Books in REVIEW • BLOW by BLOW • The Jeff Beck Story

For most music fans, Jeff Beck needs no introduction. From the time he burst onto the scene as the middle leg in the “Clapton / Beck / Page” guitar relay in the Yardbirds until his passing in 2023, he was known as one of the most influential and innovative musicians in the history of rock music.  Though viewed by many as an irascible loner, Beck was actually one of he most prolific collaborators in the history of the genre.

It could be argued that writer and journalist Brad Tolinski has had a similar impact in his own chosen profession.  Whether in magazines he edited, like Guitar World, Guitar Aficionado and Revolver, or in biographies he has written or co-written on subjects such as Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page or The MC5, millions have read his work.

We had a chance to catch up with Tolinski on the topic of a new biography that he co-wrote with Chris Gill on Beck.  Billed as the most comprehensive work on the guitarist’s life and career, its release coincides with the 60th anniversary of Beck joining the Yardbirds and the 50th anniversary of his masterpiece of rock / jazz fusion, “Wired.”   The book is intended to break through some of the myth and legend surrounding Beck and tell his story in an honest and empathetic way.

Review:  Do you remember when you first became aware of Jeff Beck?

Tolinski:  Probably around 8th grade or something like that. I was starting to play the guitar and one of my friend's older brothers had a copy of "Beckola." Somehow the cover had become a little water damaged. Because of this I had it in my head that it was an old record, but it was probably only like 1 or 2 years old at that point.

I would listen to that album and that's where it all started. I was sort of a progressive rocker. I play guitar, I play violin, I also play mandolin and other instruments. So when Jeff came out with “Blow by Blow” and that whole jazz fusion thing was kicking in I was way into it.

I did see Jeff perform on a number of occasions, even with Beck Bogart and Appice years and years ago.

Review:  Let me ask you about the Yardbirds, inarguably one of the cradles of rock guitar innovation with Clapton, Beck and Page all playing lead at some point.  It’s amazing that they grew up in the same basic location and time, WWII babies learning guitar off of American records.

Tolinski:  I go into that quite a bit in the book. Chris Dreja from the Yardbirds goes into a great deal of detail on this and he was very helpful with understanding that time. I also spoke with Donovan, the folk rock guy, who was sort of brilliant and insightful into that period.

What happened is Jeff and Eric and Jimmy were all initially into more Rockabilly music. They heard that and it was so exciting to hear things like Little Richard or Chuck Berry on the radio, that's what caught their ear to begin with. But then, in the early '60s, Rockabilly sort of disappeared. Buddy Holly died. Chuck Berry  went to jail. Little Richard renounced rock and roll. Rockabilly sort of disappeared. It was replaced by this sort of wimpy pop music.

At that point, Jeff almost said that he thought about not playing guitar anymore because he didn't like where music was going. Some guys did just drop it and drop out, but the other ones, like Eric, Jimmy, and ultimately Jeff, discovered the electric blues. And that was their common language, initially - hearing the blues and wanting to figure out how to do that on the guitar. There weren't that many people in that area doing that kind of thing. I mean, there were kids that enjoyed it, but there were very, very few people that played it.

There's a story in the book on how Jeff ended up meeting Jimmy Page. Jeff's sister was at a college that Jimmy Page was going to.  She heard him play and said, "You know, my brother's got one of those guitars like you have, and he plays that kind of music. You guys should meet." That's how those two ended up meeting.

It's sort of a combination of things, the excitement and the explosion of electric blues, and then only a small handful of kids were really learning that style. And then, through friends, through word of mouth, they heard about each other and came together.

Let me say this. Jeff is often grouped with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page because they all came out of England at the same time. But they were all quite different. Clapton was sort of the ambassador of traditional blues. Jimmy Page was sort of this hard rock session guy. But Jeff … I like to think of him as the head of the research and development department. He was always the one really pushing the limits of the guitar right until the very end. And really, in fact, Jimmy and Eric both felt that Jeff was the superior guitarist.

Review: If you ask me, Jeff Beck was superior to everybody. I think lists of 30 or 50 greatest ever are kind of an insane exercise, but if you don't have him right there near the top, you are wrong.

Tolinski: Yeah. As much as people like to paint Jeff as being more of an obscure artist than the other two, he was Number 5 in Rolling Stone’s list  100 All-Time Greatest Guitarists.

