The story behind the beat it solo, with Eddie Van Halen on guitar

The story behind the magnificent Beat It solo

When Quincy Jones called Eddie up about playing on a song, they hadn’t quite finished yet. The

phone in 5150 wasn’t working, and Quincy had to call a few times. Van Halen was on hiatus, so Eddie

had no one to call to get permission to do any outside gigs. So he agreed to go over and give it a go

. When he got there, he reformatted the song to his liking, and punched in, right at the solo mark,

and played the solo of the decade, voted by Guitar World magazine at the end of the 80’s. Michael

comes back to the studio and goes ” I love that high fast stuff you do at the end of the guitar”. So the

rest is history, later Eddie would hop on stage in Texas and play the solo with Michael. A great

crescendo to a 15 minute take in Quincy’s studio.