The bass virtuoso talks going solo, exploring her sound and the time she convinced Jimmy Page to play ‘Immigrant Song’ live
Tal Wilkenfeld: “I’m a completely different bass player now. When I was in Jeff Beck’s band, I hadn’t even been playing for four years!”A viral clip of her expressive solo on Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers, as a member of Jeff Beck’s quartet at Eric Clapton’s Crossroad Festival in 2007.
When Tal Wilkenfeld finished recording her album Love Remains in late 2015, the first person she sent it to was Pete Townshend. “Pete was very encouraging of the music,” Wilkenfeld says. “The compositions, the production, the whole thing. Very smart too, in terms of the advice that he gave me from the business front.”
"From Mick Jagger to Pete Townshend, Jackson Browne to Leonard Cohen, Jeff Beck. These guys are so smart and so inspiring to be around. Besides the music that they create, just interacting with them personally, and picking their brains about life, it’s fascinating. I’ve learned more from the conversations that I’ve had with these people than the music that we play."
"At the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I performed “Immigrant Song” with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck.
My favorite part of that was that when I really went to rehearsal, we rehearsed “Beck’s Bolero,” and we all went [our separate ways] to eat dinner. I was sitting there thinking, “Well, this is a shame. We’re about to jam with Jimmy Page, and we’re not even like rocking out. He’s strumming a 12-string in the background. Let’s play a rocker or something.” So I called Jeff, and he was going down an elevator with Jimmy Page, and I said, “Hey guys, what if we just went into ‘Immigrant Song’ in the middle of ‘Bolero’ and switched the tempo?” And he looks at Jimmy, and Jimmy’s like, “Sure.”
