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拍品專文
JEFF BECK'S OXBLOOD LES PAUL
Jeff Beck acquired his now iconic Oxblood Les Paul while touring the US with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice as power trio Beck, Bogert and Appice in late 1972 and would use it almost exclusively as his primary guitar for the next two years.
Beck had first seen Bogert and Appice perform as part of the Vanilla Fudge in 1967 and was immediately struck by the band’s powerful rhythm section, making a mental note to pursue a possible collaboration with Tim and Carmine in the future. The three would meet for the first time in 1969 when Beck was called up to stand in for Vanilla Fudge guitarist Vinnie Martell on a Coca Cola radio commercial in New York. Speaking to Dick Wyzanski of The Jeff Beck Bulletin, Tim Bogert recalled: There was a Fudge roadie there at the Coke session that had also been a roadie for the Yardbirds… There we were with the commercial producer ready to go and no guitarist. Bruce [the roadie] said that he knew that Jeff Beck was in town staying at a hotel and offered to try to get him. We had been listening to TRUTH and BECKOLA and needless to say were excited at the prospect of having Jeff do the session with us and a short time later, he just showed up, ready to play." Their paths would cross again that summer when both Led Zeppelin and the Jeff Beck Group would upstage and outclass ailing headliners Vanilla Fudge at the Singer Bowl in New York. Bogert remembers despondently walking off stage after the show, arm in arm with Jeff, plotting to fire their respective bands that night and form a group. Initial plans made to form a quartet with Rod Stewart were thwarted when Jeff was involved in a bad car accident and forced to take some time out for recovery. By the time Jeff was back in the game, Rod had jumped ship to form the Faces, while Tim and Carmine had teamed up with Jim McCarty to form Cactus. Having reformed the Jeff Beck Group with a new lineup, Jeff found himself at New York’s Electric Lady Studios in summer 1972 to collaborate with Stevie Wonder on some new material. ‘The original agreement was that he'd write me a song, and in return, I'd play on his album, and that's where 'Superstition' came in. He basically wrote it for me, but… he played it to Motown, and they said "No way is Beck getting this song, it's too good", and as they had the right to say what Stevie released at that time, I lost the song as an original.’ After the Jeff Beck Group did one take of ‘Superstition’, Jeff made the decision to disband the current lineup and call in Bogert and Appice, who had recently dissolved Cactus, to record the track. The trio then toured Europe as the new Jeff Beck Group before returning to the US for their first North American tour as Beck, Bogert and Appice.
At this time, Jeff was generally playing a white 1970s Stratocaster and somewhat struggling to cut through the volume and thunder of the Bogert/Appice rhythm section. On 10 November 1972, the trio played a gig at the Barton Coliseum in Little Rock, Arkansas, with ZZ Top on the same bill. It seems that Jeff was impressed with the fat sound that ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons was able to achieve on his ’59 Les Paul within a similar power trio format, prompting him to start making serious enquiries into tracking down a new Les Paul, his last Les Paul (a sunburst) having been stolen when the crowd stormed the stage at a show in New York State in 1969. ‘The early Strats were notorious for feedback and Jeff just liked the way the Les Paul cut through,’ Jeff’s then manager Ralph Baker told Wyzanski. ‘He may have been influenced by what Eric [Clapton] achieved sound wise in Cream, having to compete with the other two powerful players.’ Speaking to Douglas J. Noble in 1993, Jeff recalled noting the powerful sound from Clapton’s Les Paul as a key strength within a three-piece set up: 'I saw Eric playing at the Marquee with Cream and he had a loud, basic set-up and I was very impressed by the low end of his Les Paul. It was so fat it was like an orchestra, and in a three-piece you really needed that. A Strat just would not have worked with that kind of music. The mid-range was fat, even the high notes were fat - just a glorious, thick, rich sound. I planned to get a three-piece as well so I thought I would have to get that sound… you could listen in to the guitar and hear it clearly and hear the drums clearly as well.’
