The challenge before Jeff Beck on Friday at the sold-out Cadillac Palace was to make 50-year-old music sound like the future.
The guitarist has proven up to the task in countless settings. In a career that stretches back to the ‘60s, when he came up alongside the likes of Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page as a Swinging London visionary, he has reconfigured, rewired and sometimes transcended countless melodies with his fingers. The guitarist has taken on everything from blues to classical music and made it sound utterly his own, bending entire genres to his will.
In the first of two weekend concerts, Beck became a jukebox for his youth: the rock ‘n’ roll, rockabilly, R&B and surf tunes that shaped his boyhood in England and inspired him to pick up a guitar. Most of all, there was a whole lot of Les Paul, the pioneering guitarist who first pried open the door for the young Beck to the instrument’s possibilities.
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When Jeff Beck first heard the music of Les Paul, it set him off on a mission to master the guitar and in the process become one of the defining instrumentalists in British rock.
Last summer, Beck paid homage to the late pioneering guitarist on what would have been Paul’s 95th birthday at a concert in New York, documented on a recent DVD and CD, “Jeff Beck’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Party (Honoring Les Paul)” (ATCO). He teamed up with Irish singer Imelda May, who channeled the vibrant vocals of Paul’s old ‘50s sidekick (and then-wife), Mary Ford. Beck also dug into some of his other early influences in rockabilly and surf music, but the primary inspiration was Paul, whose unrivaled technique, melodic songwriting and innovative production remain Beck’s golden standard.
Beck took a break from rehearsals for his forthcoming tour, which brings him to the Cadillac Palace on Friday and Saturday with May’s band, for an email interview about his inspiration.
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