Cliff Goodwin was Joe Cocker’s guitarist for a decade and has also backed Robert Palmer. For this VG exclusive, he grabbed his early-’80s Yamaha FJ-651 to play “Leap of Faith,” from his new album, “Double It Up.” An album of covers performed live with bluesy rock foundation and recorded at Abbey Road, you can read our review and an interview with Cliff in the November issue. Read Now!
• Preamp tubes: four 12AX7
• Output tubes: four 6L6
• Rectifier: silicon diodes
• Controls: Volume 1 (pull Mid Boost), Volume 2 (pull Bright), Master, Treble, Bass, Middle; five-band graphic EQ; Presence, Reverb, and Slave level controls on back panel.
• Speaker: Altec 417 12”
• Output: switchable 60/100 watts RMS
804 was the first of several that Rolling Stone Keith Richards would purchase – that’s right, purchase – and play on tour and in the studio. Owned by Boogie enthusiast Ian Dickey and known as “Keef’s El Mocambo Boogie,” it’s a Mark I 60-/100-watt with reverb, five-band graphic EQ, Altec speaker, and hardwood cab. At the time of the Mark I (so-called after introduction of the Mark II), the Mesa/Boogie was not a channel-switcher, but had two inputs to access different preamp configurations; Input 1 tapped the Lead channel with four stages of 12AX7-fired gain, while Input 2 tapped three stages in the Rhythm channel for a more “hotrodded Fender” tone. Footswitchable or not, as Richards, the Stones, and hundreds of thousands of fans would attest, this Boogie rocked like the friggin’ bejaysus.
Famous as the little club big acts like to play, Toronto’s El Mocambo hosted the Stones for two nights in early March of 1977. The first proper club dates the band had played in 14 years, they served as a recording venue for what would become side three of the album Love You Live, and were also a warm-up for a forthcoming arena tour. Photos of those shows reveal the characteristic cigarette burn Richards had scorched into the cab (above the Treble knob), and showed second guitarist Ronnie Wood also playing a Boogie built on the heels of Keith’s. Heady times.
So, how did it all unfold? According to Mesa/Boogie founder Randy Smith, it started with an unexpected phone call.
“At that point, building amps was a cottage industry and I did everything. So, I picked it up and it was [Stones pianist] Ian Stewart. He said, ‘We’re interested in trying a Boogie.’ They’d heard a lot about them and asked if I would send some. I said, ‘I really can’t do that. I’m a one-person shop; I don’t give away amps.’ And he said, ‘We’re the Rolling Stones, we don’t pay for amps.’”
A brief stalemate was broken when the pioneering builder kicked it up a notch.
“I could hear Keith in the background,” Smith continued. “He was talking at Ian, telling him what to say. I said, ‘Is that Keith? Put him on, would you please?’ Keith gets on the line and he’s just the best – super-friendly guy – and he says, ‘Hey man. How you doing? Yeah, I’d love to get my hands on one of your amplifiers.’ We went through the same thing and he said, ‘Well, it just doesn’t seem right. We haven’t paid for gear in forever. We just don’t.’ I said, ‘Well, I just don’t give gear away because I’m basically just a starving cat here. Besides, if I was going to give gear away, wouldn’t I be better off giving it to some guy – a broken-down blues player or an up-and-coming guy – who truly couldn’t afford it?’ And he kinda’ said, ‘Yeah, I guess so.’
“I’d probably been toking up, so I really stepped out on the plank. I said, ‘Keith, look at it this way… You guys are getting ready to go out on tour and you’re going to be raking in huge bucks. Pay for the amp, and if you don’t like it, you’ve got two choices. You can send it back and I’ll give you a full refund. Or, because people are trying to get their hands on these things and I’ve got a backlog that’s endless, a better option would be to sell it and take the cash, which you’ve already written off for tour expenses.’
“There was a long pause, and I thought, ‘Uh oh, I might have gone a step too far.’ After this pregnant pause, he says, ‘Well, yeah, mate. That would be a really good idea, except I already know I want the amp. There’s no doubt about that. I played Santana’s when he sat in with us. And I don’t want just one, I want six of ’em.’
