Jeff Beck: Still on the Run (2018 TV Movie)

Jeff Beck: Self

Quotes 

• Jeff Beck, Himself : I would love to play the piano, but, its already done. And after I heard Art Tatum, there was a good enough reason never to ever sit in front of a piano again.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : I just thought there's no place for another pianist. I didn't feel that was my destiny. Whereas, guitar, I didn't have to think about it. I wouldn't have cared if it had been the worst waste of my life. I still want to be alone with it and just pull my feelings into it. It responds so readily to touch.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : I was interested in the guitar solos on the records my sister was playing. "Hound Dog," for example. I mean, you know, and "Rock Around the Clock." This was heaven! And I started to analyze sound - in great detail. You know, Eddie Cochran had a slap echo. Cliff Gallup had a slap echo. It was just too good. Those records still sound astonishingly good.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : [talking about "The Girl Can't Help It"]  My sister went to the Sutton Granada and saw this film. She said, "You have to see it. It's just the most amazing technicolor film of everything you like and everything we like." And I went with some friends to see Vincent and the Blue Caps in color. It was life changing. That is the best rock-n-roll film ever made.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : Everything that I loved seemed to be coming from America. The cars, the music. I couldn't see of any way of ever getting there. I'm talking about no money at all.

• Jimmy Page, Himself : Well, he came round to my house. I was living at home, of course, with my parents. And Jeff came in and he had a homemade guitar. I also had a homemade guitar there as well. And we just sort of clicked immediately.

  Jeff Beck, Himself : It was like two brothers, you know, almost. We had - we - it was just a joyous thing to find somebody else that had this common interests.

  Jimmy Page, Himself : He'd come round and we'd sort of hang out and play records to him.

  Jeff Beck, Himself : He had equipment. He had a tape recorder and all the goodies and a great record collection, mouthwatering collection.

  Jimmy Page, Himself : I had such an eclectic mix of records, even as a teenager. It was a great adventure, finding other people who might know a different chord to yours. Finding a record shop where they were importing, say, Vee-Jay records, as opposed to the Chicago movement of the 50s, the blues movement, as opposed to all the Chess catalogue. There were lots of pilgrimages involved. And all of those guitarists, from that point, we were all learnt from records.

  Jeff Beck, Himself : We used to sit there listening and go back over the solo, don't mind the song or the singer. What the hell is that going on? You know. How is this sounding like a ricochet effect? And why is it sounding so exciting?

  Jimmy Page, Himself : You wanted to see if you could play what was on it. It was quite an accomplishment to hear something that was really, really, really amazing to you, that really moved you; but, then, really actually work towards being able to play it.

  Jeff Beck, Himself : You've got a partner in crime. You've got somebody to hammer out ideas. When you've learned something that sounds reasonably impressive, you want somebody to see what they think of it.

  Jimmy Page, Himself : We were really, really keen on exactly the same things - the Gene Vincent records and Ricky Nelson records. There were always fine guitar solos by James Burton. One. the things we would ask of each other was, "What's your version of 'My Babe'?" "Okay, yeah, what's your version?" That seemed to be a sort of communal ground between most guitarists, around that time, to see how - how well other guys could cut this solo.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : It was a great way of escaping any form of work, I think. Any form of day job. I did love it. I did love the fact that there was a place you could go and draw and learn, you know, the basics of art. I had two years of great fun there. But, the music took over.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : When the Yardbirds came about; then, Eric was the force to be reckoned with. They had Eric, so, why did they want me? I don't understand that.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : Ravi Shankar was playing quite a big part in the Beatles and stuff. And I used to sit over at Page's house listening to ragas, you know, Vilayat Khan and Ravi Shankar and just marveling how could this be adopted in the guitar - this bending of the string, to such an extent you could play a melody with one bend.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : Simon Napier-Bell appeared and agreed to take over. Within five minutes, Jimmy Page is in the band and we were on the set of "Blow-Up." And nobody knew what it was going to be like. As most movies, they don't really tell you. I was just told that Antonioni was a great director. It was surreal and it just seemed like a cool thing. And the check for 3,000 was amazing. You know, I don't think any of the band had seen that kind of money in one lump.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : Steppenwolf was happening. FM Radio was happening.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : There was a riff between me and Rod at the time. I don't know how it came about.

  Ronnie Wood, Himself : It cast a bit of doubt, you know, like - I didn't want to bank too much on the next tour in case it didn't happen.

  Jeff Beck, Himself : I saw this big festival looming up on the - on the calendar. And I was nervous about it. I thought we - we're not ready for that, you know. We're not ready to go up against Sly and the Family Stone.

