One of the many, many guitarists obsessed with Jeff Beck was a young Seymour Duncan. Here’s what he told this writer back in the ’90s: “I first heard Jeff Beck in the summer of ’65 – I was playing in a talent show with a local band. The local radio station played a recording of Heart Full Of Soul by The Yardbirds, their second hit. The unique guitar sound was from Jeff Beck. I tracked down many of their recordings and saw them performing on 60s TV shows such as Hullabaloo, Shindig! and Ready Steady Go!.
“I’d noticed Jeff was playing a Fender Telecaster but without the neck pickup,” he added, “making it an Esquire [from 1954]. Originally it had a white single-layer scratchplate that Jeff changed to a black phenolic one. He’d bought the guitar for $60 [or £75, according to Jeff! – Ed] from John Maus [aka Walker], guitarist with The Walker Brothers when they toured England in the mid-’60s. Years later, John visited my workshop in Santa Barbara and told me he’d contoured the front and back of the body to make it feel more like a Stratocaster.”
