Jeff Beck

FILE - Guitarist Jeff Beck performs at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 18, 2010 in New York. The guitar virtuoso who pushed the boundaries of blues, jazz and rock ...

"Because we were all trying to be big bananas," Beck told Rolling Stone in 2010. He was in a few bands — including Nightshift and the Tridents — before joining the Yardbirds in 1965, replacing Clapton but only a year later giving way to Page. He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time." He and Clapton had a tense relationship early on but became friends in later life and toured together. "He is head, hands and feet above all the rest of us, with the kind of talent that appears only once every generation or two." Beck first came to prominence as a member of the Yardbirds and then went out on his own in a solo career that incorporated hard rock, jazz, funky blues and even opera.

He rose to prominence in the 1960s as a member of the Yardbirds and went on to a prolific solo career that drew on hard rock, electronic music and jazz ...

His talent and personality were such that members of Pink Floyd considered asking Mr. “Everyone thinks of the 1960s as something they really weren’t,” he said. He lasted only 20 months with the band before moving on to work as a solo artist, while struggling to translate his ideas into music. At the Wimbledon School of Art, now part of the University of the Arts London, he played in R&B and rock bands, refining his technique while experimenting with genres. Beck learned on a borrowed guitar and made crude attempts as a teenager to create his own, once trying to bolt together cigar boxes for a body. “That’s for me,” he said in response. Beck continued to make music, partnering with actor and musician Johnny Depp last year to record the studio album “18.” But he also fell out of the limelight while avoiding interviews and turning down corporate sponsorships, cherishing his privacy and seeking to avoid distractions. 4 on the Billboard chart, and joined supergroups including Beck, Bogert & Appice, a power trio that featured bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice. “I get bored very quickly, then I get irritable.” Beck seemed to agree with that assessment, once telling the magazine: “That’s my whole thing, trying to explore the blues to the maximum, really. Beck helped pioneer the use of feedback and distortion, developing a hard-edged new sound that informed hits such as “Heart Full of Soul,” “Shapes of Things” and “Over Under Sideways Down.” He later formed the Jeff Beck Group, a rotating group of musicians that initially included singer Rod Stewart and bassist-guitarist Ronnie Wood. “I don't care about the rules,” he once said.

Jeff Beck has died at the age of 78. He was a master of the guitar and played in bands such as the Yardbirds and the Jeff Beck Group.

[as](https://www.instagram.com/p/CnSqk8rDxZR/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=99afac0b-3209-4752-90b3-8dfd48100c10) “the six stringed Warrior,” while Mick Jagger [wrote](https://twitter.com/MickJagger/status/1613312367160397824), “We have lost a wonderful man and one of the greatest guitar players in the world.” Rod Stewart, an original member of the Jeff Beck Group, reminisced [with](https://twitter.com/rodstewart/status/1613313294093221888) the following: “Jeff Beck was on another plane … And I have to look at it that way.” Beck has the rare the distinction of being inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice: for his work in the Yardbirds and his solo career. Thank you for everything.” Ronnie Wood, another early member of the Jeff Beck Group, [wrote](https://twitter.com/ronniewood/status/1613308688957341696), “I feel like one of my band of brothers has left this world, and I’m going to dearly miss him.” Other tributes to Beck can be read below. His sense of curiosity was also reflected in his technical prowess; he had a knack for discovering new and humorous ways to distort a guitar, somehow making a few strings sound like an instrument that originated in a limitless universe. “When you look around and see who has made it huge, it’s a really rotten place to be when you think about it. “All I can say is that I’ve never made the big time, mercifully probably,” he

The two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee released his final album '18' in 2022.

Beck is a two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee – in 1992 for his work with The Yardbirds and as a solo performer in 2009. “The six stringed Warrior is no longer here for us to admire the spell he could weave around our mortal emotions. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Beck as the fifth greatest guitarist of all time, one spot ahead of blues icon B.B.

Jeff Beck, the rock guitarist often regarded among the greatest of all time, has died, according to a statement posted to his official social media accounts ...

He began with bubblegum pop in the Yardbirds, then moved on to psychedelia, funk, jazz fusion, even techno – but no matter what the genre, Beck was always ...