“So, the amp Ian has is one of those first six. Over the years, the Stones have bought – and paid for – 42 of them.”
After the El Mocambo dates and recordings, the Boogie was used for the Some Girls sessions and more live dates, then was returned to Mesa for servicing in 1992-’93 before being taken on Richards’ X-Pensive Winos tour.
Sometime during the Stones’ Forty Licks tour of 2002-’03, Boogie A804 was given to guitar tech Pierre de Beauport, who sold it to Outlaw Guitars. An investment broker purchased it from Outlaw and sold it to Billy Penn, who hipped our current owner to its existence in ’05 and sold it to him in ’07.
Having been put through the intensive Stones CSI for authentication, this Boogie’s lineage leaves little to the imagination. In addition to the serial number linking it directly to the Richards purchase, we have the telltale cigarette burns, evidence of the positioning of the blue gaffer tape with “KR” that formerly adorned the amp’s top, Smith’s own “Stones” legend in faded Sharpie on both sidewalls of the chassis, and several other distinguishing marks. And after all it has been through, it’s still as mean and raucous as it was churning out “Honky Tonk omen,” “Crackin’ Up,” and “Brown Sugar” on March 4, 1977, shortly after Randy Smith himself delivered it into Richards’ hands in Toronto. In all, the little box is about as formidable a chunk of rock-gear history as you’ll stumble upon.
In 2021, Dickey lent it to the Gibson Garage, Nashville, for a display in celebration of bringing Mesa/Boogie into the Gibson fold; Smith personally thanked Dickey for the gesture. An orthopedic surgeon in Bangor, Maine, he plans to use the amp through the summer of ’23 for charitable performances near home and in his native Canada before loaning it to the new Gibson Garage in London.
“It’s generating a lot of attention, and it’s great that people are so excited about seeing it,” Dickey told VG. “It’s getting played a lot, and I’m looking forward to taking it out again.”
This article originally appeared in VG’s March 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
On and off from the mid 1930s until the mid ’50s, Gretsch subcontracted construction of Rex instruments to Harmony and/or Kay – most were acoustic archtops and flat-tops. By ’56, Gretsch was selling single-pickup solidbody electrics called the Rex Silver Streak and Rex Hawaiian, both made by Kay. But this Rex guitar has more to do with Queensland than Queens, the borough (Gretsch was just south of Queens, in Brooklyn).
Actually, this Rex has more to do with Melbourne, Victoria, just south of Queensland, but certainly in Australia! Rex guitars and amplifiers were the product of the Lamberti Brothers company, founded by Frank and Anthony Lamberti in 1946. Details are spotty, but it appears that Frank emigrated from Italy to Australia as a teenager in the ’30s. He got work at Astor Radio, taking night classes in radio engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. After World War II, he joined his brother, Tony, a carpenter, to start the company, Frank serving as engineer, Tony a musician who supervised manufacturing.
The initial focus of Lamberti Bros. seems to have been on building Rex and Eston-branded tube amplifiers, though some sources mention early banjo-mandolins and guitars, as well. Frank concentrated on the chassis while Tony finished cabinets. By the late ’50s, the Lamberti empire had expanded to include a retail music store, a music school, and their own record label, Melodiana, to promote local Italian musicians. Eventually, they were involved in importing, selling, and distributing musical instruments, Italian records, home appliances, and televisions. Lamberti Bros. manufactured amplifiers and guitars at its subsidiary, General Music Company. Other instruments, including guitars, were imported from Italy, Japan, and Taiwan using the brand names Rex, Eston, Electa, Canora, and Boston. Lamberti Bros. also distributed instruments by Fender, Epiphone, Ibanez, Rogers, Ludwig, Pearl, Tama, Selmer, and D’Addario.
Rex amps with various output ratings included the AG-6, Mascot, and Bassking, the latter being the most popular. Cosmetically, they tended to follow a Fender look.
Lamberti Bros. instrument manufacturing at General Music ceased in 1974, due to high labor costs, but importing and distributing activities continue to this day.