Review: Without hits.

Tolinski: Without hits. Exactly. That's how good he was.

Review: I wanted to ask about his personality in those days. He was known as kind of a tough character to deal with, but it also seems a lot of that was out of frustration. There were a lot of angry young men in that era.  These were the early post war kids and they're growing up in poor England.  He also couldn't get everything he wanted out of the gear of that time. Could you comment on that?

Tolinski: This is a really interesting part of the book and I sort of dug into the project with that exact question in my mind.  Basically,  what made this guy a loner, what made him “difficult,” especially in the early years.

There are several really interesting reasons. One is just physical issues. For one, he split his head open on a few different occasions. Once when he was a kid, when a car hit him on his bike and he fractured his skull. Another time when he was in the Yardbirds, he fell down these concrete steps. Later he was in a car accident. As a result of those accidents, he had issues with migraines, headaches.

They were also on a very brutal touring schedule and he kept on getting recurring issues with his throat. At first they thought he might have had meningitis - which is what he died from

Plus, he was a perfectionist. Touring at that time was really rough. Sound systems were really primitive. Amps were fragile. Guitars were fragile. So,between dealing with migraines, the other  issues with his health, he was also running up against problems with the technology at the time that he found very frustrating.

In between all of this stuff there are other things. Even just personal issues that he had with band members. I tried to create a sympathetic, empathetic portrait of him. So it wasn't that he was just a jerk. There were actual reasons for his particular temperament at the time.

Review:  As Beck moved from the Yardbirds, through his own bands, through the “Blow by Blow” and “Wired” era and his later career, he worked with a lot of A-list people. But some attempts didn't work. For instance, I was unaware that he nearly joined Elton John’s band until I read your press release. He also flirted with membership in the Rolling Stones.  Would you like to tell a couple of those stories?

Tolinski: Yeah, sure. The Rolling Stones story has been out there.  It makes some sense that Jeff would’ve played with the Stones and it wouldn't be quite the right fit. The Stones are basically a blues pop outfit and Jeff was exploring the outer reaches of jazz and rock guitar at that point. And it never seemed like those guys would be a great fit. Mick loved Jeff, but I think Keith, who I spoke to not long ago actually about this personally …

Review: Ok, you're killing me with the names, Brad. I mean,  I know what your career has been, but holy s***.

Tolinski:  Yeah, I know. I get it.  (Laughter) But, anyway I asked Keith about Jeff and he had nothing but compliments to say about his playing. But he was like "You know, Jeff, he's his own boy. He would never fit in with us because we're a band."

To that degree, he was right.

The one story that people probably aren't that familiar with is the fact that he tried to play with Elton John. It was during a lull in Jeff's career. He was between bands. Didn't quite know what he was going to do next. He went into a club one night in England. This was before Elton really exploded and a friend had urged him to go see Elton play.

He went there expecting this wimpy, piano singer-songwriter. But, Elton's live show at that point was really explosive. He was almost playing these songs like Jerry Lee Lewis, who Beck loved. So Beck thought, "He doesn't have a guitar player with him," because Elton was just playing with the bass and drums at that time,, "I'm going to go backstage and see if he's interested."

Well, he goes backstage and what happens?  Well, at that time, Jeff was the big star. He had played with the Yardbirds and had played with the Jeff Beck Group. So naturally, Elton was interested. He was skeptical, but he was interested that this big star wanted to play guitar for him.

They scheduled a rehearsal, but Jeff was late for it. Elton got really angry because he thought that Jeff was pulling a star move, but actually Jeff had just had some problems with his car. Jeff said, "No, no, let's start from the beginning. Let's try this again." And they started rehearsing together and Elton was super impressed with how restrained Jeff was and how great his playing and how it fit in. So Elton was thinking, "Oh, this could really work,"  and got very excited.

At that point, Jeff had been playing with the drummer named Cozy Powell, and told Elton that he’d like to play with him and he had a great drummer.and he’d like to get him a little more money.

Jeff started negotiating with Elton and Elton began to think, “I don't know if I need this. This looks like it's gonna head to a bad place. I don't want to fire my drummer. I don't know how much money I want to be paying this guy”

So, he decided to pass on having Jeff play with him. And the next— is like literally the next month or two later, Elton goes to America, plays the Troubadour in Los Angeles, gets huge, huge rave reviews, and gets a massive hit on the radio with "Your Song."

