The Guitar Magic and Mayhem of Jeff Beck with biographers Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill: The Echoes Interview
When John Diliberto was growing up, there were three musicians that formed a holy trinity of guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. Beck was the first to push the electric guitar into psychedelia with The Yardbirds before taking the instrument into the stratosphere. Beck plucked his final string on January 10, 2023, leaving behind one of the most adventurous and chaotic careers in rock. Now, biographers Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill have published Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story.
Chris Gill: He’s really probably one of the most pure form of an artist that I’ve encountered in my career. He was really relentless in his pursuit of of a sound, of not just a sound, but sounds of what he heard of music.
We connected with them to explore our common love of Beck, and they took us on a journey through his many incarnations—from psychedelic blues rocker to fusion adaptor to fearless electronica experimenter. Along the way, there was an unexpected stop at Vangelis. Chris Gill and Brad Tolinski have been around the rock music block for decades. Tolinksi was Chief Editor of Guitar World Magazine for a quarter century. He’s written books on Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, The MC5 and a history of the electric guitar. Along with Gill, he co-wrote Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen. Gill is a Guitar World writer and a contributor to books on Eric Clapton and a previous Jeff Beck book. They have both interviewed Jeff Beck many times and seen him live even more.