Chords for Backstage With Jeff Beck

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_ [F#m] We're [C] backstage here at the Beacon Theater in New York City with the guitarist Jeff Beck.
He's in the final stretch of a joint tour with Brian Wilson of [F#] the Beach Boys.
Jeff, thanks for joining us.
How are you doing?
Great, great.
So a lot of things come to mind when people think of your name.
An association of the Beach Boys isn't necessarily one of them.
Maybe you could talk a little bit about how the work with Brian Wilson started.
When you say Beach Boys, the immediate picture conjured up is [G#m] California Girls.
_ _ _ _ Brian Wilson side of it.
His Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, 20-20, and all those great albums which contain songs that
are not surf songs.
And those are the songs that really grabbed hold of me in the 60s, especially Pet Sound. _ _
_ It's just _ hard to describe what that music did to me.
_ _ And the melody being so strong, _ the musicality of it.
It's not just 12 bar digga digga digga.
_ That's great stuff, but it [D#m] transcended way beyond surf into almost [C#] psychedelic pop songs.
It gave me [B] the vision to make wild sounds on the guitar.
Because [G] if people could have a pop single that changed key, it was a long, long drawn out. _ _
_ Whereas two and a half minutes was the max in those days.
This really opened up the whole game for me.
You've collaborated with so many artists, young ones, veterans, especially singers.
_ What's your key to working with new people?
Especially legends like this, you're coming in cold.
You don't have a personality relationship with them to start with.
What's your approach?
The first hit is, would this work?
Am I going to be able to do anything?
_ I went to Leanne Rimes.
_ What have I got to do with Leanne Rimes?
_ When you talk to Leanne Rimes, she asks you a question, you answer it.
_ I like bossy people and positive people and people with great talent.
But I would never imagine myself being on a single, let alone any album track or anything,
with a country singer.
But I find a little slot that I think I could do something in, which is different from something else.
It's another little avenue I can exercise some of my styles.
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[G] _ _ How [A] _ _ _ [G] _
_ [D#] _ [C] _ _ does [Gm] the voice of your guitar [C] blend with the [A#] harmonies of Wilson and the other singers?
[G] You guys are doing songs together.
Yeah, I think it works pretty well.
_ One of the most beautiful ones is Don't Talk, which Brian doesn't sing anymore.
I guess it's too high a range for him.
That works well.
It's got a very beautiful melody. _
So you essentially sing the lead on the guitar?
Yeah, _ absolutely.
[A#] _ Same with Surf's Up.
[Gm] I play all the little passing notes and _ some of the incidental vocal backings as well.
[N] _ _ It seems to be going over quite well.
I'm very pleased.
What challenges still face you on the guitar?
I'd love to learn to play it.
That would be nice.
_ What are you trying to teach yourself?
_ I don't know what I'm trying to do.
_ _ I've been forced into playing songs that carry a melody _ because I don't sing. _
_ [A] Al Jardine said to me,
Why don't you get _ [Em] a voice trainer and sing?
Because that will open up a million doors.
[Am] I said, because I don't [D] feel right doing it.
It was not my _ [E] vocation with the guitar.
And there are people [Bm] that sing [F] a lot better than I do, with or without the [D] trainer.
_ But he [F] may have got something.
Maybe if [Am] somebody plonked _ the song that was a Jeff Beck perfect song,
that [N] would reach people, then I would have a go at it.
But even then it would have to pass the stringent rules that I have about voices.
_ Whether it would be justifiable for me to sing or not.
_ _ _ When you say sing, Jimmy never sang.
He sort of threw the lyric at you in a very casual way, but it worked.
So speaking of Jimmy, it was about 45 years ago, here in New York,
where you did a run, that he accompanied you on stage,
or he showed up night by night.
What _ remains with you about either his personality or his playing?
Just _ _ almost beyond human, really.
He whispered, he hardly ever said anything.
He never shouted.
You had to really have a good hearing to hear that.
In his speaking voice?
Yeah.
Hey, you ready?
Sort of a short sound bite.
_ I tried to keep up with him for three days without sleep.
We'd go to a club, play there, and then he would have breakfast at 4 or 5 in the morning.
And then I think [Em] we'd go into our separate [N] hotels.
I'd go back to his hotel, we'd play.
Then he goes and has more breakfast.
Then he's off somewhere else.
Three days I thought, I can't deal with this.
I didn't really want to get involved in whatever it was that was keeping him awake.
_ And just as we were getting close, a tragedy happened in London.
You didn't really do anything but stand and listen when he was in full flood.
And then it was my turn.
I had to delve into everything that was in me to match what he was doing.
_ And he knew that I had quirkiness that he loved.
It wasn't necessarily anything spectacular, but it would be a different spin on a lick.
Or _ I'd maybe slacken off a string and do a sitar noise, and he loved that.
_ _ Just anything really off the scale was what Jimmy liked about my playing.
Is there still room for innovation in the world of rock guitar especially?
I think that little old funny shape in a wood is still staring me in the face every day going,
come on, you haven't started yet.
_ It's infinite, what you can infinitely variable.
_ The Fender Stratocaster was made for me, I believe it was.
_ _ _ _ With that whammy bar, you can turn it to pedal steel.
_ You can play rockabilly and jazz.
It doesn't have the depth of maybe a hollow body guitar, but it is a rock.
It's the tool for rock and roll.
_ Nothing they can do to it will make it any better than it's already been already.
I wonder what keeps you from, especially now there's an anniversary upon us,
_ what keeps the collaboration with Rod Stewart from happening?
Is it a different, _ _ clashing personality or a clashing vision for where it should go?
It's him, his football, his family, him and his manager.
Get rid of them, we'll have enough of them.
Move everyone aside.
No, _ the side of me that would love to recreate the excitement [G] that was so severely dumped upon
_ in the late 60s, but look, they gave me a career in the guitar, up front.
I'm a front man, I'm not a side man to a singer.
And it's a tough _ decision to make, to go back with.
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The indication was when he came to the L.
Ray that it would be a great idea
because the audience went absolutely ballistic.
They went mad when he came on.
And I got a [G] phone call, which he never calls, on the way to the airport.
Where are you going?
This is the greatest thing.
Have you read the reviews and all that?
_ And I know him well enough to know it's a waste of time. _
_ _ Because I'll go to the studio and it'll be three days late because he had to go back east.
And I don't do things like that.
But it _ depends on his voice.
The whole thing pivots on whether he can sing that stuff anymore.
He needs the right material.
_ But can he concentrate long enough to look for it?
_ I'm the one that's doing all the looking.
Hey, Spotify, get it.
_ Spend a couple of months on there, find a song.
Well, Jeff Beck, thanks so much for talking to us.
Was that it?
Have fun tonight.
I thought we were going to get into the punch-up.
We [C#] _
can [G] go.
Keep rolling. _ _ _ _ _
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