Cory Wong on Jeff Beck: “I’m a diehard Strat guy. There are so many reasons why, but Jeff Beck was on that list of reasons”

“A lot of instrumental guitar music felt very esoteric to a lot of people, and Jeff Beck was one of the first people to be an ambassador for instrumental guitar music in a way that didn’t feel so esoteric, but had so much feel, so much emotion and so much depth to it. 

“He did stuff that was very smart, but it came across in a way that was more from the heart than the head. Now, I feel like I’m somebody who’s an ambassador for the instrument itself and an ambassador for instrumental guitar music, and Jeff paved the way with so many of his albums. Obviously, and most famously, there’s Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers, which is such a beautiful delivery of melody on the guitar.”

The guitar sings

“Jeff is one of the people who first figured out how to connect with the general public with instrumental guitar, and so much of it was by making it sound like somebody singing. You put some actual feel, and you put something in there that feels like it’s a person speaking, rather than things being played on the guitar. He had an incredible way of connecting on a human level with his instrument, and he was able to transcend the instrument in a lot of ways.

“There’s a lot of people who do very impressive instrumental guitar work, but it’s to showcase the instrument, or to showcase a technique. That’s fun, that’s cool and that has its purpose, but I feel like Jeff was channelling something that didn’t matter whether it was going to be guitar or whether it was going to be saxophone or piano. 

“He had something innately in him that he needed to express, and he was able to communicate. The way that he best communicated was with his guitar and by delivering that emotion through his guitar. That’s something that is a gift to the guitar community.” 

Master of the Stratocaster

“I’m a diehard Strat guy. There are so many reasons why, but Jeff Beck was on that list of reasons. When I was a kid, I had a crappy little guitar from a pawn shop, but when I was finally ready to take the guitar seriously, I needed a good guitar – a real guitar – and my Dad said, ‘All right! We’re going to get you a Stratocaster!’

“He’d decided what kind of guitar I was going to get, and was like, ‘Listen! You love the Chili Peppers, you love Stevie Ray Vaughan. Look at Jeff Beck, look at Jimi Hendrix, look at Stevie Ray and Eric Johnson.’ He gave me this lineage of the Stratocaster and basically said: Look at all the things this guitar is capable of. I’m glad that was the logic and I studied the masters of the Strat for years. 

“Jeff Beck approached the Stratocaster and approached the use of the trem bar in a way where it’s not just coming down, it’s also bringing it up. It’s a different feel when you bend a string versus when you hold a string and push the trem in to make it go sharp. That was part of his sound and that was something that was very uniquely his.”

The ultimate bandleader

“To be a good bandleader, it’s important to know what other good bandleaders do, and what things need to be communicated to just the band, versus what things need to be communicated to the band with the audience in consideration. 

“I’ve studied a lot of my favourite bandleaders and favourite guitar players, and when you look at somebody like Jeff Beck, he had an ability to lead in a way that’s probably more subtle than a lot of others, but still communicated just as strongly. If you take a look at James Brown or Prince when they’re calling something out, it’s much more overt and it’s inviting the audience in on it as well. 

“Jeff had a way where his playing or his phrasing would suggest that it’s going somewhere. He’d phrase something just enough that you’d think it’s going to go to another thing, but then he’d make a gesture that confirms it. It’s not so overt, but if you’re listening and you’re watching, he’s giving his audience and his band just enough to keep them informed.”

Lost in music

“Sometimes, when somebody will go see a show they think, ‘I should just be watching Jeff the whole time,’ and we naturally have that because they’re the star and their name’s on the marquee. But there’s a time to disappear in the music. He did that masterfully – oftentimes in a trio setting, which is very hard to do. 

“I have a 10 or 11 piece band, so it’s quite easy for me to disappear in the music because I can lay back and let other people go way up, and there’s all this other stuff happening. In a trio setting, it’s a lot harder to do.

“He was able to do that in so many different settings that really showed depth that doesn’t always get recognised as being something that’s hard to do on guitar. But, it’s incredibly hard to do. You have to learn how to step out front and learn to sometimes disappear into the landscape.”

A singular voice

“I am personally known for a certain thing and I have mastered that thing. That is my voice, but I can also do a lot of the other stuff. I just choose not to. Jeff is a prime example of that, and gave permission to say: ‘I’ve got a voice. I’ve got a thing that others don’t do.’ 

“If we’re just talking in terms of guitar technique, and if you were to look at a lot of what he did on paper, it would maybe be more simple than what a lot of other guitar players do. But, he had all that other stuff as well, he just chose not to do it because he had a certain way of playing that made him stand out and made him a singular voice on the instrument.”