Eddie Van Halen performing "Beat It" live with Michael Jackson.
Put this in the category of "this will never happen again in our lifetime," but I was amazed to find that Eddie Van Halen recorded the solo for Michael Jackson's "Beat It" for free. The solo is a perfect example of the amazing nuance Van Halen can bring to a guitar part with what was, at that time, groundbreaking technique.
Steve Lukather (Toto, Boz Scaggs), a phenomenal guitarist in his own right, shared some great information about his and Van Halen's contributions to "Beat It."
From SteveLukather.net:
Rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen was interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine in 1984. In the interview, he explained why he didn't ask for any royalties over the sales of Beat it, the song on which he plays a guitar solo. "I did it as a favor. I didn't want anything. Maybe Michael will give me dance lessons someday. I was a complete fool, according to the rest of the band [Van Halen], our manager and everybody else. I was not used. I knew what I was doing. I don't do something unless I want to do it."
Steve Lukather: "Quincy Jones and Michael took a skeleton version of Beat it up to Eddie Van Halen's place as they wanted him to solo over the verse section. However, he played over a section that had more chord changes. So to fit his solo to where it went in the song, they had to cut the tape which took a lot of time to synchronise together."
"After they had managed this, Jeff Porcaro and me were called in to bind Eddie's solo and some haphazard percussion which was a major headache. Initially, we rocked it out as Eddie had played a good solo but Quincy thought it too tough. So I had to reduce the distorted guitar sound and this is what was released. It was a huge R&B/rock success for us all really and helped pave the way for the bands of today that fuse these styles."
Comments
EVH is the man.
slash is better,and randy rhodes is the best ever
Slash is better than who? EVH. What world are you living in?
YNGWIE IS THE GUITAR GOD !!!
Yeah where is Yngwie these days? No one cared about Rhodes til after he died and Slash
is just another guitarist. EVH is a legend
this song and video ROCKS LIKE NOBODY ELSE THATS WHY VAN HALEN EDDIE IS A ROCK LEGEND ALREADY HE IS A MYTH ALREADY HE IS THE BEST GUITARRIST OF THE NEW ROCK ERA FROM THE 70'S THRU THE 5000'S YEARS
Slash couldnt wank Eddies whammybar
Lukather and Porcaro are bad asses!
This was the begining of the end and started the break up of Van Halen.
Slash is amzing. As is Randy, but neither of them can match Eddies playing. Simply put, he is the greatest guitarist of all time, right up there with Eric Clapton.
eddie is the best-forget the rest .
Eddie was the only Guitarist to invent and perfect the two handed finger tapping technique. that is how he was able to hit so many notes at one time at such a right rate of speed nobody else could do it as good as Eddie even though some did try.
Eddie was the only Guitarist to invent and perfect the two handed finger tapping technique. that is how he was able to hit so many notes at one time at such a right rate of speed nobody else could do it as good as Eddie even though some did try.
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