According to Frank’s son, Joe Lamberti, the guitar seen here was built in Australia by the General Music Company. Presumably, it had a model designation, though none appear. It also has no serial number and the pots have no visible date codes. Based on overall design (which in size and shape is very similar to early-’60s Kay and Harmony solidbodies) plus the tuners, thickness of the neck, pickup designs, and sound, this one dates to ’64, though it could have been made earlier or slightly later.
The overall build is impressive. The set neck is three-ply maple (using different cuts) with mahogany divider strips; there is no visible truss rod. It’s what used to be called a “baseball bat” neck, with a thick, rounded-C profile (to carry those heavy gauge Black Diamond strings…or whatever they used in Australia back then), about 11/2″ thick including fretboard, all the way up the neck. The radius is a fairly flat 12″ with a wide 2″ nut. Despite the small body, the scale is fairly long at 26″. The core of the body appears to be solid maple with a veneer of tiger maple front and back.
The covered tuners look very European but don’t appear to be Van Ghents, the most common type on ’60s Euro guitars. Similar buttons were used on other Italian guitars, so, given the Lambertis’ strong Italian connections, these may be of Italian origin. And maybe it’s because the guitar comes from the Southern Hemisphere, but the tuners tighten and loosen in the opposite direction than on most guitars! The bridge/tail is a curious wraparound design that brings to mind the old Danelectro designs.
The single-coil pickups originally had covers – you can see where they were in the wear on the pickguard. Reports say that Frank Lamberti aimed for a clean, hi-fi sound with his amplifiers. These pickups are not especially powerful, but they are very clean with a good frequency response, consistent with Rex’s amplifier goal. The electronic components are particularly interesting. The pickups are mounted directly onto the body under the pickguard (which would decrease feedback) and the wiring harness was assembled on a metal plate that was turned over and screwed into the body cavity.
This guitar would look swell and fit right in with a surf or early-’60s pop band. You probably wouldn’t find it in the hands of Jimi Hendrix or Michael Bloomfield late in the decade!
It’s unlikely Rex guitars were exported, at least not outside of the Oceana region. This guitar turned up years ago in a music shop in New Jersey – another example of guitars that returned in a G.I.’s duffel bag after a tour of duty in the Pacific!
When General Music Company closed shop in ’74, a number of nearly finished amps were locked in the warehouse, where they sat until a few years ago. Resuscitated and completed in original vintage vinyl, they were offered for sale and revived interest in vintage Rex amps among Australian musicians. Lamberti Rex guitars (and other Australian brands such as Maton), on the other hand, remain pretty much hidden in the shadows of Gretsch’s better-known Rex budget line – and certainly under the radar in the vintage market.
This article originally appeared in VG’s March 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Sparse and haunting, Thomm Jutz and his ’48 Martin D-18 share a solo take on “Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies,” from his new album with Martin Simpson, “Nothing But Green Willow: The Songs of Mary Sands and Jane Gentry.” Like you, Thomm is a guitarhead, and he shares the juicy details of his D. Be sure to read our review of the album in the November issue. Read Now!
A fixture in New York City blues joints and familiar face in others worldwide, Popa Chubby melds blues-rock with punk-rock immediacy. His new album with The Beast Band, “Live at G. Bluey’s Juke Joint NYC” is loaded with Popa’s sense of danger and attitude. That’s his ’57 Gibson TV Special plugged straight into a ’66 Princeton Reverb while he jams on “I Don’t Want Nobody.” Catch our review and interview with Popa in the November issue. Read Now!
John Notto used his road-dog Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul ’58 reissue on pieces of two tracks – “Won’t Take Me Alive,” and “Satisfied” from Dirty Honey’s latest album, “Can’t Find the Brakes.” Catch our review and an interview with John in the November issue. Read Now!
You might recognize his name as founder of Aguilar Electronics and co-founder of Aguilar Amplification. He was also a design engineer on amps and pedals at Fender, and now he’s an engineer at Stewart MacDonald, working on pedals, amplifiers, and other electronics. Primarily a Tele player who uses the Volume control for swells, he has long wanted a Les Paul that could be played the same way. This mod presented an especially enticing challenge.
