There have been no shortage of attempts to tell the story of the late guitar legend Jeff Beck (1944 – 2023). Books, documentaries, and countless articles have chronicled his remarkable career, yet few have ventured beneath the mythology to reveal what truly drove him: what he was like as a friend, why his relationship with the guitar was so singular, and how his influence continues to grow at a moment when the electric guitar itself is experiencing something of a renaissance through players like Ariel Posen, Julian Lage, and others.
That changes with Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story, the new biography by Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill. Both are former Guitar World editors and co-authors of the bestselling Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen, and Tolinski and Gill bring the same rigor and insider perspective to the life of one of rock's most elusive and innovative musicians.
Drawing on more than 30 hours of original interviews with Beck, along with extensive conversations with friends, bandmates, and collaborators including Jimmy Page, Johnny Depp, Clive Davis, and many others, the authors have assembled what may be the most complete portrait of Beck ever published.
Brad Tolinski. Courtesy of Da Capo Publishing.
Chris Gill. Courtesy of Da Capo Publishing.
The book revisits familiar territory, including Beck's groundbreaking work with the Yardbirds and his celebrated collaborations with Rod Stewart. More revealing, however, are the roads not taken: his decisions to turn down opportunities with Elton John and the Rolling Stones, as well as his abrupt departure from Stewart's lucrative 1980s world tour after just nine days. These moments, the authors argue, illuminate the quality that defined Beck throughout his life: an unwavering commitment to artistic authenticity, even when it came at a professional cost.
At the center of Blow by Blow is Beck's relentless drive for reinvention. Never content to repeat himself, he continually pushed both his own abilities and the boundaries of what an electric guitar could do. Tolinski and Gill also explore the intensely private life Beck led, his late-career friendship with Johnny Depp, and the personal circumstances surrounding his final days.
The result is an engrossing read for devoted guitarists and casual fans alike. The authors balance meticulous reporting with an ability to explain Beck's genius in terms that even readers who have never picked up a guitar can appreciate.
Copper caught up with Tolinski and Gill to discuss the making of the book, Beck's enduring legacy, and how beneath the virtuosity and myth was a deeply human artist guided by an uncompromising need to remain true to himself.
Ray Chelstowski: There have been other biographies of Jeff Beck, and a streaming documentary. What did they miss that you both felt needed to be captured or reported?
Brad Tolinski: There’s just a few books really, and they were written maybe almost 15 years ago, and Jeff had a good amount of career after that. When Chris and I were researching this, we found that there were a lot of errors as well in those books. Times, places, and basic stories were shared but there wasn’t very much analysis of Jeff’s playing. The books were pretty straightforward in terms of telling a life story, but there wasn’t much thoughtful analysis, and I think that Chris and I provided that, along with better fact checking.
Chris Gill: The thing for us was that was missing in those books from what I knew about Jeff and in talking to him was that insight into his talent and personality. These books were also matter of fact in their approach. [our book] is a biography, and it is in sequential order, but sometimes we had to rewind a bit. For example, Jeff discovered fusion in the early 1970s but it wasn’t until 1975 that he actually decided to pursue that path, and you don’t get that by saying that he went from the albums Beck, Bogart & Appice to Blow By Blow [without providing any context].
There were also a lot of myths about Jeff, and he actually often generated a lot of them on his own; [we] found at times he would contradict himself and we dug deep to get at what really was the truth. That’s where the other players we interviewed came in and provided a different perspective.
Jeff Beck playing his "Little Richard” Fender Stratocaster while on tour with Carlos Santana at the Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, California, September 17, 1995. © Chris Gill, courtesy of Da Capo Publishing.
RC: Your book is timely because there seems to be a renaissance of the electric guitar underway. This seems like the perfect moment for younger players to discover his music.
CG: What I think is interesting is that Jeff is often grouped with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page because they all come out of England at the same time. But they were quite different from each other. If you were to look at it from a corporate perspective, Clapton was in charge of the blues division, Page was the hard rock division, but Jeff would have been head of the Research and Development group. He was always the one pushing the limits of the guitar, right up until the very end. I think that’s why his story is so interesting, to see how many different directions he took [with] the instrument. I think that younger generations are going to really appreciate that and jump toward everything that he did.
BT: One thing about Jeff, unlike these other iconic players: he’s not overexposed. A lot of people aren’t familiar with his catalog and its depth. If you just count his own records and then add in all of [his] guest spots there’s really a lot to dig into. Plus, it’s diverse. He wasn’t the same player through any five-year period. He kept on progressing.
RC: Clearly scores of musicians have raved about Jeff’s talents for years. But there aren’t many good stories about him as a pal, friend, mate.
CG: It’s interesting for me because I got to go to his house, hang out with him for a few days, and got to see a bit of his day-to-day life. He lived about an hour’s drive south of London in the countryside in this wonderful old manor house. He was really isolated and wouldn’t even go into his local pub, because everywhere he’d go someone would remind him of his song “Hi Ho Silver Lining” and he despised that song, even though it was often what he was best known for.
RC: He was close to Johnny Depp which always seemed odd, given the actor’s eccentricities. Who else did he consider a good friend?