A Memphis-based Beck fan named Buddy Davis had been at the Little Rock show and perhaps mentioned to one of the band that he had recently acquired a new Les Paul – he received a phone call from Jeff the following day. Davis had acquired the present Les Paul in its original condition with gold-top finish and had swiftly traded it to Memphis music store Strings & Things when he decided he didn’t like the standard pickups. A number of customisations were then made to the Les Paul at the request of another Strings & Things customer who intended to buy the guitar – the guitar was refinished in chocolate brown, the neck was slimmed down, the nickel hardware was replaced with Gibson gold-plated equivalents, and a set of full size humbucking pickups were installed. According to Strings & Things, when the customer returned to collect their customised guitar, they took one look and pulled out of the purchase. Davis liked the modifications that had been made to the guitar and offered to buy it back. Writing to Dick Wyzanski of The Jeff Beck Bulletin, Davis recounted the tale: ‘Charlie [from Strings & Things] said, "We have $400 in this, and now we're stuck!" I said, "Well now I like it, chocolate with humbuckers, I'll buy it." Charlie said great. He let me take it right then and there. I owned it for weeks before I went and saw ZZ Top open for Beck, Bogert, and Appice in Little Rock. The crowd loved ZZ Top. Carmine knew this. I was already friends with him from Cactus days… They thought Jeff needed a Les Paul, also, to sound fat like ZZ Top. I drove back home to Memphis after 3 hours sleep, my phone rang. He said, "This is Jeff." I said, "Jeff who?" He said, "Beck." I was freaked out. He said, "We're in Memphis on our way to New Orleans with time to kill… I jumped in my Mustang with the chocolate because I wanted to show it to him, I was proud of it. I took him to Strings and Things… He saw nothing he liked. Then I took him to two other music stores, he saw nothing he liked.’ Apparently, Jeff had his eye on Buddy’s Les Paul. When Jeff’s then manager Ernest Chapman pulled Davis aside to ask whether he would consider selling his guitar, Davis agreed to sell Jeff the chocolate Les Paul for $500. Reportedly it was Jeff, with his knowledge of custom car paints, that would name the guitar’s bespoke dark chocolate finish as “Oxblood”.
Jeff debuted the Oxblood Les Paul that very night when the trio played to a sell-out crowd at the Warehouse in New Orleans on 11 November 1972, the final date of their U.S. tour. Reviewing the performance, local journalist David Fisk reported witnessing ‘a few things never seen or heard on guitar before.’ From this point, the Oxblood Les Paul became Jeff’s preferred performance guitar for the next two years. Recording sessions began at Chicago’s Chess Studios that December for Beck’s first album with Bogert and Appice, moving to The Village Recorders in Los Angeles in January 1973 for final remix sessions with producer Don Nix. Atmospheric studio shots by photographer Jeffrey Mayer show Jeff glued to his Les Paul during the Los Angeles sessions with Bogert, Appice and Nix. It’s likely that the majority, if not all, of Beck, Bogert, Appice was recorded on the Oxblood, including a thundering final album version of ‘Superstition’, as Wonder had by now released his version as the lead single of his 1972 album Talking Book. Questioned by NME’s Charles Shaar Murray the following year as to whether he would generally trade guitars for different numbers or stick to the same one, Jeff reflected that ‘it was a question of wanting to get used to a guitar and wanting to use nothing else. There was only a short period of time when I used to trade one for the other to get certain sounds. I used to like to get all the different sounds out of one guitar.’ Nix contributed a couple of songs to the album, including the bluesy ‘Black Cat Moan’, no doubt inspired by the wail of Jeff’s slide on his black-brown Les Paul. On release in March 1973, NME declared BB&A the finest three-instrument band since the Cream, praising the album’s ‘ballsy hardrock played with soul, brain and guts,’ while criticising the weak material and the mix. ‘Jeff gave the tapes to Don Nix to take to Memphis for the final mix and told him, “Make Timmy and Carmine sound good. They're angels,”’ Carmine later told Wyzanski. Nix apparently took this quite literally, mixing down Jeff’s guitar while dialing up the rhythm section. Rolling Stone lamented this lack of focus on Beck’s guitar, while Chris Welch at Melody Maker declared the album ‘a shot of pure stimulant into the arm of rock.’
