Jeff Beck on Esquires, Teles, and other things...

[adorshki]

From my Google Quora feed of all places:

Jeff Beck's Tales From a Life in Guitars | Bacon's Archive

"I told the bloke after he bought it: 'You know, it's not the one.' Eric Clapton bid for it. I said, 'You don't want that!'"

reverb.com

So the quintessential Yardbirds feedback sound of "Mister You'e a Better Man Than I" (and I suspect "Shapes of Things" too) were done on an Esquire..

As was "Born To Be Wild", but that's for another thread.

 

[walrus]

That was a great interview!

walrus

 

[GAD]

Lots of early rock recordings were done on Esquires and Teles, then people spent ridiculous amounts of time and money trying to get their Les Pauls to sound like the record. Also, I am absolutely not and never have been guilty of that in any way.

 

[adorshki]

Lots of early rock recordings were done on Esquires and Teles, then people spent ridiculous amounts of time and money trying to get their Les Pauls to sound like the record. Also, I am absolutely not and never have been guilty of that in any way.

Couldn't afford the Les Paul back then, eh?

 

[HeyMikey]

This part is killer… imagine Beck, Moon and Jones together back then!

Well, Zeppelin consisted of me, Keith Moon, John Paul Jones—because we had a recording session where we did "Beck's Bolero," which was what I dreamt of as being my next band, albeit undecided on who was going to sing. Then… shit happened, and then Jimmy thought, What a great sounding band, couldn't get Keith Moon, so went up to Birmingham and got Percy [Plant] and John [Bonham], and that was the end of it. But we preceded Zeppelin by about six months.

 

[adorshki]

"Beck's Bolero":
(btw check out the Moon anecdote in that Wiki link, )



The case has justifiably been made that this was the prototypical heavy metal piece, although "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" runs a mighty close 2nd.

Full disclosure: I've been a JB fan ever since a guy in a record store recommended Beckola to me in '69. Was looking to slake that thirst for Early Steppenwolf style hard rock because they were actually starting to kinda wimp out, new guitarist, so he says "try this".

I don't think I ever went back and thanked him enough for that.

Hendrix lifted this lick from him for Rainbow Bridge's "Ezy Rider", from Beckola ,"Rice Pudding". I was in love from the first instant.