“Every instrument has secret sounds buried within it,“ Aerosmith’s Joe Perry once proclained, “My job was to find those sounds.“
In many ways, that was the new mantra for music in the 1970s: find the secret sounds. The decade prior had seen an unprecedented explosion that stretched the simple triad of pop to extremes hitherto unknown. But it couldn’t just stop there. New ways of making music were essential. Led Zeppelin had led the way on this front.
However, of all their peers, Jimmy Page figured that Aerosmith took up the mantle most vigorously. “I think, you know, out of all the bands that came from early on, say in the ’70s, I think they’ve come through with their really strong identity,“ he said of the band’s notable originality. They seemed to be prising new levels of character from the classic 12 notes of pop.
But Perry had a heralding hero on this front. There was one legend who seemed to be able to find something new on the six-string every time he picked up his guitar, and he found Page in agreement when it came to heaping praise upon them. That hero was Jeff Beck.
“One of the last times I saw him play live, we were doing the Classic Rock Awards in Tokyo,“ Perry recalled in an interview with Guitar World. That evening, he just so happened to be sitting next to Page. Both were awed by what they witnessed. “The two of us [were] like two kids elbowing each other every time Jeff would play something,“ he said.
And Jeff was always playing something. Throughout his life, he never lost his zeal for being surprised by the guitar and its unending secrets. He was always a scholar of his instrument, even when his peers figured he had mastered it. As Perry added, “I don’t know why he bothers playing his slide because he can duplicate that with his vibrato arm. He’ll test his amp just to make sure it’s working and it’s like, ‘I never heard that before!’“
This, in his book, is what made Beck the greatest. “That’s the thing about Jeff,“ he concluded, “he’s on this journey and always has been, discovering new stuff. That’s the genius. That’s why there’s all of us other guitar players and then there’s him. Every time you see him he’s doing something different. That’s the thing that inspires me the most about Jeff.“
This same spirit was also ratified by Ronnie Wood, who said that even deep in their 70s, every time he saw Beck, he had a new trick to show him. In some ways, this defines one of the key facets of any artistic pursuit: passion. Beyond all the technicality and swagger, Beck had mounting passion that made him more than a maestro, but as Perry put it, an inspiration.
