Beck was so ahead of his time. Never gets enough credit for how innovative and ground breaking he was in these early days. He is so much better now even well into his 70’s.
Jeff Beck was always the guitarist's guitarist. A lot of older people who grew up during this era would always tell me apropos of any guitarist you would mention from (for example) the '70s, 'Beck was better.' I think amongst people who had seen them both play, only Hendrix was rated more highly but the reason more people don't acknowledge Beck more is that he was more of a live guitarist than a studio one and did most of his best stuff on stage.
Too true. He sees the 60s as a wasted time when he struggled to make the equipment match the ideas he had. He's more than made up for it and his reputation grows all the time among guitar players and fans. Loved his playing since 1970 but somehow missed him live until the 200s. An amazing player not really like anyone else and still plays superlatively today. Great live playing here when few things were played live on TV..
Jeff Beck was absolutely the coolest guitarist ever at this point. Listen to how he rocks that Fender Esquire and trades licks with the harmonica, then does this experimental stuff with the slide at the end. Nobody was doing this in the mid-1960s before Hendrix arrived on the rock scene.
Isn't that the Tele he gave to Jimmy Page? Jimmy turned it into the "Dragon" whilst with a group called Led Zeppelin, who were pretty good at the time?
@@benvye4279 I don't believe that is the same guitar. Pagey's '59 Telecaster had a rosewood fretboard, this one appears to have a maple fretboard. I believe this is Jeff's '54 Esquire, a Telecaster would have a neck pickup, this guitar only has a bridge pup.
This was just one year after the Beatles toured the USA. You can see just how much music changed in ine year from I want to Hold Your Hand. This is also pre Hendrix Experience. Beck was light years ahead of everyone else...and still is.
Beck is one of the few guitarists who just keeps getting better from one decade to the next, always pushing the envelope with what can be done on the guitar.
@God Love There were guys like Eric clapton, Jeff Beck and blues and jazz guys who were par on guitar as much as Hendrix but not much on the theatrics. Except Buddy Guy who was doing the stuff that Hendrix was doing (playing with his teeth and stuff and playing with a trio and not a four piece band) much before him. Hendrix maybe one of the most influential guitarists is not the first and the only one.
@God Love I'm a guy not a girl and Hindu or Muslim has no relation with question in context. You are ignorant and have never read or listened to the roots or history of Rock n Roll so it is expected of you. You are just another Hendrix fan boy. Blues, jazz and rockabilly are the roots of Rock n Roll. Research Buddy Guy and listen to his playing. I read from Clapton's autobiography that Buddy Guy played with a trio and did the theatrics that Hendrix (except burning the guitar) did much before him. This inspired him to form his own trio Cream. Listen to people like B.B king, Robert Johnson, Django Reinhardt, Chet Atkins, Merle Travis, Andre Segovia, Clapton, Buddy Guy, Elmore James and countless others Before Hendrix who played Guitar the way it was meant to be played and further Revolutionized it. Your taste certainly needs some enhancing. Be patient and unbiased and you will be able to see the roots of the Guitar we hear today through them. Hendrix maybe the most popular and celebrated Guitar Hero is not certainly the first and the only one. Get out of your limited musical knowledge. It doesn't mean no other guy Rocked guitar before Hendrix just because you didn't listened to them.
