‘I Think Jeff Beck Was Always a Difficult Character’: Author Speaks Up on Jeff Beck’s and Rod Stewart’s Strained Relationship
“Rod Stewart was sort of self-conscious, and he didn’t want to get up at first.”
There’s an old theory that within the realm of rock, friction within a band creates great music. And this appeared to certainly be the case in the Jeff Beck Group over their first two classic and highly influential albums, 1968’s “Truth” and 1969’s “Beck-Ola,” which saw guitar legend Jeff Beck do battle with a then-unknown Rod Stewart on vocals.
During an interview with Booked on Rock, the author of the book “The Small Faces and The Faces: Every Album, Every Song,” Andrew Darlington, discussed the relationship between Beck and Stewart at the time. And why they seemed to butt heads, resulting in Stewart exiting the band in 1969 and promptly becoming a solo star on his own.
“I think Jeff Beck was always a difficult character,” admits Darlington (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar). “He was brilliant with the Yardbirds. He had a definite vision of what music should be. Rod Stewart was sort of self-conscious, and he didn’t want to get up at first [to sing].”
“But eventually, he was sort of coaxed to come along and sing, and they jammed on some old blues songs, and it worked, and it synthesized. I’ve got Rod Stewart’s autobiography, called ‘Rod.’ He kind of goes into it there. He’s quite self-deprecating, quite amusing.”
The author also pointed to an incident that probably only exacerbated strained relations within the group further. But it seemed that it was not Beck nor Stewart’s fault, but rather, their producer at the time.
“Ironically, the one hit single in the UK that the Jeff Beck Group had was ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining.’ Rod Stewart was the vocalist for the Jeff Beck Group, but Mickie Most, the producer, says, ‘This time, I want to try Jeff singing this himself.'”
“So Jeff Beck actually sang ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ himself, and it was a hit. And they appear on TV, and there was Rod Stewart, who was supposedly the singer, and he was sort of standing in the back, pretending to do harmony vocals and things like that. It must have been kind of embarrassing for him.”
Beck and Stewart would reconcile at various points subsequently, with the most obvious example being their 1985 hit single and video