So, that was that. Jeff was back on his own.

Review: You are a Michigan native, so you're aware of Saginaw. You also probably know that Stevie Wonder's from here and extremely important to us.  What is the real Superstition story?

Tolinski: Well, my joke with my co-author, Chris Gill is that we could have probably written an entire book just on the Superstition story. It's weird and twisty. and probably a little complicated to convey, but I feel like for the very first time we've gotten the entire story out there and we've got it correct. 

The essence is this, after the Jeff Beck Group had collapsed - the one with Rod Stewart - Jeff decided he didn't want to play heavy music anymore. There were a number of reasons for it. One, is he had gotten into a car accident around a year before. He once again had a head injury and couldn't bear the idea of playing loud heavy metal music.

He always loved Motown, and he always loved Black music.  He really, really fell in love with what was going on at Stax and Motown, and he loved Stevie Wonder. He ended up thinking, "That's what I want my next move to be. I don't want to be a heavy metal boy. I don't want to try to chase Led Zeppelin. I want to go in a more funky direction."

So, he asked his manager at the time to see if he could get Stevie to produce a record for him. They had a meeting backstage at a show in Detroit. Stevie was like, "Well, I can't, you know, I've got my own career. I can't take time off to produce a record."

But, Stevie wanted some crossover, too. He wanted to reach the rock world. So he said to Jeff,, "Why don't you play on a track or two on my record and then I'll write you a song, or I'll produce one for you?"

And Jeff said, "Great, I'll take it."

So,  they get together at Electric Lady Studios, in New York. Stevie presents a tape to Jeff, and Jeff listens to 10 or 15 songs and didn't really like any of them.  He told Stevie "Listen, I want something really funky and up-tempo. That's what I want you to write for me."

Stevie said, "Okay, okay, give me a few minutes.  Give me an hour. I have this idea. You had a hit with the song called 'Ain't Superstitious.' Why don't we do a song about superstition?”

He asked Beck to list some British superstitions and he responded with "Oh, you know, black cats, you know, ladders, this, that, the other thing."

Stevie goes off with his producers and basically in a couple of hours bangs out what we now know as "Superstition"— keyboard part, vocal, everything— and offers it to Jeff. And Jeff is beside himself because the riff is so great.

Jeff being Jeff, through either bad luck or just self-sabotage, his band falls apart before he can record a version of "Superstition." In the meantime, Stevie records his next record.  He tracks "Superstition," releases it and it becomes a big hit. Jeff just missed out on his opportunity.

That story's been told many different ways, and there's been a lot of finger-pointing because Jeff says, "Well, you know, he was going to give me that song, and then he ended up having his own hit by it.”

But, the truth is it was a great song, Jeff had his opportunity and sort of wasted it. He ended up recording it, of course, with Beck, Bogart and Appice. But, by that time, Stevie had already had a huge hit with his own version.

Review:  Let me ask more of a guitar question, if you would. Talk to me a little bit about his evolution as a guitarist. How he went from “Roger the Engineer”  and the Yardbirds’ proto-psychodelia, and '60s idea of a “rave-up" to being able to play something as nuanced as "Cause We Ended as Lovers."

As an aside,I read recently as story I had not heard before. “Everybody” has heard the story about Hendrix playing with Clapton and Clapton freaking out. I read recently that Beck was humbled in a way he wasn't prepared for when he heard Hendrix. Do you know anything about that?

Tolinski: Okay, well, those are two very separate questions. First, there's a long story on Hendrix in the book, and it goes on for many pages. It begins with Jeff going into a local guitar store. This is when Jimi first came to England. There was a guy that worked in the store and Jeff respected his taste. He was more of a jazz guy than a rock guy. He said, "Have you heard this kid Jimi Hendrix that just came into town? And you should go and see him."

Jeff would normally just ignore it, but he liked this guy.  He had great taste and really sort of knew what was up.

So Jeff went to go see Jimi playing in this club with Ronnie Wood, and it just completely blows his mind. On some level he's like, "Well, that's what I'm doing.  The stuff that Jimi’s doing is the stuff I'm doing, but he's doing it in such a great theatrical kind of way. In a way that I probably could never do.”