From 1 February 1973, Beck, Bogert & Appice commenced a mammoth year of touring, covering the UK, US, Japan and Europe, circling back for a second British tour through January 1974. Jeff would use the Oxblood Les Paul for every live performance over this period. Asked by Melody Maker why he had switched to the Les Paul, Jeff explained that he ‘abandoned [the Stratocaster] when I found a Gibson I really liked,’ and stated, ‘My attraction for the Les Paul is that it is better built and I prefer it.’ Playing against a backdrop of British and American flags and a wall of Univox speaker cabinets, the trio became known for the intense volume of their live shows. After striking an enormous gong to open each show, the threesome would launch into opening number ‘Superstition’ amidst dry ice and smoke, led by Jeff distorting the opening lines on the Les Paul through a talk box. NME’s Charles Shaar Murray enthusiastically described the show as ‘high-energy guitar-trio rock de-bloody-luxe… they just kept on burning, never letting up for a second.’ As well as the numerous photographs capturing Jeff on stage over the course of their back-to-back 1973 tours, live performance footage was recorded for French television show Pop Deux and US ABC-TV show In Concert. The Japanese tour was a huge success, cementing Jeff’s guitar god status there for decades to come and spurring an exclusive live album release for the Japanese market. ‘We must have shocked the shit out of everybody, because it was all going on; all the barbarics of double bass drums, riff…heavy stuff,’ Jeff reminisced about his first visit to Japan for Mojo in 2009. At some point in June 1973, Jeff removed the Les Paul’s pickup covers, exposing the double black bobbins to get a brighter, grittier tone. In between tours, Jeff joined David Bowie for his final show with the Spiders from Mars at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973, jumping on stage with the Oxblood to jam with Spiders’ guitarist Mick Ronson on the encores ‘Jean Genie’ and ‘Round and Round’. Captured on film by DA Pennebaker, the concert became legendary when Bowie announced the retirement of his Ziggy Stardust persona at the end of the show. ‘I think I was tricked into playing with him,’ Jeff told Stuart Grundy and John Tobler in 1983. ‘Apparently, Ronson had this one track thing about wanting to play live with me on stage, and Bowie was trying to disguise the fact that it was more of a present to Ronson than anything… Bowie told me I was being respectfully included because he'd liked [The Yardbirds’] “I'm A Man” so much he'd made “Jean Genie” out of it.’
Back in London to begin recording a second album, the threesome stole the show at the Celebration Garden Party at the Crystal Palace Bowl on 15 September 1973. Wielding the Oxblood, Jeff made the cover of Melody Maker the following week, which reported ‘And there was Beck, open-necked blue shirt knotted at the navel, looking cocky, as the licks flipped out.’ Work continued on the second album at Apple Studios, Da Lane Lea, and Escape Studios in Kent, the lack of good material proving a perennial problem for the band. Having become hooked on the instrumental jazz rock of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Billy Cobham’s Spectrum, Beck was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the same old BB&A boogies. Jeff spoke to NME that September after recording the instrumental ‘Jizz Whizz’: ‘We’re known for playing rather than specific songs, so we felt that doing an instrumental would allow people to hear what they want to hear – us playing.’ After various attempts to salvage the second album at CBS Studios through December and January, alongside a second British tour and an ill-fated collaboration with Sly Stone, the project was permanently shelved, and by April 1974 the ultimate power trio was no more. ‘The material was sadly lacking,’ Jeff told Rob Mackie for Sounds that November, ‘and rather than carry on with bum material and die slowly, I just quit. It was just a thing that I had to do, that BBA thing, to see what would happen, and I pursued it as long as I thought reasonable.’ By this time ensconced at AIR Studios recording a solo album, Jeff elaborated on the split to Charles Shaar Murray for NME, reflecting ‘it was the biggest fight in rock-and-roll that you could ever hear… I wouldn`t co-operate and play what they wanted me to play, because I had finished with that style a long time ago… I don`t want to fight my own instincts – I want to go off and do something that, even if it isn’t brilliant, is at least different... You can keep up with the times as well as kick ass, you know what I mean?’
This compulsion towards constant innovation culminated in Beck’s milestone solo album Blow by Blow. Exasperated by past reliance on vocalists and inspired by Miles Davis’ 1971 jazz fusion album Jack Johnson and guitarist John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, Beck set out to record an all-instrumental guitar album. Enlisting former Beatles producer George Martin, Beck began recording at his AIR Studios in October 1974 with former Jeff Beck Group keyboardist Max Middleton, along with bassist Phil Chen and drummer Richard Bailey. By way of an apology for releasing his version of ‘Superstition’ first, Stevie Wonder contributed the tracks ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’ and ‘Thelonius’, playing uncredited clavinet on the latter, while Martin provided string arrangements for ‘Scatterbrain’ and ‘Diamond Dust’. ‘George could see where I was heading, the jazz overtones,’ Jeff recalled to Rolling Stone in 2016. ‘It was another avenue he took to very well… It was such exciting times. I couldn’t wait to get to the studio every day.’ While Jeff had somewhat reverted to his Stratocaster by this time, it was reportedly George Martin who was responsible for bringing back the Les Paul tones. ‘It was partly because of George Martin that I used [the Les Paul],’ Jeff later told guitar historian Tony Bacon. ‘His ears were having a bit of trouble handling the raucous screaming that I was doing [on the Strat]. George would flinch and start walking around and making tea and things. He likes good mellow sounds. So I thought, “Well, there’s no point in making the guy suffer. I may as well play melodically. And then maybe I’ll come back one night and scrub over it with the Strat.” Eventually, when I started to do “Freeway Jam” and stuff like that, and I needed to go crazy, I decided the Strat was more my tool.’ Speaking to Steve Rosen in 1975, Jeff confirmed ‘I'm using my Les Paul and Strat on the album; I use the Strat on “Freeway Jam”, for the vibrato arm’. No doubt it was the combination of Beck’s Stratocaster and Les Paul that contributed to the album’s unique tapestry of timbres, the latter providing subtle melody and sustain. Comparing the two instruments for Guitar Player in 2009, Beck said of the Les Paul: It’s a totally different animal. One is for very subtle and, I would say, more musical things… It’s got a very delicate tone. Most people don’t ever realize that because they are plugged into monstrous amplifiers, which completely covers up the unique sound quality it has. A photo of Jeff playing the Oxblood was chosen for the back of the album sleeve, with a pastel recreation of the image by John Collier famously featuring on the front cover, forever cementing the Oxblood’s association with the seminal album. Blow by Blow was released in March 1975 to critical acclaim and would remain Beck’s most commercially successful album, certified platinum by 1986. It marked a turning point, whereafter his guitar would be the focus, without reliance on any vocal accompaniment. Looking back on the album in a 1999 interview with Charles Shaar Murray for Mojo, Beck reflected: ‘What really upset the applecart for me was Mahavishnu Orchestra when they played Central Park. If they could do this concert with masses of people going bananas for this extreme radical jazzy rock stuff… I felt, "This is it. This is what can be done. Let's try to make a record that has some chordal interest and some musicality about it." Blow By Blow was my first scratch in the sand in terms of moving in that direction. Ironically, it did quite well… It was a unique album for its time, and I'm proud of that, really.’
Backed by jazz rock band Upp, Beck had first performed the album’s reggae-infused cover of the Beatles’ ‘She’s a Woman’ some weeks before commencing recording at AIR, when he appeared on the BBC’s Five Faces of the Guitar special, broadcast on 1 September 1974. In an interview segment after the performance, Jeff demonstrated his string bending and bottleneck slide technique on the Oxblood Les Paul, noting ‘these pickups are very powerful’, and explained the light strings, ‘I've got very weak flesh on my fingers and the bending that I do would probably slice it up like a piece of cheese.’ Just before setting out on a co-headlining tour with John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jeff marked the US release of Blow by Blow with an appearance on the NBC show Midnight Special, hosted by Billy Preston. Playing the Oxblood throughout, Jeff joined Preston on his No.1 hit ‘Nothing From Nothing’ before performing the album tracks ‘You Know What I Mean’ and ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’. The three-month North American tour launched on 24 April 1975, wrapping up with a short Japanese leg through to 7 August. Throughout the tour, Jeff would generally start his performance on the Strat, switching to the Oxblood Les Paul for ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’ until the end of his set, often closing the show with a Beck/McLaughlin. At some point between the three North American legs of the tour, the headstock of the Les Paul was broken on a PanAm flight back to London. Whilst with Gordon Wells at Knight Guitars for repair, Jeff took the opportunity to return the neck to its original size, retaining the guitar’s original fingerboard and faceplate. After the tour, Jeff largely retired the Les Paul in favour of the Strat, and although it was taken out on subsequent tours during the later 1970s, it appears not to have been played live. ‘It's an antique lying around my house,’ he would later admit to Tony Bacon. And so it would remain, until dusted off by Gibson’s master craftsmen in 2008 in order to recreate the iconic instrument for their limited edition Jeff Beck Oxblood Les Paul signature model, released in 2009.
Images:
Jeff Beck pictured on stage at the Crystal Palace Garden Party, London, 15 September 1973 © Barrie Wentzell.
Jeff Beck with Beck, Bogert & Appice, Hawaii, 8 May 1973 © Robert Knight.
Jeff Beck, Tim Bogert, Don Nix and Carmine Appice in the studio, 1973 © Jeffrey Meyer.
Jeff Beck and Mick Ronson on stage for the retirement show of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Hammersmith Odeon, London, 3 July 1973. Photo courtesy of Sony Entertainment.
Jeff Beck performing at the Memorial Auditorium, Dallas, Texas, 11 June 1975 © Carl Dunn.
Jeff Beck performing at The Arie Crown Theater in Chicago, Illinois, 8 May 1975 © Jim Summaria.
Jeff Beck playing ‘The Oxblood’ at the Memorial Auditorium, Dallas, Texas, 11 June 1975 © Carl Dunn.