It was all evidence of a disinclination to be pigeonholed: the only thing you could rely on was that whatever direction his music took, his guitar playing would be incredible. It was the kind of career that baffled the general public – of his latterday albums, only the relatively straightforward Emotion & Commotion, which saw him working with Joss Stone and Imelda May, was really a hit – and obscure quite how innovative Beck had been in the 60s. The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante recalled listening to Truth as a kid and marvelling at Beck “pulling all these sounds out of the guitar … The single that coupled Happenings Ten Years Time Ago and Psycho Daisies was impossibly potent and sinister, so far-out even by the standards of 1966 that it succeeded in alienating their fans – it barely scraped the charts in the UK – and the critics, one of whom derided it as an “excuse for music”. Beck could play the blues if he wanted to – listen to his slide playing on Heart Full of Soul’s B-side, Steeled Blues – but he was no one’s idea of a respectful purist. Beck-Ola was very much in the “heavy” style of Truth – Spanish Boots is particularly fantastic – but subsequent releases dabbled in funk, jazz and soul. It was epic, heavy and quite astonishingly prescient, pointing towards the direction rock would follow in the post-psychedelic era a year before the Summer of Love. Stewart departed after Beck-Ola – an attempt to replace him with the then-unknown Elton John only got as far the rehearsal studio – taking bassist Ronnie Wood with him to form the Faces. The first single he recorded with them, Heart Full of Soul, was another Gouldman confection, enlivened by Beck mimicking the sound of sitar – some months before the Beatles first deployed the instrument on Norwegian Wood – with a guitar played through a distortion pedal called a Toneblender. Throughout his tenure with the Yardbirds, Beck seemed as interested in the sonic possibilities of new technology as he did in demonstrating his instrumental prowess, “making all the weirdest noise I could”. By the time of February 1966’s Shapes of Things – howling feedback, a guitar solo audibly influenced by Indian raga, or, as Beck put it, “some weird mist coming from the east out of [my] amp” – the Yardbirds sounded like a completely different band from the one who had powered their way through covers of Smokestack Lightning and Good Morning Little Schoolgirl on 1964’s Five Live Yardbirds. Tellingly, the song that had first piqued his interest in playing guitar was Les Paul and Mary Ford’s groundbreaking 1951 hit How High the Moon, a single that was as much about Paul’s electronic manipulation of sound through multitracking as it was about his guitar playing.

NEW YORK: Jeff Beck, the influential guitarist who rose to rock and roll stardom with 1960s supergroup the Yardbirds and later enjoyed a prolific solo ...

"Jeff Beck was on another planet," said Stewart of his former bandmate. "I don't care about the rules. "He was quiet as moccasined feet, yet mercurial, innovative, impossible to categorize," wrote punk-poet laureate Patti Smith. "Please get ahold of the first two Jeff Beck Group albums and behold greatness. "No one played guitar like Jeff," Simmons posted on Twitter. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday," a statement on the English-born musician's website said.

The eight-time Grammy award-winner, a guitar virtuoso and innovator who was also one of the world's great rhythm and blues interpreters, died “peacefully” after ...

RIP.” After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday,” a statement on the English-born musician’s website said. “Please get ahold of the first two Jeff Beck Group albums and behold greatness.

Jeff Beck, legendary guitarist, music innovator and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, died Tuesday, January 10, at the age of 78.

Guitarist and composer Andy Timmons summed up Beck’s contributions and impact when the former posted: “He just kept improving…he could have stopped after ‘Shapes Of Things’ and already have been on the guitarist Mount Rushmore. Jack White also wrote his tribute, saying “Jeff Beck, guitar innovator has moved to the next realm, adding, “he was amazingly kind and instructional to me over the years. Acoustic guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel posted on his social media: “Jeff Beck was an original, an artist of the highest order, the finest guitar player that could not be copied, only enjoyed and appreciated!! Even back then, he was already considered as one of the best rock guitarists around considering that he was in the same band and scene as his peers Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. Here he was considered a giant and one of the most influential. “On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing.

We're remembering Jeff Beck's phenomenal electric guitar interpretation of Puccini's aria 'Nessun dorma' from the opera Turandot.

Countless guitarists have studied and loved [Paganini](/composers/paganini/). Metallica’s James Hetfield’s favourite classical composer is [Vivaldi](/composers/vivaldi/). Beck also created expansive rock arrangements of [Mahler](/composers/mahler/), and his tenth studio album Emotion & Commotion features [Benjamin Britten](/composers/britten/)’s ‘Corpus Christi Carol’.

The guitarist, who died on Tuesday, could make his instrument slash, burn and sigh. Listen to tracks released from 1966 to 2010 that reveal his range and ...

For all his speed and dexterity, Beck never underestimated the beauty of a sustained melody. This gracious latter-day reunion for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is noisy, flashy, virtuosic and over the top in exactly the right proportions. Beck offers a stately, fanfare-like guitar hook after the first verse, then engages Stewart more and more: taking over the melody with note-bending variations, surging up from below, goading Stewart to shout and leap into falsetto. It gives Beck room to peal some clarion melodies and then attack them with trills, bent notes, blues licks and dissonances. His solo eases up to a high note and then casually trickles down, continuing through the track to garland Wonder’s vocals with little slides and curlicues, reveling in the song’s sophisticated chord progression. Beck’s electric guitar opens with twangy rockabilly syncopation, sets up the choppy piano groove and pointedly spurs things along. The song gallops from the get-go, as Beck answers his own power chords with countermelodies high and low. Beck’s lead guitar takes over for the entire last minute, melding rockabilly and something like raga, leaving the rest of the band to whoop along. Beck’s instrumentals moved to the forefront in the 1970s, as his material shifted toward jazz-rock. He could make his Stratocaster sound icy, searing, slashing and otherworldly in the course of a single track. It sparred with singers for the spotlight. The guitarist, who died on Tuesday, could make his instrument slash, burn and sigh.

