Jeff Beck – Beck’s Bolero

This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt is Gone But Not Forgotten. We lost Jeff Beck this year and he was a huge loss.

I hardly ever post instrumentals but this one is special. Keith Moon on drums, John Paul Jones on bass, Nicky Hopkins on keyboard, and Jimmy Page,  on 12-string guitar along with Jeff Beck on slide guitar. John Paul Jones said the group that played on Beck’s Bolero was kicking around the idea of touring. They also were thinking about trying to get the Small Faces singer Steve Marriott but his management would not go for that.

Beck’s Bolero was recorded over one day on May 16th, 1966. At this point, Moon was unhappy in The Who, and this impromptu band did initially plan to record and release a full album, but contractual obligations…amongst other things, prevented them from ever doing it.

John Entwistle, who originally agreed to play bass in the session, pulled out at the last minute and was replaced with session ace John Paul Jones. Personally, I’m glad this didn’t gel because The Who would have stopped dead most likely.

When you listen to the song…there isn’t a doubt who was playing drums. Jeff Beck later claimed that Pete Townshend “glared like daggers at me” after he found out about the recording sessions.

Jimmy Page is credited with writing the song but Jeff has said no… that he worked more of it out. Instead of me writing out the differences…I’ll let Beck and Page do it below.

Jimmy Page: “On the ‘Beck’s Bolero’ thing I was working with that, the track was done, and then the producer just disappeared. He was never seen again; he simply didn’t come back. Napier-Bell, he just sort of left me and Jeff to it. Jeff was playing and I was in the box (recording booth). And even though he says he wrote it, I wrote it. I’m playing the electric 12-string on it. Beck’s doing the slide bits, and I’m basically playing around the chords. The idea was built around (classical composer) Maurice Ravel’s ‘Bolero.’ It’s got a lot of drama to it; it came off right. It was a good lineup too, with Keith Moon, and everything.”

Jeff Beck: “No, Page didn’t write that song, we sat down in his front room once, this tiny, pokey room, and he was sitting on the arm of a chair and he started playing that Ravel rhythm. He had a 12-string, and it sounded so full, really fat and heavy. And I just played the melody. And I went home and worked out the other bit [the up-tempo section].”

This song was the B side to Hi Ho Silver Lining which peaked at #14 in the UK in 1967. The song was later on Jeff Beck’s Truth album.

Jeff Beck: Me and Jim Page arranged a session with Keith Moon in secret, just to see what would happen. But we had to have something to play in the studio because Keith only had a limited time — he could only give us like three hours before his roadies would start looking for him. So I went over to Jim’s house a few days before the session, and he was strumming away on this 12-string Fender electric that had a really big sound. It was the sound of that Fender 12-string that really inspired the melody. And I don’t care what he says, I invented that melody, such as it is. I know I’m going to get screamed at because in some articles he says he invented it, he wrote it. I say I invented it. This is what it was: He hit these Amaj7 chords and the Fm7 chords, and I just started playing over the top of it. We agreed that we would go in and get Moonie to play a bolero rhythm with it. That’s where it came from, and in three or four takes it was down. John Paul Jones on the bass. In fact, that group could have been a new Led Zeppelin.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

33 thoughts on “Jeff Beck – Beck’s Bolero”

  6. This great record and cut were introduced to me at a young age. Helped set my musical tastes. It ages but well. That explosion about half way through is classic for me. At the time I had no idea about who was on the cut. Just took for granted it was the guys named in the credits.

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  7. It’s so funny these two prima donas are arguing who wrote it when Ravel wrote it and they primped it up into a rock song. Not who I guessed you’d be choosing as the best guitarist ever after Jimi! (I thought you’d be picking Robbie!) I don’t think this would have sounded as good without Keith on the drums. Kickazz song I haven’t heard in a hella long time.

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    1. Beck…as a guitar player…he did things on guitar that only Jimi, to me, came close to. He could get sounds out of it like no one else…now…after saying that…who would I rather listen to a solo by? Robbie.
      Keith filled in the gaps…he was like an orchestra all by himself.

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      2. He not only studied the guitar…but took things out physically from it…put it back together different…tried all sorts of stuff.
        The cool thing is…I have effects now that they have duplicated a lot of it….

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  8. Dude! Cool track. This thing was made three months before I was born. What an interesting grouping. I agree with Page’s sentiments on Beck’s “ethereal” guitar playing. And, judging by the background, Pete was disturbed by this jam session. I guess there was some fear Moon would leave The Who and mix in with Page & Beck? Still…I can’t see Moon with LZ. I can’t see Plant putting up with his antics.

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    1. Shit…Bonham was way more violent than Moon…Moon just had a great time….annoying as hell at times but you didn’t have to be scared of him beating the shit out of you lol.
      No if Moon would have left…there would be no WHO… I could do without LZ more than The Who.

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      1. Oh. Wait. Yeah. Bonham was a violent drinker. I do remember reading that.

        Well…The Who formed in 1962. LZ…1968? Moon certainly had time to choose. I just read about Townshend attacking him with his guitar and blacking his eye. He & Entwhistle quit but, came back. Beck was actively trying to get Moon out, permanently.

        Damn. Townshend was violent, too. Too much testosterone, booze, drugs and egos.

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      2. Moon made the mistake of attacking Roger…who was super in shape and a born fighter…the reason was becasue he flushed Moon’s pills down the drain…
        Townshend attacked Roger on another time…with a guitar and Roger knocked him out cold lol

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