CG: He enjoyed his privacy but he also had great friends. When I was visiting, Jed Leiber was there hanging out. They were good friends for a very long time.
BT: I think it was as much about what Johnny Depp was attracted to as well. When you look at Johnny Depp’s famous friends he was always attracted to the most eccentric. He hung out with Hunter S. Thompson and was friends with Marlon Brando. Jeff in some ways was a similar type of person. At the same time, Johnny had a great ability to blend and relate with those types of people.
RC: With Elton John and The Rolling Stones he seemed more interested in taking creative control than in being a member of the team.
CG: I don’t know if you heard the bootlegs of the rehearsals he did with the Rolling Stones but they’re a real eye-opener. When I dug into [them] you could hear how it really just didn’t work. It sounds kind of goofy and off-putting. Songs like “Freeway Jam” need those jazz guys in the background to bring it to life. This isn’t a Chuck Berry song.
BT: It’s interesting because Mick had an obsession with Jeff and reached out to him to also play on his solo records. I spoke to Keith Richards a couple of times, right after Jeff died, and at least in his mind he knew it was never going to work. Jeff needed to be his own guy and the Stones were just a band.
RC: Given the success he had with “People Get Ready” along with some of his famous guest spots, it’s surprising that someone like Clive Davis didn’t take him under their wing and do for him what they did for Carlos Santana.
CG: I spoke with Jeff about that exact subject. He admitted that he could never write a hit. He struggled with songwriting. It took him so long and made it difficult for him to keep bands together. Blow By Blow and Wired actually put him in this unusual position where he was better off financially than the musicians he had surrounded himself with so he could take his time and not have to worry about paying the bills.
We talked about the Supernatural thing in particular [the collaboration album between Carlos Santana and other artists, which was a huge commercial success]. That was the last thing that Jeff ever wanted to do. I know that his managers had suggested doing that and there were plenty of people who wanted to work with him. He just marched to a different drummer.
He did want to connect with a singer, and he tried with Rod and Mick Jagger but neither of them needed Jeff on his terms and [he] didn’t want to be cast aside as a featured guest. He wanted to share the spotlight.
Beck with his beloved "Anoushka" Strat at the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington, London, February 1999. © Chris Gill, courtesy of Da Capo Publishing.
BT: He had that famous quote where he said, “Rod and I have a love/hate relationship. He loves me and I hate him.”
RC: His love of cars and working on cars was his other passion. Ironically, it was also something Danny Gatton and Eddie Van Halen both loved too. How did it begin?
CG: The music that really inspired him to play guitar, Gene Vincent and others, the term “hot rod” was right there in the lyrics. His mom took him to go see the movie The Girl Can’t Help It and he became surrounded by this [culture]. Hot rods and rock and roll just went together. Guitars and fast cars; for him they were almost inseparable.
BT: Theres a historical crossover between cars and guitars. One of Gibson’s designers, the guy who [influenced the design of] the Flying V was taken from a car company. [It was Ray Dietrich, who also designed the Gibson Firebird in the early 1960s – Ed.] Leo Fender used Dupont car colors to make his Stratocasters come alive. Even the names, Mustang and Firebird…
CG: Fender was founded in Fullerton, California, and Southern California was car central, and I know that their guys would go out at lunch to check out the new cars. In 1953, what arrives in Chevy dealerships but the Corvette. In 1954 the Stratocaster comes along and there are a lot parallels between the Stratocaster and the early Corvette. The sweeping lines and the two-tone color schemes.
RC: Blow By Blow was Jeff Beck’s commercial apex. Was there any record of his that he felt didn’t receive the attention that it really deserved?
CG: I can’t say that there was anything. He was always his own worst critic. I think he was fine with his albums when they were coming out but when they were done he kind of hated them, especially with Blow By Blow and Wired. There was an interview in 1989 where he said they were mistakes on [the records.] Yet I called him 10 years later when Mobile Fidelity was doing a remastered version of Blow By Blow and he said the nicest things. So, his opinions could change. But he was always looking forward, never looking back. It was always about “what’s next for me?”
BT: There’s a great story about when he was recording Wired and he’s driving [producer] George Martin crazy, wanting to revise parts on the record. It goes that Jeff calls George and says, “I just had an idea for this one song. Can we go back into the studio and redo it?” And George replied dryly, “Jeff, Wired has been in the stores for two weeks already!”
RC: Many of his guitars were auctioned off after his passing. What did the estate hold on to?
CG: The estate didn’t hold on to many. The big iconic guitars all went. I know that there was a Stratocaster called “Little Richard” and he had broken it on Who Else. They held on to that and not much else.
BT: Jeff wasn’t particularly sentimental about his instruments. The “Oxblood” [Les Paul], which is arguably his most iconic guitar and is on the cover of Blow By Blow, was completely filthy and in a state of disrepair. He was never that guy with three zillion guitars.
RC: Many guitarists of his era like Pete Townshend are known for their record collections. Was Jeff a collector too?
CG: He wasn’t at the Townshend level but he definitely was a record collector and dug deep. He listened to a lot of music that you wouldn’t expect; a lot of classical music, a lot of world music. He was always exploring to discover new sounds, looking for new inspirations.
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