ONE OF THE FONDEST MEMORIES OF MY 43 YEARS IN music journalism is an evening I spent with Jeff Beck at the bar of the Drake Hotel in New York City back in 1999. We’d been scheduled to do a big Q&A interview for this magazine the next day. But as we were both staying at the same hotel (something I always tried to do when on assignment), I was invited to join Beck, along with his publicist and a member of his management team, for a drink. I ordered a glass of wine but was promptly admonished, “C’mon, have a real drink!”
“THE GUITAR IS JUST A FACILITY WHICH IS INFINITE. THERE ARE NO LENGTHS TO WHICH YOU CAN’T GO”
Switching my order to a cognac seemed to satisfy all concerned. Beck chatted, charmingly, for a few hours about nothing in particular — his cars, vegetarian diet tips, the sheep on his country estate, getting his pocket picked on the streets of London. I’d interviewed him before, but I was delighted to discover that even his casual conversation, much like his guitar playing, was exuberant, energetic, wildly original, idiosyncratic and highly inventive. Like his friend Keith Moon, Beck could be hilarious. His anecdotes were much like his game-changing guitar solos — spontaneous yet artfully structured and filled with surprising twists and turns.
About an hour into the evening, the barman, who had a heavy Eastern European accent, finally figured out whom he’d been serving. “Jeff Beck!!! Oh man!!! I love your record ‘Rice Pudding!!!’ brrrrrrrrr...” He then launched into an air guitar solo.
Supremely gracious, Beck acknowledged the compliment. The barman eventually calmed down and returned to his duties. I shot the breeze with Beck and his entourage a while longer. Later that night, as we got into the elevator to go up to our rooms, in that awkward silence that always seems to descend when people enter an elevator, Beck, propped against the elevator’s side wall, suddenly launched into a pitch-perfect impersonation of our friend behind the bar: With a few drinks down our necks, we all laughed so hard we nearly pissed over the posh hotel elevator’s floor.