Beck lost total confidence in what he was doing. He began to think, 'Gee, if this guy's out there, does the world really need me?'

It's funny, but he decides at that point that he's not going to try to be a guitar hero anymore. He's going to be a pop singer because that's what his producer wants him to do. Then, after he sort of agrees to be a pop singer, he changes his mind again and says, "Oh, I can go up against Jimi Hendrix, you know, I don't care."

By that time, he's sort of made his bed, and he spends a good 2 or 3 years trying to dig out of it. It's a very weird, disheartening sort of side story, you know, because it didn't have to be. You know, but it all started from his seeing Jimi Hendrix perform and having sort of a crisis of faith, a crisis of confidence in his own powers.

Review:  It's really something how hard Hendrix hit those guys, and I think probably it goes back to their worship of the electric blues. And there he is - Hendrix - he is doing this thing we've been emulating, but it’s fully optimized, a fully formed version right in front of them. It seems to have sent them all the British greats to the woodshed in a way that we all benefited from.

Tolinski: Jeff's favorite blues guitarist was Buddy Guy. That was his man, because of Buddy's great sort of recklessness. Sort of pushing the guitar forward, using feedback and things like that. Clapton also loved Buddy. I think Jimi came from the U.S. with a refined version of what Buddy Guy was doing, and contemporizing it,- taking it into their world. They sort of didn't know what to do with themselves.

Review: Right. I know some people personally that similar things that have happened to, They were the s*** and then this new kid moved into town and then  it's "Oh my God, I'm in second place now. What's happening to me?"

Tolinski:  And remember, they were all just young kids themselves at that time.

But, as far as Beck's evolution as a player, it goes back to my original point. Jeff was always sort of what I call an R&D guy. He was always pushing the limits, and he did until the very end.

It started with the Yardbirds,with songs like "Heart Full of Soul" and "Shapes of Things."  He really helped invent psychedelic rock in the '60s. He was the first guy to really use fuzz guitar in a commercial recording. "Heart Full of Soul" and "Shapes of Things" were 2 years before Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" and "Purple Haze." People forget that.

Jeff used his guitar to imitate a sitar and get Eastern music tones before the Stones “Paint It Black” or the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.”  He was sort of the missing link between the blues boom of the '60s and the heavy rock explosion of the '70s. He was there before Led Zeppelin became a household name. The Beck and Rod Stewart version of the Jeff Beck Group was already laying down the blueprint for heavy rock.

The thing about Jeff is he was always progressing. He was always exploring new ideas. So, I don't know if I completely agree with you that "'Cause We Ended as Lovers" is so far flung from what he was doing early on. He was doing a lot of beautiful sort of nuanced playing on records like "Beckola," or on the Jeff Beck group record with "Definitely Maybe,” and songs like that.

It was always a progression as new influences came. Roy Buchanan was a guitar player that made a huge impact on him. He had been listening to John McLaughlin play with Miles Davis and those kinds of influences started to come into his playing.

I don't know if this makes the story too complicated, but he decided, after doing a bunch of experimental stuff, to do his version of Led Zeppelin with Beck, Bogert and Appice.  He really found that not satisfying, because what he's listening to is not heavy rock.  He's listening to jazz guys. He's listening to blues music. He's listening to classical music as well, which is very important.

Once he gets done with Beck Bogart and Appice, he really moves into this more nuanced form of playing, which he always wanted to get into in the first place. He was never just a whack you over the head volume guy. That progress just keeps going and going and going well into the 2000s.  Hiis playing becomes more and more nuanced.

I would say this is the more I thought about it - and, again, I play violin - so I studied classical music. I also play guitar, I play rock guitar and all that stuff, too. But, I started thinking about Jeff's playing in a completely different way, especially in the last part of his career. He really did approach the instrument the same way a classical musician approaches their instrument. He doesn't sound like a classical musician. He's not Yngwie Malmsteen or any of that stuff.

In his compositions every note is important. Every note demands attention and nuance and dynamics. That's how Jeff approached the guitar in the last half of his career. Every note mattered and deserved attention. A volume swell; a vibrato. This is the way classical musicians tend to think about playing a piece. I think that that's really what separated Jeff from almost anybody else. It wasn't about playing licks. It wasn't about playing flashy stuff. It was about giving real attention to every note and thinking about how he wants to play it, how he wants to approach it.

