The following excerpt is taken from The Original Punk – Jeff Beck Stories: From Yardbird to the Guitar Shop by Steve Rosen.
Sometime around mid-December 1974, Mick Taylor left the Rolling Stones. He had been in the band since June 1969 and played on their most legendary albums: Let It Bleed; Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out; Sticky Fingers; Exile on Main Street; Goats Head Soup; and It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll. Despite being part of the world’s biggest rock and roll band, Taylor couldn’t take another day.
“If I’d just been content to be a side man and make a lot of money,” Mick Taylor divulged, “I’d have stayed where I was, but I wasn’t content. There’s always something more I wanted to express and more I wanted to do. I went through a few years, which were kind of a bit of a wasteland, where I lost my sense of direction and my spiritual needs completely.”
Down one guitar player, the Stones put out the call. Jeff answered. “I got a call from Keith Richards,” Beck recalled. “He acted like he had known me for 20 years. He asked me to come over and play and I thought it meant just kill a weekend. So, I thought, ‘Well, it would be nice to spend a couple of days in Rotterdam [Holland].’
“I went over there and I found out they wanted me to join; I couldn’t believe that. I mean the money was tempting; I could have made a fortune and not ever have to work again. But I would have been half-dead, and my reputation would have been shot. I think things have worked out better this way; I couldn’t be happier really.”
Assuredly, his relationship with Jagger and the Stones was a love/hate thing. “I have this affection for them in a funny sort of way,” the sometimes Mick Jagger lookalike mused. “I don’t like their music at all ‘cause they were pirates; they pirated the whole thing.
“Eel Pie Island [island in the River Thames, which featured the Eel Pie Island Hotel, where everybody from the Yardbirds, the Tridents, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, the Who and the Rolling Stones performed during their nascent days] was my first introduction to this dreadful scene.
“I had a little combo from Richmond [the Tridents], but they were good though. The guy used to play the harmonica like Little Walter, and he was an unbelievable blues player and a little drummer who was 18 or 17 or something. Every group knew every other group by name and by every sort of detail; there was a hot interest then.
“I suppose it’s like if you invented something right now and it swept the nation; you’d be hot for it because it’s something you were part of from the beginning.”
When Beck quipped, “I don’t like their music at all,” what he actually meant was, “I have no respect for them whatsoever.” When questioned how he felt about the Stones going out on the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour [1989] when the bandmembers averaged an age of around 45, he responded with typically unfiltered comments. He also took a shot at the Who.
“That’s just ironic,” he mused, “these older guys coming out. It’s nothing to do with me at all. I intended to do this tour way, way back. I don’t know what motivated Pete [Townshend] to go back other than personally to see if they could do it or whether the money had anything to do with it. Or if it was just a fun thing to do for entertainment’s sake. A lot of kids would love to see that while they’re still able.
“Unfortunately, [Keith Moon] Moony isn’t around but [Simon] Phillips is in there and he’ll give them a kick up the ass. I’ve heard four tracks on the Stones’ album [Steel Wheels] and it’s really something. If they’re gonna come out with material like that, then hallelujah.
“If it had been a naff (bad) album, then I would have said for sure they’re doing it just for the money. People want to see them all up there on the stage; they don’t want to see Mick or Keith on their own in some yuppified, designer rock outfit. They want to see the Rolling Stones rolling.”
Mick Jagger liked what I was doing, but I just didn’t like the way it was going
Jeff Beck
Several months later in 1986, he teamed up again to assist on Mick Jagger’s second solo album, Primitive Cool. Though he had played on seven of the nine tracks from Jagger’s first album, She’s the Boss, there he was only one amongst a cadre of lead guitarists who played. On the follow-up, he was bumped to the top of the album credits and listed as Lead Guitar: Jeff Beck.
“I did the first Jagger album [She’s the Boss], which was done just for fun, and it sounds like it,” Beck hinted. “It sounds like a good beginning to something really promising. But it was the second album [Primitive Cool] when I realized I was just slotted in as a guest, studio-type guy, and I really didn’t like that.
“I think he [Mick Jagger] had this brainwave that he wanted to put this big show together where he was the star and we were all planetary kinds of people and all [much in the same way as Rod Stewart treated Jeff during their short-lived tour). That didn’t appeal to me.
“I wanted to be in Rolling Stone number two with a tomorrow feel to it; like an experimental Rolling Stones with Jagger singing, and I was sure that’s what he wanted. As time drifted by, I realized he was determined to put these old songs on tape the way he wanted them. He wanted to produce and have a very stylized album, which I didn’t want any part of.”
If Jagger couldn’t have enticed Beck to join the Stones, he could at least have him play in his touring band. Wrong again. “He did say at the beginning of the project that he wanted me to tour as well, and I worked flat-out on the She’s the Boss album and he’d really liked that. It was only halfway through the second project that I started to back out of it.
“He liked what I was doing, but I just didn’t like the way it was going. There was rhythm guitarists every day coming and putting their 10 cents in [Living Colour’s Vernon Reid; the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart; Jimmy Rip; and Jim Barber]. I just felt like a bump on a log. I walked out of it; there was no way I could handle it.”
- The Original Punk – Jeff Beck Stories: From Yardbird to the Guitar Shop by Steve Rosen is available now from Amazon and Tonechaserbook.com .