@God Love First of all you have literally no knowledge or appreciation for the guitar history regarding the previous century. Your sheer ignorance and denial for the fact that Buddy Guy did stuff like playing with his feet and tongue was the first indicator. Buddy Guy like many bluesmen is one of the textbooks on which Hendrix developed himself as a performer and a musician. He stood on the shoulders of Giants. And if you think Buddy Guy plays the same notes you certainly don't have the appetite nor the appreciation for blues. He is as virtuosic as Hendrix and was as much as much influential. He certainly influenced Hendrix didn't he. Then your senseless comment that an Hindu/Muslim cannot educate you on Guitar music is an indicator of your narrow minded attitude. You certainly haven't heard Buddy Guy or any other names I have mentioned with any appreciation for their contribution or their craft. Robert Johnson sang while playing bass notes, slide, rhythm and melody at the same time(Hendrix couldn't do that and actually nobody could as he did) and revolutionized blues forever, his playing and music was later the template on which rock n roll was formed, Reinhardt played beautiful fast notes in jazz with just three fingers and was a major Influence on Tony Iommi, B.B king developed a sophisticated form of soloing never heard before, he can put life life into single notes that shredders can't put in a million, Segovia literally is the reason we have so much development in classical music in regard with the guitar, Chet Atkins and Merle Travis both genius virtuosos developed Fingerstyle guitar we know today, Clapton though not as heavy or theatrical as Hendrix was a much cleaner player than Hendrix(who was sloppy) and was the reason Hendrix wanted to visit England, clapton according to B.B king was the best rock n roll guitarist ever. I don't wholeheartedly agree with B. B King's view but it certainly proves that Hendrix wasn't the only one as you are mindlessly arguing about. Every Guitar Player I mentioned did something which Hendrix couldn't do and vice-versa. If any sane person with any knowledge of Rock n Roll music will agree that everybody other than Hendrix sucked at guitar during or before his time as you do I will accept defeat. Though an Indian, I have greater appetite and appreciation for Guitar music than you do. Your are deaf to everything good other than Hendrix. I don't want to argue further as I don't want to drop myself to the level of an idiot posing as a Hendrix fan boy.
Gareth Wonham anybody see a jimi influence here? anybody see the future of rock here? old, longtime yardbirds fan here. they should be required listening...
andrew Herriges i’ve listened to all the above, buying most of their material the day it was released. i’m an american that’s been to 37 countries, and we read maps quite well sonny. how the hell do you turn a converation about music into a half baked insult? were you even alive when the yardbirds were together? how about captain beyond, can you tell us the bands those guys were in previously? like iron butterfly, johnny winter, deep purple, etc... what an ass edit: i’ve done foh for some of these guys
Eddie Black read the comment again, it contains 2 insults, i never said he spoke outside of facts. so you assumed and why in the hell do you kids turn a conversation about music into this? any of you worked in the biz? it’s only one z btw.
I'm 68 now... this was 55 years ago. I watched this when it aired in 1965. I never forgot it. I still consider Jeff Beck to be the best rock guitarist ever.
Rod Stewart and Rick Nielsen ( Cheap Trick ) , are adamant, that Jeff Beck is the best that they have seen. It's difficult to argue against that view, as he has been so consistent for so many years.
Nope, beck was never better then hendrix. Hendrix style and musicality was from mars. Only one that got close to hendrix was srv. Period. End of discussion amigo. :D
@@Itiswhatitispartna Jimi was robbed of his chance to continue to improve and expand, as was SRV. It was pretty clear though that SRV was going to stick to 12 bar blues. Something to point out is how many SRV clones are out there, compared to how many Beck clones there are. One reason is, one is easy, and the other is hard. If you can't tell that Beck has gone beyond both of them in his career, you need to check your ears, or maybe you're just a music listener, and not a musician. Heck, benefit of the doubt, maybe this video is all you know of Beck, and if so, man, you're waaaay behind. Beck's output in the 70s was already far beyond anything SRV ever recorded, and that was well before SRV ever released a single album. From BBA, to his work with Jan Hammer, and his solo instrumental albums, which are still to this day absolutely essential