![]() Our version was seriously metal for the time, though Stevie hated it with such a vengeance that you could almost taste it.”īBA’s Superstition was a tour de force, from its clanging intro to Appice’s tornado drums to Beck’s ferocious rhythm licks. That song was custom-made for me as part of a three-piece. ![]() “Stevie wrote Superstition specifically for a trio,” asserts Beck. BBA were left to do their own version instead, months later. Convinced it would be a huge hit (rightly, as it transpired), Gordy insisted that Wonder recut the song and release it himself. The song was initially intended for BBA, but problems started when Berry Gordy, the boss of Wonder’s label, Motown, heard it. The guitarist apparently helped out with the rhythm and some of the lyrics to Superstition, Wonder’s uptempo funk monster, and they recorded a demo in New York. Beck readily agreed, with the stipulation that Wonder write him a song. Stevie Wonder, a long-time admirer of Beck, had invited him to play on the sessions for his Talking Book album. One of the most striking songs to emerge was Superstition. The songs were just vehicles for us to jam.” “In those days it wasn’t so much about the songs, it was more about the playing. “With it being a trio, me and Tim decided to sing,” Appice says. In December ’72, Beck, Bogert, Appice went into to Chicago’s Chess Studios to record their first album. It was a spontaneous jam that became songs.” “Then the three of us went over to England to rehearse for an album and tour. “Carmine and I enjoyed that very much,” says Bogert. While touring with Cactus they would often sit in with the Jeff Beck Group on stage. Beck, meanwhile, had resurrected the Jeff Beck Group with an entirely new line-up.Įager to avoid the pitfalls that befell much-hyped supergroups like Blind Faith, Bogert and Appice decided to assimilate themselves gradually. In the wake of Vanilla Fudge’s demise in 1969, Bogert and Appice formed the blues rock combo Cactus. It was nearly three years before the trio finally got it together. In November 1969 Beck was driving his hot rod when he was involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle that left him with a fractured skull. But they hit a major snag before they even began. The stage was set for Beck, Bogert, Appice. And by the time the Jeff Beck Group split up the two of them hated each other.” After a while Rod bowed out because he and Jeff had some financial difficulties. It was going to be Rod Stewart, Jeff, me and Tim. “At the end of sixty-nine you had Blind Faith, plus Leslie West was about to get together with Jack Bruce and Corky Laing. “After John gave us the number, we called Jeff and talked about getting a supergroup together,” Appice explains. It was finally left to John Bonham to play cupid. There weren’t a lot of white guys playing like we did – totally heavy-duty R&B blues rock, with overtones of what was to become jazz rock.”ĭespite this musical flirtatiousness, no one was making the first move. The Fudge album we were working on at the time was Near The Beginning, and when it came out Jeff just loved our version of Junior Walker’s Shotgun. Carmine was amazing and Tim’s bass was outrageous. I couldn’t believe how powerful they sounded, with a Hammond organ and a double kit of Ludwig drums. “They were playing at stadium-level volume in this dungeon of a club in Margaret Street. “I saw them at the Speakeasy,” Beck recalls. Beck had first seen Vanilla Fudge play in October 1967, following an eventful 12 months in which he’d been booted out of The Yardbirds, started the Jeff Beck Group and had a major solo hit with Hi Ho Silver Lining. The courtship of Beck, Bogert and Appice was, to put it mildly, a protracted one. I thought this was going to be the best thing that ever happened to me. “People thought we were as good as it gets,” Bogert remembers. Loud as damnation and bursting with experimental zeal, they bridged the gap between the psychedelic age and a nebulous new era where metal, hard funk, soul and heavy blues could all co-exist in one glorious tumult. ![]() Beck, Bogert, Appice brought the kind of power, intensity and unbridled musicianship not heard since the heyday of Cream. It was a simple act of mediation from Bonham, but one that was to ignite one of the most incendiary trios in 70s rock. “Later on, John came up to me and Tim Bogert,” Fudge drummer Carmine Appice recalls, “and he said: ‘Jeff wants to put a band together with the two of you.
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