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Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck (born 24 June 1944) is an English rock guitarist. He was one of the three noted guitarists which include Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, to have played with The Yardbirds. He was ranked 14th in Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".[ url = www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5937559/the_100_greatest_guitarists_of_all_time/]
MSNBC has called Beck a "guitarist's guitarist"[title=The guitarist's player] and Rolling Stone Magazine has described him as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock".[title=Jeff Beck Biography]
Much of Beck's recorded output has been instrumental, with a focus on innovative sound and his releases have spanned genres ranging from blues-rock, heavy metal, jazz fusion and most recently, an additional blend of guitar-rock and electronica. Beck has earned wide critical praise; furthermore, he has received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance four times. Although he has had two hit albums (in 1975 and 1976) as a solo act, Beck has not been able to establish and maintain a broad following or the sustained commercial success of many of his collaborators and bandmates.
Beck appears on albums by Roger Waters, Les Paul, Zucchero and Cyndi Lauper. Brian May's album and ZZ Top. He also made a cameo appearance in the movie Twins (1988) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito and Nicolette Larson.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 4 April 2009
. The award was presented by Jimmy Page.
Early life Beck was born in 1944 to Arnold and Ethel Beck in Wallington, England. As a ten year old, Beck sang in a church choir. As a teenager he learned to play a borrowed guitar and then made several attempts to build his own instrument. His first attempt was by gluing and bolting together a selection of cigar boxes for the body and an unsanded fence-upright for a neck (forgetting the washers so that the bolt head sank into the wood). The strings were aircraft control line wires, both single and double stranded were used depending on the effect he wanted to achieve. The frets, however, were a different matter. In an unknowing portent for the future use of fretless guitar, the frets were simply painted on. Another attempt at a home-build was when he studiously cut a body from a very thick piece of wood. When fabricating the neck he attempted to use memorised measurements. Unfortunately the measurements he had remembered were those of a bass guitar. In his book Mo Foster quotes Beck[title=17 Watts? The Birth of British Rock Guitar] as saying
Beck is cited as saying that the first electric guitar player he singled out as impressing him was Les Paul.
Career He began his career in the 1960s, working as a session guitarist. In March 1965 Beck was recruited to replace Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds, on the recommendation of fellow session man, Jimmy Page, who had been their initial choice.[title=Yardbird - How He Became England's] It was during his tenure with the Yardbirds that the band recorded most of their Top 40 hit songs.
Beck's time with The Yardbirds was short, allowing him only one full album; Yardbirds which became known as Roger the Engineer (1966). He spent the September to November 1966 sharing the dual lead guitar role with Jimmy Page, who originally joined the Yardbirds as a bass player
Beck at the Commodore Ballroom Vancouver Canada, 2001
Photo:Matt Gibbons
In February 1967 after recording the one-off song "Beck's Bolero" (with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins, and Keith Moon) and having two solo vocals hit singles in the UK ("Hi Ho Silver Lining" and "Tallyman") Beck formed a new band called The Jeff Beck Group, which featured him on lead guitar, Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano, and a series of drummers, eventually settling on Micky Waller. During 1967 Pink Floyd wanted Beck to become their guitarist after the departure of Syd Barrett but this never transpired. Nick Mason recalls in his autobiography that, "None of us had the nerve to ask him".
The group produced two albums for Columbia Records: Truth (August 1968) and Beck-Ola (July 1969). Both albums are highly acclaimed. Truth, released five months before the first Led Zeppelin album, features a cover of "You Shook Me", a song first recorded by Willie Dixon which was also covered on the Led Zeppelin debut. It sold well (reaching number 15 on the Billboard charts) and received great critical praise,Citation needed
After the breakup he took part in the Music From Free Creek super session project, appearing as "A.N. Other" and contributed lead guitar on four songs, including one co-written by Beck himself. After deciding not to continue working with Stewart he teamed up with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, the rhythm section of the Vanilla Fudge. In September 1969 Bogert and Appice came to England to start resolving their contractual issues, but when Beck fractured his skull in a car accident near Maidstone in December 1969 the plan ended up being postponed for two and a half years, during which time Bogert and Appice formed Cactus. Meanwhile, Rod Stewart teamed up with Ronnie Wood and the Small Faces.
In 1970, when Beck had regained his health he set about forming a band with entirely new members. His first recruit was drummer Cozy Powell. Beck, Powell and producer Mickie Most flew to the USA and recorded several tracks at Motown Studios with Motown session men, but the results remained unreleased. By April 1971, Beck had finalised the line-up of his new group (which kept the name of Jeff Beck Group although it had a substantially different sound from the first line-up) with guitarist and vocalist Bobby Tench, keyboard player Max Middleton and bassist Clive Chaman.
Rough and Ready (October 1971) was the first album recorded by this line-up and Beck wrote or co-wrote six of the album's seven tracks (the exception written by pianist Middleton). Rough and Ready included elements of soul, rhythm and blues and jazz, foreshadowing the direction Beck's music would take later in the decade.