recordings for serious guitarists. I love Jimi, and so does Beck, but he never wrangled notes out of a strat like Beck does. To say otherwise denies reality. People say 'so and so makes that guitar talk' in an offhand way, but Jeff Beck ACTUALLY does that, by perfectly mimicking a human voice like he did in "Nadiya" or his cover of 'A Day in the Life". If you think that's easy, try it sometime. Human speech doesn't follow music theory dynamics, not even simple ones like you would find in pentatonic scales. Human speech in the Indian (forgive my ignorance, but I think it's Hindi) language? Forget about it. It's an unfair comparison anyway, Jeff has had 40+ years with the strat, Jimi had what, maybe 10? Less? If Jimi hadn't died at 27, who can say? I'll just end this by saying that imo, the best things SRV ever wrote and recorded are 'Riviera Paradise' and 'Lenny', both of which are somewhat outside his 12 bar blues standard. Also loved 'Dirty Pool' and 'Life by the Drop'. As for Jimi, my favorites are 'Castles Made of Sand', the whole '1983...' suite, the entire Band of Gypsys album, particularly the 'Machine Gun' solo, that sustained note in the middle is probably the greatest note ever recorded in a live rock guitar solo, at least that I've ever heard. Actually, I love everything he ever recorded, except for the posthumous crap that Allan Douglas released. In the end, it resolves to taste. Either you like something, or you don't. I know lots of guitarists that hate Hendrix, SRV, and Beck because they 'don't play fast enough' or whatever. You'll probably see those types of comments on this video. That's completely moronic of course, speed is just another color on the palette, worth as much as everything else you have there. All three of those guys were, and in Beck's case, still are, masters of what they do. But also in Beck's case, he chose to do more, and continues to. Also, for the record, my favorite guitarist is probably Allan Holdsworth.
It was Keith who had the cosmic-ness that opened the way for Jeff to get cosmic on the guitar/ Keith's harmonica was to other harmonica players as Jeff was to other guitarists.
Mike D Mike, do you not know the meaning of the word “underrated?” Something cannot be underrated when it is widely, universally admired and adored. Do you get that? It’s like calling sex underrated.
erestube We saw him from stage right with the first "Group". He was fast, supple and clear as a bell. My friend watched his jacket for him the whole show.
This is a masterpiece. Beck is hands down the best; virtuosic, inventive, precise, and a showman. He is in a league of his own. Keith Relf was one of the best harp players ever. The Yardbirds were simply one of the best bands ever.
@@brucemcdonald1114 My own favourite is 'Performing this Week: Live at Ronnie Scott' though a sort of/live best of. 'Who Else?' & 'So what' on player a lot lately but love all his stuff really. A brilliant guitarist and a gifted, generous accompanist (see him and Sharon Corr playing 'Mna Na Herreaann' it's amazing).
@ I didn't say Hendrix didn't exist in the USA, I said there were already major "guitar heroes" before he arrived in 66. Technically I should say that before there was Hendrix and Beck, there was Buddy Guy and Earl Hooker. But lets not get technical here.
Jimi took feedback and licks from Jeff on 'Happenings Ten Year's Time Ago' and made them his own. Plus Jeff was one of two guitarists he wanted to meet when he came to England. Clapton being the other one.
Definitely think Jeff Beck was the most interesting guitarist from the Yardbirds. He's the only guitarist from that band who's music I still go out of my way to listen to.
Love it! Jeff being Jeff before they knew what to think of it! My favorite guitar player since I first heard Beck's Bolero (which, by the way, has been my favorite song ever since) as a 10 year old. I knew i wanted to play guitar then🎸🎶
It's easy to see everything with the benefit of hindsight. Or maybe you're looking at it as a fan of shredding. But even back then JB was a pioneer of the guitar and particularly in his use of feedback and his general approach to playing.
@@aaronperrotta7055 Well, that's the point. This is his early formative days so you're definitely not going to hear much that sounds like the fusion type playing he's well known for now. Still, nobody else was doing this stuff back then so it was revolutionary at the time.
uh, what bar Guitarzan? Thank you Nelson R. Willis below, for jogging my memory for the name - the maraca player was the long-time Yardbirds rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja, right Nelson......? But I DO appreciate "Greased Lightening's" comment on being AT the bar with your mom ............ Did she EVER tell you THAT story, guitarzan????????
