HEART FULL OF SOUL
Whitesnake hero Bernie Marsden recalls the Jeff Beck he knew – quick-witted, funny and so brilliant on the guitar that even his peers knew they couldn’t come near to his freedom on the fretboard, only surrender to it
For Bernie Marsden, Jeff Beck’s sudden and unanticipated death on 10 January cut especially deep. Bernie got to know Jeff through a friend, drummer Cozy Powell. When they met, Bernie was already a devoted fan of Beck’s playing, but, soon enough, he was able to call him a friend as well. Bernie’s admiration for Jeff ’s guitar work did not diminish with familiarity, however, and Bernie says that the bombshell news of Beck’s death felt “like losing a member of the family”. Here, Bernie shares his memories of the great guitarist, including Beck’s often-overlooked sense of humour, and recalls gigs when Jeff’s genius on the instrument moved him to both laughter and tears.
When did you first become aware of Jeff’s playing?
“As soon as I heard Heart Full Of Soul with The Yardbirds, really. Because at that point, which was around 1965 or 1966, I was 15, something like that, I was tinkering around with guitar. And then suddenly, this mate of mine said, ‘Have you heard this guy? Have you heard The Yardbirds?’ I said, ‘Well, yeah, I know the Yardbirds because I’ve got Five Live Yardbirds,’ you know? And he said, ‘No, no, no – this is the new guy.’ Then I heard
Heart Full Of Soul and all those great singles. Once Over Under Sideways Down had done its thing, I thought, ‘Well, I might as well sell this guitar…’ I mean, he was doing outrageous things then. When you think about it, there was nobody doing anything like that: that fuzzbox thing and the singlestring stuff. He was special – a ferocious player.”
Clapton and others were very pure disciples of the blues, but Jeff had a different energy.
“He came from that sort of rockabilly thing. That was his thing and he loved Les Paul. But Cliff Gallup was his main hero with Gene Vincent’s band, really. He never stopped loving that kind of thing and he’d talk about that for hours. You couldn’t talk to him about Les Pauls, but you could talk to him about Gene Vincent.”
When did you first meet him?
“I first met him at a gig I did. Actually, I didn’t meet him directly that day, but my band opened up for him in ’68 and that was with Rod Stewart in the Jeff Beck Group. Luckily enough, I have a poster of that in my music room. The first time I properly met him was in 1974 with Cozy Powell when he came to one of our gigs. Cozy just said, ‘A mate of mine’s coming to the gig tonight.’ And then about half an hour before the show, Jeff Beck swanned into the dressing room in Purley – I was a complete wreck! That was the day that he played the ‘Beast’. He played Scatterbrain on it through my little Fender Champ. It was mesmerising.”
What was he like, behind the volatile persona?
“Well, he was great. He was really funny, you know, because he had
“He was doing outrageous things [with The Yardbirds]… nobody was doing anything like that. He was special – a ferocious player”
this reputation as being difficult. But the great bonus was that Cozy had obviously played with him in a band, so they were close – they were really close. He’d always say, ‘Nah, Jeff’s great…’ I mean, my overriding memory of Jeff – apart from being a genius guitar player – was his sense of humour. He was very funny, very quick, and he would do stuff that was just unexpected. Maybe I was lucky and I was on the right side of him; we got on really well.
“He did stuff that nobody ever saw, you know? It was very gratifying because you read about these traumas and prima donna things, and you’d think, ‘Hey, he’s not like that.’ He might be like it with a promoter or somebody who’d upset him at a gig or something. But one to one, in a situation where he came to see Cozy, he was great. He was funny and a great joke-teller, which you might not think about Jeff Beck because his image was not really like that – but he was always a pleasure to be around. He gave his time really generously, once you were part of that inner circle.”
Jeff was best known for playing Strats, but he did incredible work with Les Pauls, Esquires and so on. Which did you think suited him best?
“Well, because Jeff was ever evolving, I think whatever he picked up sounded fantastic. I personally loved what he did in the Truth period [1968] with his Les Paul and the Marshalls. But there again, that’s what everybody was doing at the time. So for him to jettison that and then go to the Stratocaster… and you can never forget when he picked up that old Esquire of his, which was magical. He had me in tears a few nights from just playing Over The Rainbow, you know? You suddenly realise that you’re flooded with tears, rolling down your face… I remember him playing a particularly exquisite version of Over The Rainbow in Birmingham or maybe Manchester one night. He was not a man that you could give compliments to – he knew how good he was. You just wanted to say, ‘Jeff, that was fantastic tonight…” but he’d look at me and go, ‘Bit messy.’ You couldn’t argue because if that’s what he thought, that’s his right, you know? But if that was messy, oh to be able to play like a mess!”
What, as a fellow guitarist, did you take away from seeing him perform at close quarters over the years?
“I think he was so inspirational and yet I knew that I could never go anywhere close to what he did. Warren Haynes, who’s a pal of mine, said he didn’t listen to Jeff that much for fear of trying to imitate him. I know exactly what he means. Because when I was 20ft away from Jeff on the side of the stage watching or in the audience, I would never be intimidated by him because he was so good, so on his own, and so original.”
“My overriding memory of Jeff – apart from being a genius guitar player – was his sense of humour. He was a pleasure to be around”