Though he turned down an offer from John Mayall to join his prestigious, often career-making, Bluesbreakers band, the late Jeff Beck still found himself, early in his career, in the shadow of the most famous Bluesbreakers alum by far, Eric Clapton.
In early 1965, Clapton had come to the Bluesbreakers from the Yardbirds, the latter of which Beck did join, as Clapton’s replacement.
Beck’s more anarchic tendencies would subtly make their way into the Yardbirds, while Clapton began his much-recounted journey into blues-rock immortality – from Mayall to Cream.
Though the direct, and inevitable, comparisons between the two faded with time, they were relentless as Beck began his Yardbirds tenure, and colored the early stages of what would eventually become a rich friendship.
Speaking to Guitar World in 2010, Beck explained that his early view of Clapton was just as much (if not more) defined by Clapton’s already-legendary reputation than it was by the man himself.
“I joined the Yardbirds in February of ’65, and I’d never seen sight or sound of Eric with them before that,” he explained.
“My only connection to him was hearing the rest of the band talking about him, that he used to do this, that, and the other. I got pretty pissed off with it, like, ‘Shut up, I’m here now!’ For the first couple of weeks, all I heard was, ‘Oh, Eric, the girls love him in this place,’ and I’d say, ‘All right, enough of that!’”
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Clapton was – as Beck pointed out – glad to be out of the Yardbirds fold, and had no enmity toward his successor in the band. At least on the surface.
“Right when I joined the Yardbirds, they had a massive hit with For Your Lovewhich Eric detested and was the reason he left the band,” Beck recounted. “So we were off pummeling around the States on a three-week promo tour.
“When we went back (to England), by pure chance I bumped into him in a club and I thought we were actually going to get into a fight! But when he saw me, he went, ‘Hello, man!’ and he gave me a big hug, and that was the end of that.”
That said, many, many years later, Clapton revealed that there was a bit more going on emotionally than that warm greeting indicated.
Clapton told Rolling Stone in a joint interview with Beck in 2010 that he had “mixed feelings” about his Yardbirds successor at the time.
I could see they were getting, with Jeff, at something beyond what I was capable of
Eric Clapton
Pride and ego, Clapton readily admitted, played no small part.
“He was my replacement in the Yardbirds. I mean, there shouldn’t have been a replacement. That was why I left: ‘I’ll leave, and the whole thing will collapse without me.’ In fact, they got better with Jeff and became more successful.”
“To be absolutely honest, I wanted to be as critical of him as I could,” Clapton elaborated. “It hurt me bad because I could see they were getting, with Jeff, at something beyond what I was capable of. His thing was so unique and advanced.”
Beck himself wasn’t long for the Yardbirds, and after some moderate successes he helped write the modern instrumental guitar rulebook with two hugely successful and influential solo albums in the mid-’70s, Blow by Blow and Wired.
This trajectory hardly resembled that of Clapton, who had evolved from blues-rock fire-breather to chart-topping, Strat-wielding pop-rock star. And yet, Clapton’s presence still lingered over Beck, if less ominously.
“I was subservient to him (Clapton) when I joined the Yardbirds, because he was such a big ‘face’ there,” Beck told Guitar World in 2010. “But when I developed my own wacky style with the Yardbirds albums, I didn’t feel in any way that I was encroaching on his patch at all, nor have I ever since then, along with when (producer) George Martin came along for Blow by Blow and Wired.
“George gave me the confidence to play on an instrumental album, and at that point I was absolutely cleared from any kind of ‘direct’ challenge to what Eric was doing, or anyone else for that matter, in terms of clashing styles.
“And yet, I think Eric wanted to be the guy associated with the guitar, which he subsequently became,” Beck elaborated. “You stop anybody on any street, around the world, and they know who Eric Clapton is. They don’t know who I am! But we’re going to change that, aren’t we? (laughs)”
Competitiveness non-withstanding, the two shared the stage at a pair of charity concerts in the early ’80s, and would later tour together in 2010.
Reflecting humorously on the tour in 2010, and Clapton’s stature within the guitar community as compared to his own, Beck told GW“Playing these shows with Eric was like going back into the school playground, but this time I was the hero instead of being beaten up every night!
“It was a great feeling, like going back to visit a bunch of old friends, with the license to play as you wish as opposed to a ‘traditional’ way, along with the guy that is the boss. Eric is definitely the boss.”
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