1) Alex marked the spot for the control with a blue sticker. His Les Paul is a 2021 model.
2) Since a hole for the pot will cut through the wiring channel – and because the guitar will be completely re-wired – we removed the electronics.
3) I had a handful of practice wood pieces left from a finishing workshop, so I used one to test-bore holes.
4) Despite the fact my test piece came out well, I was a little nervous as I jigged the guitar then started the milling/drilling machine.
5) Scary, right?
6) Anticipating the control knob being on plane with the top carve, I drilled the shaft hole with the guitar shimmed at an angle.
7) With woodwork complete, I filled the grain in the bore with StewMac Colortone water-based filler colored with Cherry Red stain, then brushed on several coats of Cherry Red clear lacquer.
8) Alex wanted a long-shaft 1k-ohm pot, but I couldn’t find one, so my friend Joel Wilkens, a repair expert and master of electronics, made a custom pot by joining two. “I got CTA audio-taper 450 pots, one 500k with a long shaft, the other a 1-meg with a short shaft,” he told me. “I removed the wafer from the 1-meg and installed it in the 500k. It was super simple.” That’s the wafer in the middle.
9) Our shop intern, Ceil Thompson, made a cover plate for the new hole on the back. It looks stock, doesn’t it?
10) Gene Imbody does clean wiring work here in the shop – better than mine – and loved doing this mod.
11) Ceil did final setup – her first on a Les Paul. She also packed and shipped the guitar to Alex, who was thrilled enough to send a note: “Dan, the Les Paul arrived safe and sound. Wow, it’s fantastic! The reach for the Master Volume is perfect, the execution and work are awesome. This is the LP I’ve always dreamed about, and with the StewMac Parsons Street pickups, its sound is clearer, with better articulation and dynamics. The setup is perfect and it just feels terrific. I am so pleased!”
Dan Erlewine has been repairing guitars for more than 50 years. He is the author of three books, dozens of magazine articles, and has produced instructional videotapes and DVDs on guitar repair. From 1986 through his retirement in late 2019, Erlewine was part of the R&D team for Stewart-MacDonald’s Guitar Shop Supply; today he remains involved with the company, offering advice to the department and shooting video for the company’s website and social media. This column has appeared in VG since March, 2004. You can contact Dan at dan@stewmac.com.
This article originally appeared in VG’s February 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Heralded by many as the birth cry of metal, Truth was Beck’s first album as bandleader, and the 1968 release pre-dates Zep by several pivotal months.
JBG was formed in January ’67, then performed consistently throughout the year and was in the studio recording on May 14, 1968, while Jimmy Page was touring the U.S. with the Yardbirds. In June, Beck was on the road with his primary JBG lineup (Rod Stewart, Ron Wood, and Mick Waller) while Page was more than two months from assembling what would become Zep.
Truth was released in America on October 4, weeks before The New Yardbirds (Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham) were recording the earliest tracks for Led Zeppelin. The matter is made more convoluted by the fact that both bands included a heavy blues-rock version of “You Shook Me.” However, there’s a wild card in the game – “Beck’s Bolero” and the fateful session in spring of ’66.
Beck’s heavy, melodic rock was epitomized by his reappraisal of “Shapes of Things.” Where the erstwhile Yardbirds hit featured fuzzy raga-inspired solo lines, the JBG version sports a sleek, elegant melodic theme (1:16) inflected with highly personal variations of string bending, rhythmic punctuation, and ornamentation. Note the use of whole-step, half-step, and held bends and the B Mixolydian mode, a measured trill decoration figure, wide interval leaps, and the emblematic descending B arpeggio in measures 4 and 6 – a favorite Beck phrase ending. His contrasting line in 8-9 is purely rhythmic and milks a stuttering pattern of simple but effective articulated half-step bends repeated as only he could.