Jeff Beck at home, 1978 © Toshi Yajima.
Jeff Beck acquired his now iconic Oxblood Les Paul while touring the US with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice as power trio Beck, Bogert and Appice in late 1972 and would use it almost exclusively as his primary guitar for the next two years.
Beck had first seen Bogert and Appice perform as part of the Vanilla Fudge in 1967 and was immediately struck by the band’s powerful rhythm section, making a mental note to pursue a possible collaboration with Tim and Carmine in the future. The three would meet for the first time in 1969 when Beck was called up to stand in for Vanilla Fudge guitarist Vinnie Martell on a Coca Cola radio commercial in New York. Speaking to Dick Wyzanski of The Jeff Beck Bulletin, Tim Bogert recalled: There was a Fudge roadie there at the Coke session that had also been a roadie for the Yardbirds… There we were with the commercial producer ready to go and no guitarist. Bruce [the roadie] said that he knew that Jeff Beck was in town staying at a hotel and offered to try to get him. We had been listening to TRUTH and BECKOLA and needless to say were excited at the prospect of having Jeff do the session with us and a short time later, he just showed up, ready to play." Their paths would cross again that summer when both Led Zeppelin and the Jeff Beck Group would upstage and outclass ailing headliners Vanilla Fudge at the Singer Bowl in New York. Bogert remembers despondently walking off stage after the show, arm in arm with Jeff, plotting to fire their respective bands that night and form a group. Initial plans made to form a quartet with Rod Stewart were thwarted when Jeff was involved in a bad car accident and forced to take some time out for recovery. By the time Jeff was back in the game, Rod had jumped ship to form the Faces, while Tim and Carmine had teamed up with Jim McCarty to form Cactus. Having reformed the Jeff Beck Group with a new lineup, Jeff found himself at New York’s Electric Lady Studios in summer 1972 to collaborate with Stevie Wonder on some new material. ‘The original agreement was that he'd write me a song, and in return, I'd play on his album, and that's where 'Superstition' came in. He basically wrote it for me, but… he played it to Motown, and they said "No way is Beck getting this song, it's too good", and as they had the right to say what Stevie released at that time, I lost the song as an original.’ After the Jeff Beck Group did one take of ‘Superstition’, Jeff made the decision to disband the current lineup and call in Bogert and Appice, who had recently dissolved Cactus, to record the track. The trio then toured Europe as the new Jeff Beck Group before returning to the US for their first North American tour as Beck, Bogert and Appice.
At this time, Jeff was generally playing a white 1970s Stratocaster and somewhat struggling to cut through the volume and thunder of the Bogert/Appice rhythm section. On 10 November 1972, the trio played a gig at the Barton Coliseum in Little Rock, Arkansas, with ZZ Top on the same bill. It seems that Jeff was impressed with the fat sound that ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons was able to achieve on his ’59 Les Paul within a similar power trio format, prompting him to start making serious enquiries into tracking down a new Les Paul, his last Les Paul (a sunburst) having been stolen when the crowd stormed the stage at a show in New York State in 1969. ‘The early Strats were notorious for feedback and Jeff just liked the way the Les Paul cut through,’ Jeff’s then manager Ralph Baker told Wyzanski. ‘He may have been influenced by what Eric [Clapton] achieved sound wise in Cream, having to compete with the other two powerful players.’ Speaking to Douglas J. Noble in 1993, Jeff recalled noting the powerful sound from Clapton’s Les Paul as a key strength within a three-piece set up: 'I saw Eric playing at the Marquee with Cream and he had a loud, basic set-up and I was very impressed by the low end of his Les Paul. It was so fat it was like an orchestra, and in a three-piece you really needed that. A Strat just would not have worked with that kind of music. The mid-range was fat, even the high notes were fat - just a glorious, thick, rich sound. I planned to get a three-piece as well so I thought I would have to get that sound… you could listen in to the guitar and hear it clearly and hear the drums clearly as well.’
