Rolling And Tumbling With Jeff Beck
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Artist:
The thing I like most about YouTube is the string of screens that appears once a video has finished. Recently christheskins posted a video of Jeff Beck playing with Imogen Heap.
After that deliciousness had ended it took only a few screens to find Jeff with Imogen duetting on a take of the blues classic Rolling And Tumbling. It's a pretty simple song, built around a riff that looks like a lot of fun to play. According to allmusic 128 artists have covered it, but the tally is probably much higher. Some of those 128 have visited the song several times.
It's so good a song that everyone wants to take credit. Robert Johnston put new lyrics to the riff and called it If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day (29 covers) and John Lee Hooker called it Rollin' Blues (9 covers). When Muddy Waters recorded the most famous version in 1950 he took the songwriting credit. According to the label Elmore James wrote Rollin' And Tumblin'. Dylan put the riff and the title to a set of new lyrics on Modern Times and, you guessed it, credited himself.
Of the original British trio of guitar gods, Jeff Beck seems the most pure, doing just what he wants with no visible concern for the marketplace. He recorded a version of this when he was in The Yardbirds, though they called it Drinking Muddy Water. Credited themselves too. On this one he pitches up against a techno rhythm section and Imogen Heap in deep blues mode.
To see what I mean about how guitarists digging it, just watch the guy here with Clapton a few years ago. His name is Doyle Bramhall II and he's a great blues player. The way he leans into the riff and really nails the strings at certain points, he'd probably pay someone to have that much fun.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (8)
Damn! That live Beck-Heap Ronnie Scott's gig clip is now gone gone gone from YouTube - but there is still some "Rollin' & Tumblin'" goin' on. Woo-hoo!
That Imogen Heap & Jeff Beck version is hard to top. They make it their own and it sounds new. The two stop-time chords Beck adds to the end of each line are a good touch. The drumming gives it great momentum. Even the first guy to record the song in 1929, Hambone Willie Newbern, loved playing the riff so much that he repeated four times between each sung line, making a twelve-bar blues into an 18-bar blues (I think).
Clapton keeps it down to two riffs between vocals, but has to add a beat in there. His voice has just the right rough edge to it, not the low mellowness I seem to remember him recently having. I wish more guitarists would be hired to film guitarists, because it was hard to see if Clapton and Bramhall were needlessly duplicating each other by using identical left-hand chording. Bramhall wasn't using a flat pick, however. His shades will prevent cataracts.
Doh! It turns out Newbern plays two riffs between each sung line, not four, BUT------later versions by others often didn't.
I found it in the same way Jonh ..too bad the clip has gone Mike..maybe that means the "at Ronnies" performance will be on DVD soon? .. The stoopid thing about the BBC I-Player is the DRM that cuts in.. whereas if i had had a new HDD recorder sorted (or even a VCR!) ,having willingly paid my "licence" fee i could have made a disc/tape and kept it! " All Hail the new Luddite-ism"
Hey....I met Jeff Beck...
Just a bit of name droppin' is all.
But he wouldn't remember me....
Mike - consider it an inspirational message for your leg to do some of. In the future, I mean.
Spike - Thanks for the teachings. That Beck habit of dropping in fills and extra chords is one of the things that makes him special to me. I agree with you about directors and guitarists - I've watched this particular track a number of times from when it was on TV and even a decent speaker system doesn't clear up who's playing what. On other tracks - it's a DVD of course - Bramhall really goes for it over Clapton's rhythms. They recorded as an acoustic duo in one of the buildings where Johnston recorded and both seem heavily influenced by their surroundings.
Chris - amen brother luddite! So much easier when you plugged the stereo into the TV and recorded it to a cassette!
Annie - Name drop away! I've always wanted to talk to him about his other passion - hot rods. Then I saw him once at a party and completely forgot to go and ask him, just stared at him in fanboy awe.
I wish the meeting was more fancy and meaningful.
I was a weekend house/room cleaner at the Manoa Valley Inn while I went to college in Honolulu. He was a guest...I think we chatted about fruit and the house.
It was nice. He treated me like an every day person...not the cleaning rockstar that I was. I really appreciated it. Sometimes it's just nice to feel normal.