“Beck’s Bolero” was an instrumental crafted by Beck and Page just days before the session. Built on the interaction of Beck’s lead guitar and Page’s 12-string-electric rhythm, its stately, vocalesque theme and quasi-classical bolero groove prompted the evocative title, offset by a heavy, riff-based bridge. In retrospect, the song introduced several tenets of metal: a vaguely ethnic lead-guitar melody played with a distorted feedback-laced tone, a juxtaposition of textures, terraced dynamics, charging modulatory power riff rendered as an ensemble figure in the bridge, and a strong, distinct musical identity different from the obligatory blues-rock of earlier British fare. Relegated to the B-side of Beck’s first single as a pop vocalist, “Hi Ho Silver Lining” (March ’67), it languished until Truth.
The Led Whobirds is a tongue-in-cheek nickname given retrospectively to five participants of a hurriedly arranged record date at IBC’s London studio on May 17, 1966, consisting of Beck and Page, drummer Keith Moon, session bassist John Paul Jones, and session pianist Nicky Hopkins. “Beck’s Bolero” was the only track issued from the illustrious two-hour session, though other music was recorded. It provided an early template for what would become heavy metal – the band that could have been Zep (Page’s words). From a different perspective, what was laid down that day by members of (future) Zeppelin, the Who, and Yardbirds planted the seeds for a new genre. Beck biographer Annette Carson succinctly put into words what many feel in their gut. If Beck’s ambitions of ’66 had come to fruition, he would’ve preceded Cream and Jimi Hendrix, and precluded Led Zeppelin.
Rock got heavier and more experimental in the wake of “Beck’s Bolero” and Truth; Beck noted the trend in the liner notes of the follow-up, Beck-Ola. Blues-rock rapidly evolved into heavy metal, and metal was a term used regularly by ’70. Zep reigned supreme at decade’s end, bolstered by “Whole Lotta Love” and Led Zeppelin II. Meanwhile, beset by artistic and personal differences, JBG released the considerably heavier Beck-Ola and parted company in August ’69, just a few weeks before the Woodstock festival. The turbulent history of heavy metal has been punctuated by tangents and transitions, few as significant as the trend started by the first Jeff Beck Group – if you can believe Ted Nugent, Joe Walsh, Tom Scholz, Gary Moore, George Lynch, Jamie West-Oram, Steve Morse, John Frusciante, Slash, or Joe Bonamassa.
The London blues-rock community affected Beck considerably. Eric Clapton’s thicker timbre with John Mayall’s Blues Breakers and Cream prompted him to acquire a Gibson Les Paul and strive for a heavier blues-rock sound. Another factor was Page, who, as a producer and studio maven, provided recording opportunities for Beck and Clapton on the Immediate label. Hendrix was also an important influence, and inspired Beck to exploit a Strat after Beck-Ola. A lesser, but still consequential, influence was the power-rock (frontman/singer plus trio) bombast of The Who. Though Beck admired the intensity of drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle’s facility, he never cited Pete Townshend as a guitar influence and expanded JBG into a quintet to include Hopkins. A key aspect of their approach was the near-telepathic interplay of Beck’s guitar and Stewart’s singing; epitomized by the intuitive trading of parts in “Rock My Plimsoul,” the tight duetting of “Let Me Love You” and the complementary arrangement of “Shapes of Things.” These factor s influenced Plant-Page excursions in early Zep.
Beck invigorated British blues-rock with tracks like “Let Me Love You.” This passage launched his 12-bar blues in F# and utilizes a number of trademark elements. Check out the held bend and slow-release move in the opening, answered by expressive legato at the phrase ending in measure 4. His funky, rhythmic phrasing enlivens bars 5 and 6 and is melodically simple, yet rhythmically involved. He applies a streamlined (but highly syncopated) two-note figure (D# and E) over B7, creating a choppy, animated phrasing with a modal feel. The second half is played in the upper register, in contrast to his lower opening lines. Note his inimitable treatment of legato bends in 8-11, emphatic string scrapes in 12, and nasally stuck-wah/fuzz sound.
