With Jeff Beck’s sad passing, here’s Nick Warburton’s full history of the Jeff Beck’s pre-Yardbirds group The Tridents has been updated to exclusively include the track ‘Tiger in your Tank’.
It was performed and recorded by the BBC at Eel Pie Island in 1964. The Tridents line up at the time was Jeff Beck lead guitar, Paul Lucas vocals and bass guitar, John Lucas on rhythm guitar and Ray Cook on drums. It is the first time that we have released any of this material.
To listen go to:
I have great memories of seeing Jeff and the Tridents at the Walton Playhouse gigs. As a 16 year old guitarist myself in a local band – The Wishful Thinkers – we had just cottoned on to what Eric was doing – banjo string on top E and we played through a 5w valve practice amp to get the raw overdriven blues sound. Then I saw Jeff with his blonde telecaster -don’t know what amps or effects he used but I’m sure he had a Binson Echorec. My mind was blown. Wonderful use of slide , ethereal sounds layered over Bo Diddley numbers and great rock leads and riffs. It was about the time that Hendrix became big news and everyone was raving about his novel sounds and style but for me Beck was supreme. I always felt that although he played outside the box and was so innovative , he was in command of everything he did – Hendrix to me never had that degree of mastery. Of course , he joined The Yardbirds – I saw them once at Esher with EC – and he went on to become one of the unique rock guitarists of all.
There were a few other formative bands I saw at Walton Playhouse – The Moody Blues – The Birds (Ronnie Wood) and several at Eel Pie Island – John Mayall – Paul Butterfield Blues Band – The Artwoods ( Ronnie Wood’s Brother )
Great times and memories.
Oh , and yes I’m still playing regularly local gigs, open mics despite a few arthritic finger joints!
Brill compressive article on Jeff!…Thanx for sharing!
My first concert at a 12 year kid….The Jeff Beck Group…..E