From a six-year-old in Surrey gluing cigar boxes to a fence post after hearing Les Paul on the radio, to the Yardbirds, the Jeff Beck Group and a fearless run of instrumental jazz-rock fusion, this episode traces how Jeff Beck spent a lifetime trying to solve one impossible problem: making a Fender Stratocaster sound like a human voice. We follow the working-class tinkerer who painted cars and worked as a golf course groundsman before Jimmy Page recommended him to replace Eric Clapton in 1965, and whose 20-month tenure pushed British rock headfirst into feedback, fuzz and psychedelia.

Along the way we dig into the 1968 album Truth with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, released five months before Led Zeppelin's debut; the near-misses with Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones; the George Martin-produced Blow by Blow; the infamous Cleveland talkbox m ...