Beck's Bolero - Disagreement Over Credits

Disagreement Over Credits

Mickie Most claimed production credit on the song when it was released as a single even though he was not in the studio either at the recording or mixing stages.

Page is officially credited for the arrangement, although there is disagreement over creative input. Beck explained on how the tune was written:

Well, with some difficulty and largely without me! ..... I went over to Jim's house and he had this 12-string Fender and he loved the idea of using a bolero-type rhythm for a rock record. He was playing the bolero rhythm and I played the melody on top of it, but then I said, "Jim, you've got to break away from the bolero beat - you can't go on like that for ever!". So we stopped it dead in the middle of the song - like the Yardbirds would do on 'For Your Love' - then we stuck that riff into the middle.

In an interview for Guitar Player magazine, Beck elaborated:

Me and Jim Page arranged a session with Keith Moon in secret, just to see what would happen. But we had to have something to play in the studio because Keith only had a limited time -- he could only give us like three hours before his roadies would start looking for him. So I went over to Jim's house a few days before the session, and he was strumming away on this 12-string Fender electric that had a really big sound. It was the sound of that Fender 12-string that really inspired the melody. And I don't care what he says, I invented that melody, such as it is. I know I'm going to get screamed at because in some articles he says he invented it, he wrote it. I say I invented it. This is what it was: He hit these Amaj7 chords and the Em7 chords, and I just started playing over the top of it. We agreed that we would go in and get Moonie to play a bolero rhythm with it. That's where it came from, and in three or four takes it was down. John Paul Jones on the bass. In fact, that group could have been a new Led Zeppelin.

This has remained a point of contention between the two. In an interview he gave in 1977, Page contradicted Beck's version:

You see on the “Beck’s Bolero” ... thing I was working with that, the track was done and then the producer just disappeared. He was never seen again; he simply didn’t come back. Napier-Bell just sort of left me and Jeff to it. Jeff was playing, and I was in the box (recording booth). And even though it says he wrote it, I wrote it. I’m playing the electric 12-string on it. Beck’s doing the slide bits, and I’m basically playing around the chords. The idea was built around Maurice Ravel’s’ “Bolero.” It’s got a lot of drama to it; it came off right. It was a good lineup too, with Keith Moon and everything.

In a separate interview, also given in 1977, Page expressed his recollections more bluntly:

wrote it, played on it, produced it... and I don't give a damn what says. That's the truth.

Whatever disagreements they had in the past, they still appear to have remained as friends. Both Page and Beck have appeared together in magazine articles and photo shoots. Beck attended the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert at the O2 Arena London on 10 December 2007 and Page was in the audience at one of Beck's concerts at Ronnie Scott's, London in November of the same year. On 4 April 2009, Page formally inducted Beck into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Page and Beck were previously present and inducted as members of The Yardbirds in 1992. "Beck's Bolero" was performed by both Beck and Page together at the induction ceremony, with Page playing the original Fender XII guitar from the 1966 session.