A GUITAR AMPLIFIER, CHAMPION "600", 5C1

This Fender Deluxe amplifier was almost certainly acquired by Jeff Beck in America in the mid-1970s. Following the outstanding success of Blow By Blow, Beck was compelled by the new tax regime which had been imposed by Harold Wilson'sgovernment - whereby income was taxed at 85% - to become a US resident between 1976 and 1978. It is likely that whilst there he purchased several Fender tweed amps, which could be bought relatively affordably from music and pawnshops in California. Steve Prior, Beck's guitar technician between 1999 and 2014, confirmed that this amp was predominantly kept in his home studio and was not taken out on tour. It is possible that this specific model was used to record the orchestral pieces for his 2010 album Emotion & Commotion, as Beck told journalist Art Thompson in June 2010 that he had 'joked once about making an entire album with a [50s Fender] Champ, and I just about did that this time. In a couple of places there's a 50-watt Marshall with a 4x12 speaker cabinet, and I think that's on 'Lilac Wine' and 'Corpus Christi'. Those songs were done in the studio live with a mic placed several feet away. But when we got into the overdubs I just ended up with a Champ. Mine is a 1950s model with that brown rag across the front, the tweed, you know? It sounds amazing, really, and you don't need volume. Some people can't do without lots of volume to get their tone, but I think if you can't get it without four million watts, something's wrong.
In his tribute to Jeff Beck, published in Guitar Player in March 2023, Steve Lukather recounted that one of his most memorable times spent with Beck, during the autumn of 1997, was when Beck hired him as a producer. 'We did about six weeks at David Gilmour’s studio on the Thames, starting about three days after Princess Diana died,' Lukather recalls. 'I got to see it all up close – the whole process of how Jeff liked to do things. He’d have a Marshall miked up in the live room, but he liked to play in the control room, with a little delay and reverb going in the monitors, and with a Fender Champ [likely the studio's amp] at his feet, facing up at his guitar.'