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Jeff Beck was playing in the Yardbirds when Jimi Hendrix first came to London and sent shockwaves through the British blues scene. His impact was so big that it left Beck wondering if he should hang up his Les Paul for good.
He survived the scare, ultimately releasing 1975’s faultless Blow by Blow – a watershed moment for instrumental guitar music. But when his solo band collapsed, and the shred scene rose to prominence, Beck, once again, began to doubt himself.
“The last nine years were rough for music,” he reflected in an interview with Japan’s Player magazine (available via Guitar World), in 1999.
At that time, a decade had passed between his three-piece band album Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop record and his seventh LP, Who Else!, with only session work and covers albums bridging the gap.
“It has been jumping around all over the place, like a fox,” he explained. “I could never tell where anything was going to go. I was also really depressed about not being able to keep the original three-piece band together: me, Tony Hymas [keys], and Terry Bozzio [drums].”
However, Beck also revealed that the guitar arms race of the late-’80s had gotten to him.
“I got really disillusioned with my playing,” he explained. “I knew that there were these other guitarists coming up around the block, and they could really play.
“[It was] not a threat. It was just telling me that it was time to move on. I wasn’t going to let that happen. But they did shove me aside for a while. I just thought that I should be an observer rather than a participant.”
In the end, Beck weathered the storm and forged a successful – and surprise – tandem with Jennifer Batten on the techno-infused Who Else!, before going on to release four more albums of original music before his passing in 2023.
His insecurities never went away entirely, but it’s a useful lesson for us mortal guitarists to realize that, no matter your stature, every player experiences doubts.
Or at least, every player except for Yngwie Malmsteen.