A Memphis-based Beck fan named Buddy Davis had been at the Little Rock show and perhaps mentioned to one of the band that he had recently acquired a new Les Paul – he received a phone call from Jeff the following day. Davis had acquired the present Les Paul in its original condition with gold-top finish and had swiftly traded it to Memphis music store Strings & Things when he decided he didn’t like the standard pickups. A number of customisations were then made to the Les Paul at the request of another Strings & Things customer who intended to buy the guitar – the guitar was refinished in chocolate brown, the neck was slimmed down, the nickel hardware was replaced with Gibson gold-plated equivalents, and a set of full size humbucking pickups were installed. According to Strings & Things, when the customer returned to collect their customised guitar, they took one look and pulled out of the purchase. Davis liked the modifications that had been made to the guitar and offered to buy it back. Writing to Dick Wyzanski of The Jeff Beck Bulletin, Davis recounted the tale: ‘Charlie [from Strings & Things] said, "We have $400 in this, and now we're stuck!" I said, "Well now I like it, chocolate with humbuckers, I'll buy it." Charlie said great. He let me take it right then and there. I owned it for weeks before I went and saw ZZ Top open for Beck, Bogert, and Appice in Little Rock. The crowd loved ZZ Top. Carmine knew this. I was already friends with him from Cactus days… They thought Jeff needed a Les Paul, also, to sound fat like ZZ Top. I drove back home to Memphis after 3 hours sleep, my phone rang. He said, "This is Jeff." I said, "Jeff who?" He said, "Beck." I was freaked out. He said, "We're in Memphis on our way to New Orleans with time to kill… I jumped in my Mustang with the chocolate because I wanted to show it to him, I was proud of it. I took him to Strings and Things… He saw nothing he liked. Then I took him to two other music stores, he saw nothing he liked.’ Apparently, Jeff had his eye on Buddy’s Les Paul. When Jeff’s then manager Ernest Chapman pulled Davis aside to ask whether he would consider selling his guitar, Davis agreed to sell Jeff the chocolate Les Paul for $500. Reportedly it was Jeff, with his knowledge of custom car paints, that would name the guitar’s bespoke dark chocolate finish as “Oxblood”.
Jeff debuted the Oxblood Les Paul that very night when the trio played to a sell-out crowd at the Warehouse in New Orleans on 11 November 1972, the final date of their U.S. tour. Reviewing the performance, local journalist David Fisk reported witnessing ‘a few things never seen or heard on guitar before.’ From this point, the Oxblood Les Paul became Jeff’s preferred performance guitar for the next two years. Recording sessions began at Chicago’s Chess Studios that December for Beck’s first album with Bogert and Appice, moving to The Village Recorders in Los Angeles in January 1973 for final remix sessions with producer Don Nix. Atmospheric studio shots by photographer Jeffrey Mayer show Jeff glued to his Les Paul during the Los Angeles sessions with Bogert, Appice and Nix. It’s likely that the majority, if not all, of Beck, Bogert, Appice was recorded on the Oxblood, including a thundering final album version of ‘Superstition’, as Wonder had by now released his version as the lead single of his 1972 album Talking Book. Questioned by NME’s Charles Shaar Murray the following year as to whether he would generally trade guitars for different numbers or stick to the same one, Jeff reflected that ‘it was a question of wanting to get used to a guitar and wanting to use nothing else. There was only a short period of time when I used to trade one for the other to get certain sounds. I used to like to get all the different sounds out of one guitar.’ Nix contributed a couple of songs to the album, including the bluesy ‘Black Cat Moan’, no doubt inspired by the wail of Jeff’s slide on his black-brown Les Paul. On release in March 1973, NME declared BB&A the finest three-instrument band since the Cream, praising the album’s ‘ballsy hardrock played with soul, brain and guts,’ while criticising the weak material and the mix. ‘Jeff gave the tapes to Don Nix to take to Memphis for the final mix and told him, “Make Timmy and Carmine sound good. They're angels,”’ Carmine later told Wyzanski. Nix apparently took this quite literally, mixing down Jeff’s guitar while dialing up the rhythm section. Rolling Stone lamented this lack of focus on Beck’s guitar, while Chris Welch at Melody Maker declared the album ‘a shot of pure stimulant into the arm of rock.’
