Blown Away

Jeff Beck's landmark Blow by Blow dramatically transformed the future for instrumental electric guitar music. Fifty years later, it still remains an inspirational force

- CHRIS GILL

TEFF BECK'S BLOW by Blow shouldn't have been a success. By all accounts, it was a huge risk, even in the heady, more musically adventurous era of the mid Seventies. It was an instrumental album — an instrumental jazz album. Perhaps oddest of all, it was an instrumental jazz album by a rock guitarist, which meant that it ran a highly possible risk of alienating rock and jazz audiences alike. And even though Epic Records released separate singles of three songs from the album in Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., none of the songs became hits.

Yet audiences in the United States, United Kingdom and beyond enthusiastically embraced Blow by Blow. It peaked at a remarkable Number 4 on the Billboard 200 album chart and earned Platinum certification, outselling every single album Beck previously released with the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice, which all managed to go Gold. In fact, Blow by Blow (along with its similar follow-up, Wired) remains the best-selling album of Beck's entire career.

However, the success of Blow by Blow was much wider reaching than mere chart positions and album sales figures. Beck's bold move opened up new possibilities for jazz and progressive guitarists like Al Di Meola, Allan Holdsworth and numerous other musicians to release albums that appealed to jazz and rock fans alike. It also helped spark the instrumental shred guitar phenomenon that started a few years later in the early Eighties by proving that there was indeed a relatively sizable potential audience for instrumental guitar music. Its success even had a profound effect on Beck himself, giving him a sense of direction that influenced his remaining career by encouraging him to rely on his inner-muse. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of