  Ronnie Wood, Himself : The Woodstock festival was two weeks away, when the Beck Group kind of - collapsed. And I thought, it's a shame; because, its a big gig coming up in a couple of weeks. Woodstock.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : I started looking around for players that could really - like drummers - I was always focused on drummers. They are the life of the band. They are the driving force. You get your drummer right, you're pretty much set for life.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : [discussing "Definitely Maybe"]  Max Middleton came up with the idea of a simple melody, a bluesy thing, with a bottleneck. And he said, why don't we write three melodies and there are three melodies in there. One plays the countermelody and then the third descant on top of that. And I remember thinking this a a cacophony of noise. Steve Cropper came in there, he said, "Man, this is - this is really amazing." Because I was doing these parts individually and dubbing on. And I wasn't hearing the blend. I was only doing them individually. Because, if I'd heard guitar number one, then I would not have been able to play against it. And when I went up and heard all three put together, I thought, you know, I was, let's buy Max a round of drinks for that one.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : The deal was, I was to play a couple of tracks on Stevie's album, "Talking Book," and then he'd right me a couple of tracks - one of which was "Superstition." He said, "What about we write a song, you know, we get a song with superstitions that you know about that we may - the Americans maybe not know about." And I said, "Well, we don't walk under ladders for bad luck." And, I said, "If you dropped a mirror that would be seven years of badder." I started playing the drums in a break. And he'd gone out for lunch and he'd come back and he was clapping along to my bit, my rhythm. I said, "Stevie, it's not - it's not - you know, I'm not a drummer." He goes, "Yeah, you are now. Don't stop." And he just grabbed the clavinet and started playing that vamp. And I sitting there thinking, "Christ, I'm playing drums to Stevie Wonder." They were pretty cool. Just a simple thing that I could play. And he went, "Okay, I'll lay the track down," cause, I was messing up with fills and stuff. And he came and sat at the the same kit and played exactly what I was playing - but, better. And he made space for a five chord or a turnaround - all right away. And then, went straight in and put a bass line on and that was it. When that bass line hit, that whole studio turned upside down. And he went and put the lyrics on, rough lyrics and that was how that song was made.

  Stevie Wonder, Himself : [singing]  Seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past, When you believe in things that you don't understand, Then you suffer, Superstition ain't the way...

• Jeff Beck, Himself : It almost washed the radio away. And it was McLaughlin playing on "Jack Johnson" - that amazing album. Miles. Please. It's a wonderful thing. You hear McLaughlin going in there. And - it was a moment were I stopped work, went in and made a cup of tea, continued listening. And that was it. I just thought this - there's a door open now. It's what I want to do. It's - it's more focused on guitar only and negates the necessity for a vocalist. There's no point in going around the world trying to find another Rod Stewart.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : John McLaughlin was kicking my butt, you know, at the time. The Mahavishnu Orchestra - that played a big part.

• Jan Hammer, Himself : One tune that has some of that Mahavishnu feel is "Scatterbrain."

  Jeff Beck, Himself : It started as a schizophrenic run that I did when I was nervous in the dressing room - two seconds before going on. And Max, being the calculated S.O.B. that he is, he said, "You know that annoying scale you play? I've written some chords underneath it." He said, "If you move it up a semitone, I can make a track out of it." And before we knew it, we had this song.

• Jeff Beck, Himself : I got a letter from Charlie Mingus and it said, "Dear Jeff, I was so knocked out with your version of "Pork Pie Hat." That's when we had the world at our feet. We could do anything we wanted.

• Jan Hammer, Himself : We did one tune from scratch, which was called, "Blue Wind."

  Jeff Beck, Himself : And he said play this riff. The two - the two note - the de-de. I said, "Oh, come on. You know, this is kiddie stuff." You know, he went, "Trust me." And I didn't like it at all.

  Jan Hammer, Himself : It's a very simple riff and, you know, a combination of things and it - by the time, you know, I did the drums to it and my keyboard synthesizers.

  Jeff Beck, Himself : And he got these auratones and stuck them on his mantlepiece and cranked it and these speakers were shaking. I mean, okay, I get it now. It gave a great platform for solos and it was all about, you know, embellishing and showing off and taking flight with your solo.

• [last lines] 

  Jeff Beck, Himself : I always keep a guitar in nearly every place in the house to remind me that I should be doing that. And the guitar is always a constant challenge. Every time I pick it up, I pretend that I just started playing. And it seems to work.