@Joffy Jaffer McJaffy - nice story - I saw Terry Reid open for Cream I think it was. He was an excellent singer-guitarist ..... Pretty sure it was him that did a GREAT cover of Donovan's "Season of the Witch" that might have been his biggest state-side hit .........
Terry Reid is killer! He's usually just called "the guy who turned down Led Zeppelin", but he's a stellar singer and a good guitarist who's worth looking up and listening to. Has some pretty good interviews from the past ten or so years that are up on RU-vid, too. Really cool to hear about your stories about him.
An amazing performance! My favorite period of Jeff's career is with The Yardbirds. I have seen the Yardbirds twice in 2007 and 2018. Wonderful concerts and a great catalogue of songs and hits!, both in the US and UK. I really like Keith Relf's vocals and harmonica playing too. Unfortunately at least in the States, they have disappeared from the radio and music sites.
Hey this is a Bo Diddley song, and ya'll missed Chris Dreja doing his best Jerome 'Bring It To Jerome" Green imitation on Maracas. The Yardies knew how to pay homage to the creator's of their cover while taking the music to unexplored territory. My all time favorite band - no matter who played guitar, but Beck was my favorite.
@@robertmatthews2009 Muddy wrote "Mannish Boy". Diddley "I'm a Man" Here's a Wikipedia explanation of the song: "Mannish Boy" (or "Manish Boy" as it was first labeled) is a blues standard by Muddy Waters. First recorded in 1955, the song is both an arrangement of and an "answer song" to Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man",[1] which was in turn inspired by Waters' and Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man".[2] "Mannish Boy" features a repeating stop-time figure on one chord throughout the song and is credited to Waters, Mel London, and Bo Diddley.[3] Although the song contains sexual boasting, its repetition of "I'm a man, I spell M, A child, N" was understood as political. Waters had recently left the South for Chicago. "Growing up in the South, African-Americans [would] never be referred to as a man - but as 'boy'. In this context, the song [is] an assertion of black manhood."[4]
there are bands today that would blow THE GREATS off any stage...but the PRESS will no longer write about them, and IHURTRADIO are religious nuts who want to stamp out ROCK music (devil's music!).....
@@dumpygoodness4086 Not really. Today's music lost the inspirations it had in the 60's and 70's and even the 80's then 90's went grunge and after that it's all computers.
@@frankburdodrums8984 YOUR RESPONSE is um, kinda deranged, sir. I said there are many bands today who can blow Zep or ANY of the greats off any stage... but that the press and radio WON'T TELL YOU, THE PUBLIC ABOUT ANY OF THEM (out of corporate greed etc). YOU THEN REPLY WITH "No there aren't any current bands that are better"?? LOGIC MUCH? YOU HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING ANY OF THE UNDERGROUND BANDS that are fantastic, duh. ex: DICK FLACCID & THE VIAGRA-NAUTS are outta NEW England and do improv-instrumental-SURF-PROG that is delicious! ex: WITCHCOCK is a really inventive and bizarro "crazy-metal" band (more avant than psychedelic at times?), not sure where they're from, but their big video is more creative than any other metal band ever. note: the STONER-PROG genre alone destroys Classic Rock....on paper, before you even hear the sounds! ex: you can't be in Stoner-Prog (as a genre!) unless you all have creative or fun stage names. Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, and the rest all were ANTI-fun and ANTI-creativity and just kept their boring names, plagiarized by their parents. See how LAZY that is, artistically? ex: every bit of Stoner-Prog MUST BE CREATIVE and artsy. By contrast, look at the ALBUM TITLES of the "greats" (whom I love, BTW, but I wish they'd been as creative as stoner-prog bands) (note: "stoner-prog" means SLOPPY prog: you get the odd chords and time sigs, but it's messy and wild like RAWK should be! FUN!) ... "ll", "lll", "Vol. 4", The White Album doesn't even have a title! How's THAT for lazy! ex: stoner-prog has a RULE that you can't be a copycat. (!!) in the late 1960s, you were supposed to be ORIGINAL and different from everyone else, but stoner-prog today takes that to the nth degree. PROBLEM is all the stoner-prog bands HATE social media and Big Tech, so they don't do Facebook etc. They'd change the world a lot more than Nirvana ever could! Check out JERUSALEM WITCH on YT and report back here how they're just copying the past!
