Jeff Beck

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Geoffery Arnold "Jeff" Beck (born June 24, 1944 in Wallington, Surrey, England) is a rock guitarist who played in a number of influential short-lived bands in the 1960s and 1970's. Beck never attained the commercial visibility that some of his contemporaries did. However, he has gained widespread critical acclaim, especially in the guitar playing community, for his aggressive playing style encompassing screaming, bent sustained notes, distortion and feedback and crisply articulated fast passagework. What is more, his lack of visibility allowed him to remain on the cutting edge, rather than being pigeon-holed into a certain style. He is noted as a musician who has mastered many genres, including blues rock, heavy metal, and jazz fusion. Most recently, he has absorbed the influence of techno, creating a groundbreaking blend of heavy guitar rock and electronica.

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Early career with The Yardbirds

Like many rock musicians in the early 1960s, he began his career working as a session guitarist. In 1965, Beck joined the Yardbirds (after Eric Clapton had left the group for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers). It was during his tenure with The Yardbirds that they recorded most of their hits. In 1966, he shared the dual-lead guitar role with Jimmy Page. His time with The Yardbirds was short, allowing Beck only one full album Roger the Engineer; Beck left after 18 months, partly for health reasons.

While on the surface Beck seems to have departed the group because of his health, Jimmy Page, who had been invited into the band in 1966 by Beck himself, tells a different story:

"It was on that Dick Clark tour - there were a few incidents. One time in the dressing room I walked in and Beck had his guitar up over his head, about to bring it down on Keith Relf's head, but instead smashed it on the floor," Jimmy Page recalled years later. "Relf looked at him with total astonishment and Beck said, `Why did you make me do that?' Fucking hell. Everyone said `My goodness gracious, what a funny chap.' We went back to the hotel and Beck showed me his tonsils, said he wasn't feeling well and was going to see a doctor. He left for L.A. where we were headed anyway. When we got there, though, we realized that whatever doctor he was claiming to see must've had his office in the Whiskey. He was actually seeing his girlfriend, Mary Hughes, and had just used the doctor bit as an excuse to cut out on us."

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Jeff Beck Group

The following year, Beck formed a new band, the Jeff Beck Group, which featured him on lead guitar, Rod Stewart on vocals, Ron Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano, and Mick Waller on drums. The group produced two albums, Truth in 1968 and Beck-Ola the following year. These two albums are highly acclaimed, and are considered by some to be the earliest precursors to heavy metal, predating the initial Led Zeppelin albums. Owing to friction within the band, Stewart and Wood left the group in 1969 to replace Steve Marriott in the Small Faces (this new lineup, joining Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones would shorten their name to just "the Faces").

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Fusion

After the failure of the second Jeff Beck Group (it disbanded in 1972), Beck formed the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice, with Carmine Appice on drums and Tim Bogert on bass. This group, too, failed to attract much critical attention and soon split up, although they did have a minor hit with a version of Stevie Wonder's Superstition (Beck later played lead guitar on Wonder's Talking Book album). In 1975, Beck did a solo, all-instrumental jazz fusion album entitled Blow by Blow which received unexpectedly positive critical reviews and substantial sales, reaching number 4 in the U.S. charts. It was followed up by a collaborative effort with former Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboardist Jan Hammer on the 1976 Wired album, which also received critical acclaim.

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Later career

During the 1980s and 1990s, Jeff Beck recorded sporadically: There and Back (1980, considered his finest album and featuring Simon Phillips and Jan Hammer), Flash (1985, including performances with Rod Stewart and Jan Hammer), Guitar Shop (1989, with Terry Bozzio), Crazy Legs (1993), Who Else (1999), and You Had It Coming (2001). Jeff Beck won his third Grammy Award, this one for 'Best Rock Instrumental Performance' for the track Dirty Mind from You Had It Coming. The 2003 release of Jeff showed that the new electro-guitar style he used for the two earlier albums would continue to dominate. This style has been lauded by critics; Beck has skillfully fused an electronica influence with his blues/jazz past, with a sound mix which seems heavily influenced by the "brown" tone of subsequent guitarists like Van Halen and Joe Satriani. The song Plan B from this release earned him his fourth Grammy Award, again, for 'Best Rock Instrumental Performance'.

In the past few years, Jeff Beck has performed on Les Paul and Cyndi Lauper's new albums, and played guitar on Roger Waters' album Amused to Death. Beck also is featured on one track on Queen guitarist Brian May's last solo album, Another World. He also appears on ZZ Top's album XXX. Beck also made a cameo appearence in the movie Twins starring Danny Devito.

Jeff Beck continues to perform shows on a regular basis, including opening for B.B. King in the summer of 2003.

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Influence

Beck was one of the first electric guitarists in the 1960s to experiment with electronic distortion (most notably in The Yardbirds' 1966 album, Roger the Engineer), redefining the sound and role of the electric guitar in rock music and anticipating what Jimi Hendrix shortly thereafter took further. Beck's work with The Yardbirds and The Jeff Beck Group's 1968 album Truth were seminal influences on heavy metal music, which emerged in full force in the early 1970s.

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Appears On

Stanley Clarke's 1975 Album Journey to Love.

Reunited with former Yardbirds bandmates in 1984 with the group Box Of Frogs

Donovan's "Goo Goo Barabajagal" (Love Is Hot)

Mick Jagger's "She's The Boss"

The Honeydrippers Volume One

Appears in the movie "Twins" with Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger

The soundtrack to the movie "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band featuring The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton (once quoted as saying that after seeing Peter Frampton use the guitar mouth tube (talk box), Beck gave it up.)

  • Many More
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Trivia

  • While Beck and Jimmy Page played together in The Yardbirds, the trio of Beck, Page and Eric Clapton never played together in the group all at the same time. The three guitarists did however all play on stage at the same time at the ARMS charity concerts in 1983 in honour of Ronnie Lane.
  • Beck is a primary inspiration for the character Nigel Tufnel in the film This Is Spinal Tap.
  • Appears in the movie Blow Up with the Yardbirds.
  • Beck plays an instrumental version of Lennon/McCartney classic A Day in the Life on Sir George Martin's album In My Life(1998).
  • Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page have known each other from when Page was 11 years old.
  • is vegetarian
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See also

One of his greatest songs "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" was originally written by Stevie Wonder.

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External links

fr:Jeff Beck nl:Jeff Beck ja:ジェフ・ベック pl:Jeff Beck pt:Jeff Beck ru:Бек, Джеф fi:Jeff Beck sv:Jeff Beck

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