Venturing beyond turf established by the Yardbirds, he’d assimilated his primary influences – Les Paul, Cliff Gallup, James Burton, Paul Burlison, Chet Atkins, Buddy Guy, and Otis Rush – and reshaped them into a heady amalgam in JBG. His inclusion of Far Eastern modes and Celtic references was more skilled, richer, and subtler. A new facet was his semi-classical reading of “Greensleeves” as a fingerstyle guitar piece – part English folk, part Chet Atkins, the off-the-cuff number established the tradition of including a solo acoustic-guitar vignette amidst the heaviness of a metal album; foreshadowing tracks like Jimmy Page’s “White Summer,” Eddie Van Halen’s “Spanish Fly,” Randy Rhoads’ “Dee,” and Yngwie Malmsteen’s “Black Star.” A finer point was made with the country undertones in the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme worked into live versions of “Jeff’s Boogie.” Moreover, his early fusion found him showcasing bandmates’ strengths in diverse, unexpected settings; consider Hopkins’ gospel piano dominating “Girl from Mill Valley,” Stewart’s atypical rendering of George Gershwin’s standard “Ol’ Man River” (which revealed Rod’s love of the Great American Songbook), Wood’s bass soloing on “Spanish Boots” (3:05) and Waller’s drum solo/coda in “I Ain’t Superstitious.”
Beck’s reinterpretation of blues and rock resulted in several powerful, albeit mutated, outings. On Truth, his blues veered from the conventional influences of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and was taken to its breaking point with twisted soloing in “Let Me Love You,” “You Shook Me,” “Rock My Plimsoul,” “Blues De Luxe,” and “I Ain’t Superstitious.” Noteworthy are his free mix of pentatonic blues licks and elastic string bending tinged with odd chromaticism and sophisticated note choices, Far Eastern allusions, and random-if-purposeful sound effects. His slide guitar approach, played in standard tuning reminiscent of Earl Hooker, was repurposed for the slurred lines in “Beck’s Bolero” (0:38-0:55). His rock-and-roll roots were self-evident, epitomized by JBG’s metallic covers of Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” and “Jailhouse Rock” on Beck-Ola. Similar reinventions distinguished covers of the Yardbirds hit “Shapes of Things” and the Tim Rose composition “Morning Dew,” which developed into a tour de force for Beck’s wah orchestrations.
Beck adopted a tougher, metallic, colorful style in JBG. Power chords and edgy beyond-blues licks were ubiquitous, laced with his puckish humor and unique rhythmic delivery. In the process, he codified traits we take for granted as heavy metal lead-guitar staples, including artful noises like pick slides and string scrapes, exaggerated slurs, free-form feedback screeches and electronic effects as musical events, and various guitar-generated percussive sounds like the slide antics in “All Shook Up” (4:28-4:37). A particularly telling moment occurs at the end of “You Shook Me,” where the listener is treated to what his tortured guitar (laden with feedback and wah) really sounds like after being assaulted for two and a half minutes. Beck’s imaginative, well-conceived overdubbing, similar to Les Paul’s multi-tracked wizardry, dominated arrangements on Truth and Beck-Ola. Prime examples are heard in “Shapes of Things” “Jailhouse Rock” “All Shook Up” and “Rice Pudding.” Particularly intriguing pieces of ear candy include the unpredictable careening parts (three truly independent guitar voices) in “Shapes,” slow-panned solo of “Rock My Plimsoul” (album version), chorused doubling of “Rice Pudding,” weighty stereo imaging of his wah in “I Ain’t Superstitious,” and insertion of a bagpipes track in “Morning Dew.”
“Blues De Luxe” remains a high-water mark of Beck’s career. A slow-blues, it was loosely based on B.B. King’s “Gambler’s Blues” and featured his sinewy, Buddy Guy-inspired string bending and his own command of unusual modal melodies. This excerpt offers his three opening solo phrases. Each is played over a stop-time band break, conveys a separate musical identity, and is accompanied by canned applause from a sound-effects record – more evidence of that famous Jeff Beck humor. The first passage (measure 1) is quirky and bitonal; implying a D major-mode sound superimposed on a C7 chord – a risky proposition that Beck handles with aplomb. The second statement (measure 2) is more-traditional, based on Cm pentatonic with an added 6th (A) and slinky string bending and releasing. The third (measures 3-4) is “notier,” exploits the C blues scale, uses classic blues single-note mannerisms twisted into uncommon patterns, and caps his opening thoughts with authority.