Virtuoso musician who took the guitar in new directions with a firework display of contrasting techniques and textures.

After the Jeff Beck Band ended, he formed the “power trio” Beck, Bogert and Appice in 1973 (his bandmates being ex-members of Vanilla Fudge), but the project failed to match expectations and they split in 1974. [Curtis Mayfield](https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/dec/28/guardianobituaries)’s People Get Ready, and the track Escape won Beck the first of his eight Grammy awards. [George Martin](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/mar/09/george-martin-obituary). [Evil Hearted You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y2ayUzXcec) (UK No 3), Shapes of Things (UK No 3) and [Over Under Sideways Down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4DdAs0PddQ) (UK No 10). It featured Page, the Who’s drummer Keith Moon and the future Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones (indeed, the musicians on the track almost became Led Zeppelin), but was not released until it became the B side of Beck’s single Hi Ho Silver Lining the following year. Page would go on to bend the boundaries of rock music with Led Zeppelin, while Beck was experimenting with different tunings and feedback effects. Beck was born at his family’s home in Wallington (then in Surrey, but now in south London). His 2010 album Emotion & Commotion included versions of Benjamin Britten’s [Corpus Christi Carol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itJSLf_8yJ0) and Puccini’s [Nessun Dorma](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTBCqmBjNxk), interpreted through Beck’s uniquely sensitive touch. A rebuilt Jeff Beck Group released the albums Rough and Ready (1971) and Jeff Beck Group (1972), but the magic moment had passed. [Heart Full of Soul ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM1qZBFiOLU)and [Shapes of Things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc17DqcA6Qc), while expanding the band’s musical palette hugely. As a member of the Yardbirds in 1965-66, he featured on some of their best-known hits, including When Clapton and Page appeared at Live Aid in 1985, Beck preferred to stay at home and tinker with his beloved collection of classic hot rod cars.

JEFF BECK, the influential, genre-bending English guitarist who rose to fame with The Yardbirds before later embarking on a solo career, has died at the age ...

“Jeff was such a nice person and an outstanding iconic, genius guitar player — there will never be another Jeff Beck,” Mr. Beck is a two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee — in 1992 for his work with The Yardbirds and as a solo performer in 2009. “The six stringed Warrior is no longer here for us to admire the spell he could weave around our mortal emotions. Jeff could channel music from the ethereal,” he said. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Beck as the fifth greatest guitarist of all time, one spot ahead of blues icon B.B. Beck’s death on Twitter, saying he was shocked to hear of his passing.

Jeff Beck, among the most innovative and certainly the most unpredictable of '60s guitar heroes, has died. He was 78.

At the Grammys the following year, the original “Hammerhead” and a rendition of Puccini’s aria “Nessun Dorma” received awards as best rock instrumental performance and best pop instrumental performance, respectively; the guitarist also took home a best pop collaboration trophy for his work on Hancock’s “Imagine,” with India.Arie. His musical collaboration with Depp began in 2020 with a cover of John Lennon’s “Isolation,” which was released in April, just after the Coronavirus pandemic took hold. His collaboration with Depp continued, even as the actor was the focus of a high-profile defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard. 171, 1993), comprising new renderings of Gene Vincent’s repertoire with lead vocals by Mike Sanchez and hot Beck lead work, and “Who Else!” (No. After the 1992 soundtrack “Frankie’s House,” Beck issued only “Crazy Legs” (No. The mainly instrumental collection garnered a second Grammy in the rock instrumental category. The set also produced his first Grammy winner, the rock instrumental “Escape.” He returned to the studio in 1985 for “Flash,” a largely instrumental affair produced in part by Nile Rodgers of Chic; the collection contained Beck’s only solo chart single, a No. Its successor “Beck-Ola” (1969), billed to the Jeff Beck Group (with Tony Newman replacing Waller) and featuring two crunching Elvis Presley covers and the searing instrumental “Rice Pudding,” was even more potent. Martin also produced the instrumental sequel “Wired” (1976), which featured appearances by keyboardist Hammer and fusion drummer Narada Michael Walden; it reached No. At the turn of the decade, the guitarist founded a new quintet edition of the Jeff Beck Group that leaned heavily on the jazzy keyboard work of Max Middleton. 17), “Shapes of Things” (No.