To this day the most Innovative guitarist ever just ask the other Legends that are in Envy of this man👏👏👏👍👍👍 THE greatest guitarists of all time hands down🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐
It's amazing to see Jeff so young pioneering the guitar. You can see Jeff setting the bar early on and continues to raise the bar into his 70s he does things on the guitar that no one can. if you ask me Jeff Beck is The Godfather of electric guitar. He will always be one of the greatest guitarists ever!
But bands like the Yardbirds and Cream got virtually no radio play in the UK at the time. It was all Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones. We were all buying Sonny Boy Williamson and Sonny Terry albums on mail order.
Jeff Beck for me of the 3, he fit the best & songs with Jeff had more of an edge, Jimmy & Eric fine & well but would have been a way different band without Jeff ever with them.
Johannes DeMoravia Eric’s playing on the Yardbirds is what he’s comparing and he’s totally right. Jeff was the Yardbirds guitarist, the group with Eric was still finding its way and thr band was dying out by the time Page got to make his mark with them. I love all three but Jeff Beck was clearly the best guitarist when looking at only at their Yardbirds contributions.
I remember when this Shindig segment aired. I was 14, and just a few years into getting my chops together on guitar. Of course, I was crazy about The Yardbirds and their innovative guitarist Jeff Beck. Jimi Hendrix was a few years away from stardom at that point, but it's a known fact that Jeff influenced Jimi. Recorded interviews have Jimi saying as much. Taking nothing away from either, the two of them re-defined modern rock guitar for the ages.
Hendrix: I wasn’t really influenced by Beck. I only heard one record by him, “Shapes of Things,” and I really dug it. I just listened to it, and I liked it. You’ve got to dig everything and then get your own ideas. Too much digging and not enough doing will set you spinning.
@@taurushamilton2739 This wasn’t to say that Beck was not or is not great, but Hendrix was incorporating most of what Beck was doing while in NYC, before being discovered. Hendrix took much of his influence from contemporary musicians in the Chitlin Circuit as well as stage show displays from TBone Walker. It is likely that his familiarity with Jeff Beck was pretty limited until he came to the UK.
@Kenneth Liburd no, Hendrix was not all that obscure at that time and was no longer a sideman when he moved to NYC, his band was the house band at Cafe Wah. Les Paul was looking to get him signed. That said, all one has to do is look at what Hendrix himself had to say. He claims Beck was not an influence at all.
Those guys really looked "wild" in their suits! I remember seeing the Animals on tv their hair not even down to their shoulders and we called them long haired!
you know, Led Zepplin's first gigs, in Scandinavia I think, were billed as "The New Yardbirds" when the older guys who'd been there from the start, touring for years, packed it in, and their newest member Jimmy Page, as he said, "found some young guys who were ready to hit the road and rock" or something to that effect. Yardbirds -- One of the BEST & MOST creative and innovative bands of the 60's Brit Rock Renaissance ................ who could argue that?
Thanks for the wonderful upload of my favourite guitarist playing live earlier than anything I have seen and heard before. It's interesting to know that this is a year before 'Bluesbreakers' and before he'd played the stuff from 'Roger the Engineer ' that confirmed him as a rock genius. That he is STILL improves marks him out from all his contemporaries and sheds light on the praise heaped on him by his famous contemporaries Ckapton and Page. In longevity his career mirrors the short brilliance of Hendrix's one. That's fitting since they are the two great innovators and both humble men who seem liked by all. I've been lucky to see him live a few times this millennium. He's regained his love of it, evidently.
