very high output single coils wound by John Suhr when he was at the Fender Custom Shop I believe. They’re deeper than normal Strat pick-ups and required deeper routes than in a ‘normal’ Strat IIRC. They’ve never been available commercially.

dindude

I’m more of a modern Beck fan but I’ve been listening to Truth after seeing that documentary - just remarkable.

gordiji

I'm not a big fan but having read this thread & checked him out playing 'live at the hollywood bowl' one can see what the fuss is about. At 70 odd he sounds great.
And a great vid of littlewing played beautifully in 2011

gordiji

AlexC

Re the album Truth - Beck was quite pissed off when his mate Jimmy (Page) essentially lifted the style for his new band Led Zeppelin... also managed by Peter Grant. Listen to the Jeff Beck Group version of You Shook Me and then listen to Zep’s.... 

Philly_Q

AlexC said:

Re the album Truth - Beck was quite pissed off when his mate Jimmy (Page) essentially lifted the style for his new band Led Zeppelin... also managed by Peter Grant. Listen to the Jeff Beck Group version of You Shook Me and then listen to Zep’s.... 

I love Truth and Beck-Ola, but they sound very rooted in the '60s with the keyboards and weedy drum sounds.  Zeppelin took it to another level, more modern and so much more powerful.  A lot of it down to Bonham, I think.

ToneControl

I wished they'd played some of the examples from the studio version, because on a few old tracks, the live version with video wasn't as good, and might not illustrate how good those tracks were to people not familiar with Beck