Review: That was clear when you watch the live performances, because he was just playing the song as it was written.

Toliinski: As a guitarist or a bassist, we all do it. We all have our bag of licks that we play and we just play them. Just turn up the amp and play them. I don't think Jeff really ever approached it that way.

Review: It’s often been said that Jeff Beck didn't pursue commercial success like his peers. Do you think that's a fair statement?

Tolinski: That's absolutely a fair statement. In fact, when he really tried, it usually turned out to be a little bit of a mess. I think he was an artist and he couldn't help following his gut, his instinct. If you told Picasso, "Could you be a little bit more like Monet because you might sell some more paintings?", Picasso would have told you to stuff it.

Jeff was much the same way. He wasn't avant-garde in the sense of playing weird stuff that people couldn't listen to. But he had to follow his own path.In the rock world, I compare him to Neil Young.

Review: I was gonna say the same thing for a million reasons. I mean, obviously not chops-wise, but if there's a clear comparison to me between those two. In terms of how they approached their careers.

Tolinski: They just had their idea of things, and that's why Jeff had so many different bands as well, because when he would go through a transitional period as a player, when he would find a new thing, he had to find musicians that were empathetic to whatever that new thing was. Most rock bands are like gangs, right? Like the Stones.  They’re lifers in that group. You stay for life. Jeff was a little bit more like a jazz musician in that way. "Okay, my playing is changing, my attitudes are changing. Band needs to change.”

Review: Last question. I was unaware of how deep his friendship was with Johnny Depp. I knew they'd done some recording, but not much else.  Can you tell me a little bit about that.?

Tolinski: I had the pleasure of talking with Johnny for a couple of hours one day about his relationship with Jeff. The thing to understand about Johnny is that he started out as a musician. He was playing in bands when he was 14, 15, 16 in Florida.  Then he moved to Los Angeles to become a professional musician. It was almost by happenstance, by luck, that he ended up becoming an actor. It's just one of those things.  A friend asked him to go to an audition one day and he was the one that got the role.

Like any creative person, you move out there and you're like, "Well, you know, whatever endeavor I can make money at first, I'm going to go with that." So Johnny ended up pursuing acting because that was just clicking for him. But I think in a funny way, he thinks of himself as a musician first.

He's also a guy that likes eccentrics. He likes extreme kinds of artists. Johnny hung out with Hunter S. Thompson. Johnny was friends with Marlon Brando. Some of the most gifted and extreme human beings you can imagine.

I think that he and Jeff met at a show. They ended up having a conversation and they just ended up clicking as human beings.

When Johnny had his issues with Amber Heard, when the divorce was going on and he needed to flee the press and all the controversy, he ended up living at Jeff's house in England for several months. It was during that time they just started casually - as they were wont to do, both being musicians - collaborating on some music together Jeff loved it.

It's an unusual situation because the one thing you're looking at when you're reading the book is how much of a loner Jeff was; how much of his own guy he was. But , there was just something about those two. They were able to sort of see each other, understand each other artistically. I think that was also a huge relief for Jeff. Jeff always bitched about all of his projects; there were always complaints. But, he really loved his work that he did with Johnny, and the record that he did with him is almost sort of a summation of his career.

Review: That's awesome. That's an awesome thing for him to find.  As somebody that's been described as eccentric myself, when you find another one, you dig it.

Tolinski: Yes, you do.

Review: It takes one to know one.

Tolinski: I think that was sort of it. I have to say when I talked to Johnny - I've talked to a lot of musicians and famous people, but there was zero pretension there. I mean, he was really easy to chat with. I could sort of see why they got along. He was insightful and all that stuff, but he wasn't at all pretentious. And he clearly had an enormous amount of feelings for his friendship with Jeff.

Review: It seems to me that both of those guys seem to be fully aware of who they are to everybody else, but they don't let that become who they are to themselves. Well, Brad, I really appreciate the time you have spent with me this morning and I am sure our readers will appreciate this, as well I wish you the best of luck with the book and whatever project comes next.

Tolinski:  OK. Cheers.  Take care.

Blow By Blow will be released on July 14th and available through all major booksellers.