“I play from emotion. I’ve never consciously tried to be a flash. Emotion rules everything I do.”
Jeff Beck’s admission to Guitar Player in 1973 didn’t surprise anyone. There was always something volatile about Beck’s playing — and about the battered blonde 1954 Fender Esquire he favored during his years with the Yardbirds.
Purchased in 1965 and fitted with a ’55 Fender Telecaster neck, the single-pickup guitar powered hits like “Heart Full of Soul.” It also proved nearly impossible to destroy, despite Beck’s occasional urge to try.
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That impulse wasn’t entirely theoretical. It may help explain why Beck — rather than the cooler Jimmy Page — was chosen to stage the famous onstage freakout in the film Blow-Up.
As Beck later recalled, smashing an electric guitar sometimes felt like the only release — especially when equipment failed or Yardbirds singer Keith Relf interrupted a solo with his asthma inhaler.
“He used to use a respiratory spray, and right in the blues solo he’d give this sssss, sssss, sssss with his respiratory thing, you know. There’s nothing more frustrating than going on with so much to say and so much on your mind and not being able to put it out. There’s only one way out — break that guitar!”
Figuratively speaking, that is. As Beck explained, actually destroying the Esquire proved far more difficult.
“You can’t break Fenders unless you swing them around full blast,” Beck said. “I used to just give angry little jabs at the speaker, and if it went up in a cloud of smoke then I was happy. But if it just stayed there stubbornly and wouldn’t move and was still crackling at me, I’d give it some stick.”
That was from hearing Eric with the Bluesbreakers.”
— Jeff Beck
By the time Beck left the Yardbirds and formed the Jeff Beck Group, he had moved on to a Gibson Les Paul — inspired by hearing Eric Clapton with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers.
“Yeah, that was from hearing Eric with the Bluesbreakers,” he said.
The change had an immediate impact.
“The difference was the amazing quality of the instrument. You know, the Fenders are so cheap in feel; you pick up a Les Paul and it’s heavy and it really means something; it means business. And then I found that I was doing things that I never dreamed I could.
The Fender was nice because you could grip it like a weapon and really chunk out the chords. But when you came to the more subtle stuff it wasn’t there.“
— Jeff Beck
“The Fender was nice because you could grip it like a weapon and really chunk out the chords. But when you came to the more subtle stuff it wasn’t there; there was just no sustain. You kind of fluffed up a few runs.
“But on the Les Paul you couldn’t. You’d fluff because you’d attempt something really hard, but you knew damn well that with a little bit of practice you’d get it. And then after a while I got so used to the Les Paul there was no turning back. I picked up the Fender and thought, How the hell did I ever play this?”
Of course, Beck eventually returned to Fender — most notably the Fender Stratocaster. Around 1980 he began working with Ibanez on a signature model that combined aspects of both the Strat and the Les Paul: a double-cut body, dual humbuckers and a complex control layout with six knobs and three mini toggles.
Fender ultimately brought Beck back into the fold before the guitar could move beyond the prototype stage, later issuing a signature Strat model that, at the time, featured a bridge humbucker and his preferred U-shaped neck.
When asked to compare the Strat with a Les Paul in a 2009 interview with Guitar Player, Beck said, “It’s a totally different animal. One is for very subtle and, I would say, more musical things that you can distract and abuse. You can’t do it with a Les Paul. It’s too delicate. It’s got a very delicate tone.”