From 1 February 1973, Beck, Bogert & Appice commenced a mammoth year of touring, covering the UK, US, Japan and Europe, circling back for a second British tour through January 1974. Jeff would use the Oxblood Les Paul for every live performance over this period. Asked by Melody Maker why he had switched to the Les Paul, Jeff explained that he ‘abandoned [the Stratocaster] when I found a Gibson I really liked,’ and stated, ‘My attraction for the Les Paul is that it is better built and I prefer it.’ Playing against a backdrop of British and American flags and a wall of Univox speaker cabinets, the trio became known for the intense volume of their live shows. After striking an enormous gong to open each show, the threesome would launch into opening number ‘Superstition’ amidst dry ice and smoke, led by Jeff distorting the opening lines on the Les Paul through a talk box. NME’s Charles Shaar Murray enthusiastically described the show as ‘high-energy guitar-trio rock de-bloody-luxe… they just kept on burning, never letting up for a second.’ As well as the numerous photographs capturing Jeff on stage over the course of their back-to-back 1973 tours, live performance footage was recorded for French television show Pop Deux and US ABC-TV show In Concert. The Japanese tour was a huge success, cementing Jeff’s guitar god status there for decades to come and spurring an exclusive live album release for the Japanese market. ‘We must have shocked the shit out of everybody, because it was all going on; all the barbarics of double bass drums, riff…heavy stuff,’ Jeff reminisced about his first visit to Japan for Mojo in 2009. At some point in June 1973, Jeff removed the Les Paul’s pickup covers, exposing the double black bobbins to get a brighter, grittier tone. In between tours, Jeff joined David Bowie for his final show with the Spiders from Mars at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973, jumping on stage with the Oxblood to jam with Spiders’ guitarist Mick Ronson on the encores ‘Jean Genie’ and ‘Round and Round’. Captured on film by DA Pennebaker, the concert became legendary when Bowie announced the retirement of his Ziggy Stardust persona at the end of the show. ‘I think I was tricked into playing with him,’ Jeff told Stuart Grundy and John Tobler in 1983. ‘Apparently, Ronson had this one track thing about wanting to play live with me on stage, and Bowie was trying to disguise the fact that it was more of a present to Ronson than anything… Bowie told me I was being respectfully included because he'd liked [The Yardbirds’] “I'm A Man” so much he'd made “Jean Genie” out of it.’
Back in London to begin recording a second album, the threesome stole the show at the Celebration Garden Party at the Crystal Palace Bowl on 15 September 1973. Wielding the Oxblood, Jeff made the cover of Melody Maker the following week, which reported ‘And there was Beck, open-necked blue shirt knotted at the navel, looking cocky, as the licks flipped out.’ Work continued on the second album at Apple Studios, Da Lane Lea, and Escape Studios in Kent, the lack of good material proving a perennial problem for the band. Having become hooked on the instrumental jazz rock of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Billy Cobham’s Spectrum, Beck was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the same old BB&A boogies. Jeff spoke to NME that September after recording the instrumental ‘Jizz Whizz’: ‘We’re known for playing rather than specific songs, so we felt that doing an instrumental would allow people to hear what they want to hear – us playing.’ After various attempts to salvage the second album at CBS Studios through December and January, alongside a second British tour and an ill-fated collaboration with Sly Stone, the project was permanently shelved, and by April 1974 the ultimate power trio was no more. ‘The material was sadly lacking,’ Jeff told Rob Mackie for Sounds that November, ‘and rather than carry on with bum material and die slowly, I just quit. It was just a thing that I had to do, that BBA thing, to see what would happen, and I pursued it as long as I thought reasonable.’ By this time ensconced at AIR Studios recording a solo album, Jeff elaborated on the split to Charles Shaar Murray for NME, reflecting ‘it was the biggest fight in rock-and-roll that you could ever hear… I wouldn`t co-operate and play what they wanted me to play, because I had finished with that style a long time ago… I don`t want to fight my own instincts – I want to go off and do something that, even if it isn’t brilliant, is at least different... You can keep up with the times as well as kick ass, you know what I mean?’
This compulsion towards constant innovation culminated in Beck’s milestone solo album Blow by Blow. Exasperated by past reliance on vocalists and inspired by Miles Davis’ 1971 jazz fusion album Jack Johnson and guitarist John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, Beck set out to record an all-instrumental guitar album. Enlisting former Beatles producer George Martin, Beck began recording at his AIR Studios in October 1974 with former Jeff Beck Group keyboardist Max Middleton, along with bassist Phil Chen and drummer Richard Bailey. By way of an apology for releasing his version of ‘Superstition’ first, Stevie Wonder contributed the tracks ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’ and ‘Thelonius’, playing uncredited clavinet on the latter, while Martin provided string arrangements for ‘Scatterbrain’ and ‘Diamond Dust’. ‘George could see where I was heading, the jazz overtones,’ Jeff recalled to Rolling Stone in 2016. ‘It was another avenue he took to very well… It was such exciting times. I couldn’t wait to get to the studio every day.’ While Jeff had somewhat reverted to his Stratocaster by this time, it was reportedly George Martin who was responsible for bringing back the Les Paul tones. ‘It was partly because of George Martin that I used [the Les Paul],’ Jeff later told guitar historian Tony Bacon. ‘His ears were having a bit of trouble handling the raucous screaming that I was doing [on the Strat]. George would flinch and start walking around and making tea and things. He likes good mellow sounds. So I thought, “Well, there’s no point in making the guy suffer. I may as well play melodically. And then maybe I’ll come back one night and scrub over it with the Strat.” Eventually, when I started to do “Freeway Jam” and stuff like that, and I needed to go crazy, I decided the Strat was more my tool.’ Speaking to Steve Rosen in 1975, Jeff confirmed ‘I'm using my Les Paul and Strat on the album; I use the Strat on “Freeway Jam”, for the vibrato arm’. No doubt it was the combination of Beck’s Stratocaster and Les Paul that contributed to the album’s unique tapestry of timbres, the latter providing subtle melody and sustain. Comparing the two instruments for Guitar Player in 2009, Beck said of the Les Paul: It’s a totally different animal. One is for very subtle and, I would say, more musical things… It’s got a very delicate tone. Most people don’t ever realize that because they are plugged into monstrous amplifiers, which completely covers up the unique sound quality it has. A photo of Jeff playing the Oxblood was chosen for the back of the album sleeve, with a pastel recreation of the image by John Collier famously featuring on the front cover, forever cementing the Oxblood’s association with the seminal album. Blow by Blow was released in March 1975 to critical acclaim and would remain Beck’s most commercially successful album, certified platinum by 1986. It marked a turning point, whereafter his guitar would be the focus, without reliance on any vocal accompaniment. Looking back on the album in a 1999 interview with Charles Shaar Murray for Mojo, Beck reflected: ‘What really upset the applecart for me was Mahavishnu Orchestra when they played Central Park. If they could do this concert with masses of people going bananas for this extreme radical jazzy rock stuff… I felt, "This is it. This is what can be done. Let's try to make a record that has some chordal interest and some musicality about it." Blow By Blow was my first scratch in the sand in terms of moving in that direction. Ironically, it did quite well… It was a unique album for its time, and I'm proud of that, really.’
Backed by jazz rock band Upp, Beck had first performed the album’s reggae-infused cover of the Beatles’ ‘She’s a Woman’ some weeks before commencing recording at AIR, when he appeared on the BBC’s Five Faces of the Guitar special, broadcast on 1 September 1974. In an interview segment after the performance, Jeff demonstrated his string bending and bottleneck slide technique on the Oxblood Les Paul, noting ‘these pickups are very powerful’, and explained the light strings, ‘I've got very weak flesh on my fingers and the bending that I do would probably slice it up like a piece of cheese.’ Just before setting out on a co-headlining tour with John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jeff marked the US release of Blow by Blow with an appearance on the NBC show Midnight Special, hosted by Billy Preston. Playing the Oxblood throughout, Jeff joined Preston on his No.1 hit ‘Nothing From Nothing’ before performing the album tracks ‘You Know What I Mean’ and ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’. The three-month North American tour launched on 24 April 1975, wrapping up with a short Japanese leg through to 7 August. Throughout the tour, Jeff would generally start his performance on the Strat, switching to the Oxblood Les Paul for ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’ until the end of his set, often closing the show with a Beck/McLaughlin. At some point between the three North American legs of the tour, the headstock of the Les Paul was broken on a PanAm flight back to London. Whilst with Gordon Wells at Knight Guitars for repair, Jeff took the opportunity to return the neck to its original size, retaining the guitar’s original fingerboard and faceplate. After the tour, Jeff largely retired the Les Paul in favour of the Strat, and although it was taken out on subsequent tours during the later 1970s, it appears not to have been played live. ‘It's an antique lying around my house,’ he would later admit to Tony Bacon. And so it would remain, until dusted off by Gibson’s master craftsmen in 2008 in order to recreate the iconic instrument for their limited edition Jeff Beck Oxblood Les Paul signature model, released in 2009.
Images:
Jeff Beck pictured on stage at the Crystal Palace Garden Party, London, 15 September 1973 © Barrie Wentzell.
Jeff Beck with Beck, Bogert & Appice, Hawaii, 8 May 1973 © Robert Knight.
Jeff Beck, Tim Bogert, Don Nix and Carmine Appice in the studio, 1973 © Jeffrey Meyer.
Jeff Beck and Mick Ronson on stage for the retirement show of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Hammersmith Odeon, London, 3 July 1973. Photo courtesy of Sony Entertainment.
Jeff Beck performing at the Memorial Auditorium, Dallas, Texas, 11 June 1975 © Carl Dunn.
Jeff Beck performing at The Arie Crown Theater in Chicago, Illinois, 8 May 1975 © Jim Summaria.
Jeff Beck playing ‘The Oxblood’ at the Memorial Auditorium, Dallas, Texas, 11 June 1975 © Carl Dunn.
Jeff Beck at home, 1978 © Toshi Yajima.