Essential Listening
Truth and Beck-Ola are must-haves in any guitar lover’s collection, supplemented by Twilight of the Idols and Live at the Fillmore West (San Francisco ’68). Also recommended is the Beckology box set, which contains the rare B-side version of “Rock My Plimsoul” and “I’ve Been Drinking.” Worth searching for is the 1988 compilation Jeff Beck: The Late 60s with Rod Stewart, a 19-song set that includes “I’ve Been Drinking” and Beck’s first three solo singles.
Essential Reading
Jeff Beck: Crazy Fingers by Annette Carson (Backbeat Books) is even more essential today.
Sound
The first phase of JBG was distinguished by the sound of Beck’s sunburst ’59 Les Paul Standard, acquired in ’66 in the Yardbirds. Recognized by its black replacement pickguard and double-white bobbins, the guitar was heard on Yardbirds tracks but was indispensable to the thicker, heavier tone of the JBG. Stripped of its finish in mid ’68, it was damaged in a fall from an amp stack later that year, so Beck acquired a second ’Burst. In contrast to the earlier plain top, the second flaunted a flamed-maple/tiger-stripe top. Its pickup covers were removed to reveal black bobbins in the bridge position and a zebra (black-white) PAF near the neck. Purchased from Rick Nielsen for $350 in October ’68 and first played live by Beck at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, it’s emblematic, and shown in famed JBG shots from the Shrine Exposition Hall in November ’68. While touring the U.S. in ’68, Beck purchased a ’54 maple-board Stratocaster as a quick replacement for the damaged Les Paul and used it regularly in the studio by the time Beck-O-La was recorded. Identified by its broken pickguard edge on the lower horn, he was first seen playing it at the Tea Party in Boston in late October of ’68, and used it sporadically in the ’70s. The guitar had been stripped of its finish to bare wood and appeared in Beck performances as late as ’77; however, by that time he had replaced the neck with a CBS bullet-truss version with a rosewood fretboard. Also in the early JBG arsenal were Beck’s trademark ’54 Esquire, a Telecaster with super light-gauge strings, and an electric 12-string with a Tele body and Danelectro neck.
Beck was a staunch Marshall advocate by the end of his Yardbirds stint in late ’66, but was seen with 100-watt Vox amp stacks in March ’67, during the rehearsals for the first Jeff Beck Group; he recalls using a Les Paul-Marshall combination for Truth. These were most likely 100-watt stacks, though he also plugged into the new Marshall 200-watt Major heads with four cabinets for JBG live shows. For variety or out of necessity, he occasionally resorted to daisy-chained Fender amps or Sunn heads with Univox cabinets. According to engineer Ken Scott, speaker cabinets were isolated in closets during Truth sessions, resulting in the sharp definition between instruments. “Beck’s Bolero,” culled from his earlier Yardbirds period, was recorded with the Les Paul through Vox AC30 and Tone Bender fuzz over Page’s Fender XII. Beck occasionally relied on an AC30 with a Les Paul as late as studio sessions for the second version of JBG in April ’71.
On Truth, Beck used producer Mickie Most’s Martin D-18 for “Greensleeves.” His experiments with a Sho-Bud steel guitar resulted in the swirling, futuristic overdubs in “Shapes of Things.” His effects of the era included the trademark Colorsound Tone Bender fuzz box and a Vox wah pedal heard prominently on “You Shook Me,” “Morning Dew,” and “I Ain’t Superstitious.” Studio echo was applied to “Shapes of Things,” and in concert, Beck used a Maestro Echoplex for delay.