Who could have believed that this meager guitarist would one day, over 50 years later, be allowed the privilege of playing on a track with the extraordinary musical genius Johnny Depp! What an honor! lol
@Haqim Al-Arabia I can now see why, wow. It's rumored Chris actually beat out Ricky Ricardo in the now famous "Rakka Maraca" shake off at the legendary Club Booga-Loo.
@@Scottocaster6668 Oh give me a break. Lucy Ricardo could play rings around him. But it is true that Jeff Beck never made it big after that initial maracas humiliation.
THE YARDBIRDS "I'm A Man" KEITH RELF (Vocals & Harmonica & Bongoes) - JEFF BECK (Guitar) - PAUL SAMWELL-SMITH (Bass) - JIM MCARTY (Drums) - CHRIS DREJA (Maracas)
Hendrix stated that his influences were Chuck Berry and authentic R&B artists like Albert King, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and B.B. King inspired him he also cited Eddie Cochran as an early influence. Neither Beck nor Cream were ever mentioned by him.
Wonderful! In the early 2000’s I operated a weekend blues fest in Canada and hosted the Yardbirds. Chris Déjà and the drummer, dam I can’t remember his name while typing this, still toured the band with three new, young Britts - 40+ yrs after this film they were still AWSOME!
I really don't think they should call themselves The Yardbirds as Mccarthy left but even with him they were all American: a decent covers band only. Not to mentioned in the same breath as the London area boys and the Holy Trinity of axemen.
great clip of Jeff Beck! He was a sonic explorer. Jimi already knew of him and asked Chas Chandler whether he'd be able to meet him when Chas brought him to England.
@@longroadproductions9242 Are you sure? It looks like an Esquire. Difficult to see the difference on this grainy footage, but in general the Esquire didn't have a front pickup. Also Beck used both.
Jeff used a pick until I think the early 80's. The story is that he feared losing it during a show and from that point he did not bore to use one anymore.
See the Hard Rock Cafe solo on RU-vid, uses the pick there to brilliant effect; iirc he also did on the excellent 'Jeff Beck/Jan Hammer Live' 77 album. ''Blue Wind' had a blitz of a solo.
@ man I had the same sensation when I first tried the Tele. it has a really great tone knob and it really feels like a wha.. Jeff Beck used to obtain sounds from his guitar almost with no effect..... underrated genius
That is a very interesting thought. With no disrespect to either of them, it would be like the scene from "Deliverance" when the song "Dueling Banjos" was first heard., meaning how they would trade off on playing riffs etc...
I've seen Beck live too, yeah he's loud because the Amp has to be in order to play out the subtle nuances of Jeff's playing. Robin Trower is another loud player because of his vibrato, hammer ons and offs and bends.
That's Chris Dreja. He, together with Jimmy Page put together Led Zeppelin and was even offered the position as their bassist but declined to become a photographer
This made me play music! I remember this exact performance on Shindig! These guys were my heroes! Beck didn't even own that Esquire. The band did! Having a Rave Up was the third album I ever bought! Happy memories!
I always love Jeff Beck, Truth, Beckola- saw him live. I had no idea he he did this stuff so early in rock. Move over Rover, let Jeff take over, see ya Jimmy
Actually that's a 1954 fender esquire which only has a bridge pickup. He traded it off in 73 for a Tele parts guitar to Seymour Duncan with a couple of his pickups in it. Jeff Beck didn't give Jimmy Page a telecaster but according to Jeff Beck, Page just kind of took it when he took the guitar position in The Yardbirds. It's known as the dragon telecaster and it has a rosewood neck and two pickups.
@@psst...heyyou6508 Got it on the esquire. Page is quoted in a guitar mag interview saying Beck gave him what became the dragon Tele, but I'll take Jeff's word for what really happened.
When the Yardbirds were playing on my 3 older brothers & sisiters TURNTABLES- It JUST CLICK with me that if I Only had to breath N & OUT In A Harmonica tunes would bring my Ear to MUSIC.
