Let us begin with the etymology of the word “geek.”
In its purest form, the term referred to a carnival performer who committed repulsive acts on stage. The classic geek move was to bite the head off of a live chicken, sometimes a snake. However, as time marched on, the word took on a meaning closer to that of “nerd.” More recently, “geek” has been used to describe an individual who is hyper-enthusiastic with regard to a particular pursuit, be it sports, Star Wars or music.
My name is Tom, and I am a guitar geek. (“Hi, Tom!”). Which means that I am beyond tickled that uber geeks Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill have joined forces to produce the just-released Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story (Da Capo, $32.50, 400 pp.). Tolinski and Gill are both highly regarded music journalists, with several books and hundreds (thousands?) of magazine articles to their collective credit. The two scribes previously collaborated on Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen.
Beck died in 2023 after succumbing to a bacterial meningitis infection, so he is no longer available to shed light on his legend. And even if he were, it is questionable whether he would have been a willing participant in a comprehensive biography such as this one. Enter Messrs. Tolinski and Gill.
Speaking via Zoom, Tolinski and Gill project palpable enthusiasm when discussing Beck, a revered instrumentalist who – despite revolutionizing guitar playing during the ‘60s as a member of the Yardbirds and during the ‘70s with his jazz fusion albums Blow by Blow and Wired – remains something of a shadowy figure. Some casual fans may be aware that he served as the inspiration (at least so far as the haircut goes) for the character of Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap, but beyond that?
Part of this information gap has to do with the fact that not many books have been written about Beck. The lives of his contemporaries – Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix – have been extensively documented on the printed page, but Beck? Not so much.
“Jeff wasn’t as public as those other guys,” Tolinski notes. “And I guess it was our – Chris’s and my – great good fortune to strike up a professional friendship with him. And so we would speak to him quite regularly. Not only isn’t there much out there, but a lot of it was disinformation almost.
“And that was the complexity of this book. We had to spend three or four years researching and having to sort through the fact and the fiction of all of it, including Jeff’s own. Jeff was someone who would tell the same story three or four different ways, so we had to pick through those as well.”
When Jeff Beck is mentioned in a gaggle of guitar players, there is often a brief, almost reverential pause before anyone says anything. What is it that makes members of the cognoscenti speak in awed, hushed tones when Beck’s name comes up?
“He’s a singular talent,” Gill says, “an artist, an innovator. He really pushed the envelope in so many ways, from the very beginning, from the first time he burst into the spotlight with the Yardbirds. ‘Heart Full of Soul’ – there are several things that he accomplished right off the bat. It’s one of the first uses of a fuzz box on a pop single, predating ‘Satisfaction’ and Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones. It’s also an early raga-rock song. It’s an early psychedelic rock song.
“I think it’s interesting, because he comes up consistently in the top ten of these ‘greatest guitarists’ lists, all the time, and yet he sold a lot fewer records than these other people. He’s really the ultimate cult artist.”
Following his tenure with the Yardbirds during the ‘60s, Beck embarked on a solo career, leading the Jeff Beck Group, which initially featured future stars Rod Stewart on vocals and Ronnie Wood on bass. Following that, he teamed up with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice for the power trio Beck, Bogert and Appice, which experienced modest success.
But by the mid-70s, Beck, ever the musical explorer, was ready for something different. Influenced by the Miles Davis albums Bitches Brew and A Tribute to Jack Johnson, Beck became a pillar of the jazz fusion movement with Blow by Blow and Wired. Jazz records never sold well in comparison to pop and rock releases, so no one expected much from Beck’s initial foray into the form. But lo and behold, the all-instrumental Blow by Blow rose to No.4 on the Billboard album chart and eventually sold over one million copies.
What happened? As Beck himself explained, “A lot of people liked Blow by Blow because it simplified [jazz guitarist John] McLaughlin and it complicated rock and roll.”
“He had a tremendous amount of taste. I mean, he’s almost never embarrassed himself. He sort of weaved in and out of various decades of music without doing anything stupid,” Tolinski says. You can point to Page or Clapton or any of these other people, and sometimes they go through periods that just aren’t cool. But Jeff was always cool.”
As mentioned, Tolinski and Gill have collaborated before, on an Eddie Van Halen oral history volume. How did things come together this time around? Was there a strict division of labor? How did all that work? “Intimidation and fear!” Gill replies. “The Spanish Inquisition!”
“Chris and I have worked together for a long time,” Tolinksi adds, “and I think we’re both aware of our strengths and weaknesses. We sort of divvied up the book accordingly. We’ve had a lot of great discussions, but I can’t think of any real disagreements.”
“I’m really a big facts and research guy. That’s my focus, and I like to dig and dig and dig. In something like a book, it’s important to get the facts straight, to tell the proper story,” Gill says. “Sometimes I get a little bogged down in facts, and Brad kind of brings me out and says, ‘Make it more entertaining. Put some humor in there.’
“It’s like the crime television shows with all the pictures on the wall and strings going through stuff, and I’m trying to put this together for people. But sometimes you just have to get that one string and go there. And Brad’s really good at getting me to focus.”
Beck could sometimes be a difficult (unpredictable at the very least) character, and Blow by Blow captures this dimension of his personality while still shedding light on his genius and humanity. “A lot of people have commented that the book is sort of ‘warts and all,’ like we’re not afraid to show Jeff for who he is,” Tolinski says. “It’s not like he was a bad guy or anything, but during the 50, 60 years of being a rock and roller in a rock and roll career, you have to look at all of it. The good stuff, the bad stuff. And that’s really, actually, what makes for an interesting person. And an interesting book.”
