Jeff Beck on Guitars + | Don’s Tunes

JEFF BECK - On Guitars : Strats vs. Les Paul's

 Jeff Beck: “I think it was when we did the [1969] Beck-Ola album that I got fed up with the sound of the Les Paul. In the studio, the Les Paul didn’t sound a lot different from the John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Lovely sound, but every track ends up sounding very similar. The Strat seemed to respond more to my aggressive playing than the Les Paul, which just sounds dreadful if you start hitting it.”

The Les Paul is heavier, but because of that bulk you can do bends on it more easily. Also, the Les Paul’s lack of a vibrato arm means you’re not wrestling against the spring-loaded bridge all the time.

The Strat is the ultimate because it’s like having a miniature pedal steel within it. Once you get familiar with where the bends are and where they meld down into a fourth or whatever, you can do all kinds of pedal-steel-like things, which I think are cool. Some of the things that sound the most difficult are the easiest for me.“

Photo: Robert Knight Archive/Redferns

Don's Tunes

More guitar . . . . . . Jeff Beck

 

beautiful reflective portrait here from Michael Putland

We are surely going to miss this man!

After his video clip on his guitar collection

comes this:

Jeff Beck:  

“The Les Paul was more challenging because of the weight of it, but the tone was there that the Fender will never have and vice versa. So you have to make a decision as to what you’re going to have as your main instrument. After seeing Hendrix, I thought, ‘I’ll stick with the ‘Strat.’”

“I don’t understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an instantly recognizable guitar sound. Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.”

Now I am no Jeff Beck but enjoy the guitar and have a little collection that I love and it includes some electrics but the Les Paul I always found way too heavy and the tonal thing is an argument I would love to have chatted to Jeff about. Given bottomless funds my favourite would be a Fender Stratocaster pre - 1965. 

T’other day I was staggered to see on the Bargain Hunt antiques show a little Fender Jaguar (1962!) go for just over a grand (£1,010) they had estimated at £300- £400! and the lady who owned it got upset and emotional as it had belonged to a family member anyone doing their homework will know someone got a bargain. On a cursory search an ordinary Jaguar was about seven times that and the key cut off date of 1965 meant that earlier ones were going upwards of about £15,000!