Wolf Marshall is the founder and original editor-in-chief of GuitarOne magazine and a respected author and columnist who has been influential in contemporary music education since the early 1980s. His latest releases include 101 Must-Know Rock Licks, B.B. King: the Definitive Collection, and Best of Jazz Guitar. Wolf’s list of credits can be found at wolfmarshall.com.
This article originally appeared in VG’s February 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Fusing against-the-grain arrangements and meters with grandiose lyrics, King Crimson’s approach was piloted by guitarist Robert Fripp frenetically chordingπ on a Les Paul Custom rendering everything from snarling fuzz riffs to a dark version of Clapton’s “woman tone.” Fripp shifted the band’s music and membership from album to album and composed songs that were often extended, with variations in mood, tempo, volume, and time signatures.
Guitarist Jakko Jakszyk, who joined King Crimson in 2013, first heard the band in ’69, on an Island Records sampler album. He was 11 years old.
“It blew the top of my head off,” he recalled. “You could tell it was coming from somewhere different. Robert seemed ruthlessly determined to plow his own particular musical furrow.”
One of Crimson’s most-noteworthy stylistic transpositions happened in early ’73, when Fripp recruited bassist/vocalist John Wetton, drummer Bill Bruford (who joined from Yes), violinist David Cross, and eccentric percussionist Jamie Muir. Together, they created a stripped-down, semi-abstract tack with little of the Mellotron that previously played a key role. Wetton’s tones were evoked from a ’61 Fender Precision interpolated with fuzz and wah. His evocative vocals and relatable lyrics were also assets.
The lineup debuted with Larks’ Tongues in Aspic before Muir left, followed by Cross after the next album, Starless and Bible Black. In the summer of ’74, the remaining three recorded Red, with Cross and saxophonists Ian McDonald and Mel Collins contributing a handful of parts.
Jakszyk’s first encounter with Red happened while he was working in the record department of a local store.
“Robert’s tone and approach writ large on this album,” he said. “The ascending melody on the title track and the unique tone and phrasing throughout was a huge influence on how I wanted to play, and what I wanted my music to sound like.”
Red is only five songs, each a standout for separate reasons. The instrumental title-track opener starts with raw, howling guitar lines before focusing on a distorted chord melody. The riffs were some of the most “mainstream” Fripp had ever played.
The softer portions of “Fallen Angel” lament street life in a gritty metropolis, with a delicate acoustic passage from Fripp before proceedings crank up on the growling chorus.
“One More Red Nightmare” discusses the perils of airline travel; each verse has an unorthodox start, with Wetton’s vocals against a guitar solo. The track has a unique percussion effect created by Bruford’s ride cymbal, which was cracked and warped when he found it in a trash bin; its clanking resonance fits perfectly.
“Providence” is quasi-free-form, recorded live and showcasing the band’s experimental soundscapes. And finally, “Starless” is a 12-minute masterwork opening with minor-key Mellotron and Fripp’s melancholy guitar; its dirge-like initial pace recalls Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” though Red preceded The Wall by a half-decade. Wetton’s plaintive singing fits the mood perfectly, and as his vocal concludes, he starts with an ominous, repetitive riff on his P-Bass, soon joined by Fripp playing twangy, repeated single notes before their riffing creeps upward in volume and urgency. Fripp works in more strings, bending them until the song explodes in a galloping frenzy, with saxophone and the return of Bruford’s dilapidated cymbal; the cacophony references the chaos of the band’s signature song, “21st Century Schizoid Man,” before careening back to the intro melody, louder and more forcefully. The track is definitive King Crimson on an album of fan favorites.
“I can see why someone would think that, since it goes through so many moods and changes, and contains so many Crimson trademarks and dynamics,” Jakszyk said of “Starless.” “It’s at times beautiful, heart-wrenching, minimalistic, majestic, savage, and has the big build-and-release.”
The song’s final chord decays to silence that serves as both finale and requiem, given that Fripp had decided to break up the band as Red was recorded.
In 1981, Fripp staged a version of Crimson that took another musical direction, and he has done so numerous times since. In testament to the durability of Red, the most-recent incarnation has performed every song except “Providence.”
This article originally appeared in VG’s February 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
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