Word: grouped
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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This deliberate use of the guitar as the major element of the music helps to explain the tremendous excitement that the Jeff Beck Group generates at every public performance--from the Fill-more East to the Boston Tea Party and now probably in Detroit, audiences are left at the end of the show shredded and near-hysterical. Another reason for this audience appeal is the Group's steaming physical presence on stage, its sense of togetherness as a unit, and its musical cohesion creating an unadulterated rolling, weaving ball of sound...
Mick Waller was one of London's top sessions musicians before he joined the Jeff Beck Group, and played in particular with the Stones (he owned up to being the bongo drums in 'Jumping Jack Flash). He predicts, "the Stones will stand the test of time better than the Beatles. They're much simpler, you know, and they say a lot more than the Beatles with their highly contrived messages. Its just like Dylan, he can say in a few words what it would take Janis Ian a whole song to get at. I've only recently begun to listen...
They're much like the blacks these tough young Londoners, with their rhythmic, expressive language, and of course they play music like only the best of the 'soul brothers' can--Jimi Hendrix, say, who jammed effortlessly and beautifully with the Jeff Beck Group in New York...
...GROUP IS PULSING now, late in the last set. Jeff Beck draws out a burr till it nearly grates and follows it with a melodious burst. Doing 'Beck's Boogey' he comes swiftly down the frets pausing only to pluck a little at each stop, then he goes into the theme which sounds a little like 'Yankee Doodle' stops midway through with finger raised, and resumes the plucking with the drums still beating. Near the end of the number he finally completes the theme--it still sounds like 'Yankee Doodle' but it's brilliant, an improvisation worthy of the best...
DRIVING BACK to the hotel after the gig Rod Stewart is hoarse and happy. "You have to jump around like I do to get the kids jumping too. Look at the other group they just stood there. They were playing too complicated, too static, very difficult to get that off the ground." He turned to Waller "I really like it when you tap on the snare and do the tom-tom at the same time. Its really deep you know what I mean." Again the bewitching London accent...