A second album Jeff Beck Group (July 1972) was recorded at TMI studios in Memphis, Tennessee, using the same personnel and Beck employed Steve Cropper as producer. This album displayed a strong soul influence with five of the nine tracks being covers of songs by American artists. One such track "I Got To Have A Song" was the first of four Stevie Wonder compositions covered by Beck. Shortly after the release of the Jeff Beck Group album the band was officially dissolved and Beck's management put out this statement:
Jeff Beck does not rely heavily on electronic effects. Beck stopped regular use of a pick (plectrum) in the 1980s. He produces a wide variety of sounds by using his fingers and the vibrato bar on his signature Fender Stratocaster, although he frequently uses a wah-wah pedal both live and in the studio. As Eric Clapton once said, "With Jeff, it’s all in his hands". Along with Fender Stratocasters, Beck occasionally plays Fender Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul models as well. His amplifiers are primarily Fender and Marshall. In his earlier days with the Yardbirds, Beck also used a Fender Esquire guitar through Vox AC30s. He has also played through a variety of fuzz pedals and echo-units along with this set-up and has used the Pro Co RAT distortion pedal.
He is noted for changes of musical style and direction throughout his career. Ritchie Blackmore once praised this aspect of Jeff in an interview to Martin K. Webb, when the interviewer asked him what he means by "chance music", he replied:
During the ARMS charity concerts in 1983 Beck used his battered Fender Esquire along with a 1954 Fender Stratocaster and a Jackson Soloist. On the Crazy Legs (1993) he played a Gretsch Duo Jet, his signature Fender Stratocaster and various other guitars. Recently Fender created a Custom Shop Tribute series version of his beat-up Fender Esquire as well as his Artist Signature series Stratocaster. The Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB guitar pickup was designed for him.Citation needed
Personal lifeBeck is a vegetarian[ title=Interview outtakes ] and when not touring or recording he rarely plays guitar.Citation needed
DiscographyAssociations - John's Childrens single "Just What You Want - Just What You'll Get" b/w "But She's Mine" (rel. Feb 1967) as uncredited session musician.
- Beck's group plays with Donovan on the songs "Goo Goo Barabajagal (Love is Hot)," "Trudi" and "Homesickness"
- Stevie Wonder's Talking Book
- Stanley Clarke's 1975 album Journey to Love
- Stanley Clarke's 1978 album Modern Man
- The soundtrack to the movie ''Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band featuring The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton (Beck was once quoted as saying that after he saw Peter Frampton use the talk box, he gave it up).
- Murray Head's "Voices" (1981)
- Rod Stewart's 1983 album "Camouflage" on three tracks, also appears in video for the song "Infatuation" and in the video for " People Get Ready"
- Tina Turner's Private Dancer
- Reunited with former Yardbirds bandmates in 1984 with the group Box of Frogs
- Mick Jagger's "She's the Boss"
- The Honeydrippers: Volume One
- Malcolm McLaren's album Waltz Darling, released in 1989, on the songs "House Of The Blue Danube" and "Call A Wave".
- Tony Hymas's Oyaté, on the track "Crazy Horse" (feat. John Trudell) and "Tashunka Witko" 1990.
- Buddy Guy's ''Damn Right, I've Got the Blues, on the tracks "Mustang Sally" and "Early In The Morning" 1991.
- Kate Bush's 1993 album The Red Shoes
- Two songs of the Italian singer Zucchero: the song Papa Perche? (from the 1995 album Spirito DiVino) and Like the sun (from out of nowhere) (from the 2004 album ZU & Co, also featuring Macy Gray).
- The 2003 Yardbirds' reunion album Birdland - on track "My Blind Life"
- Toots & the Maytals 2004 album "True Love" on the song "54-46."
- Ursus Minor's Zugzwang released in 2005
- Cyndi Lauper's song "Above The Clouds" from her 2005 album The Body Acoustic
- American Idol on 24 April 2007 for the Idol Gives Back special, with Kelly Clarkson, playing "Up to the Mountain", originally by Patty Griffin
- played guitar solo in Pavarotti's rendition of "Caruso"
- The rare blues album Guitar Boogie with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page
- Guitarist for Hans Zimmer's Days of Thunder Instrumental Score.
- Beck plays an instrumental version of Lennon/McCartney classic "A Day in the Life" on Sir George Martin's album In My Life (1998), which also appeared in Julie Taymor's Beatles-inspired movie, Across the Universe.
- His song "Hot Rod Honeymoon" was on the soundtrack for the video game Gran Turismo 4
- Stone Free: A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix on Manic Depression with Seal.
- The Pretenders album Viva El Amor on the song "Legalise Me"
- Stevie Wonder originally wrote "Superstition" for Beck. However, Wonder's manager insisted that he record it before Beck did.
- John McLaughlin's The Promise, on the track "Django".
- Joe Cocker's Heart & Soul album on 4th track I (Who Have Nothing) playing lead guitar.
- Brian May's "The Guv'nor" from the album Another World
- Imogen Heap's Speak for Yourself
- Roger Waters' Amused to Death
- Cozy Powell's Tilt on the tracks "Cat Moves" and "Hot Rock"
- Mood Swings' song Skinthieves
- Jon Bon Jovi's solo album Blaze of Glory
- Paul Rodgers' song "Good Morning Little School Girl"
- Appears in the movie Twins with Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Morrissey album Years of Refusal on the song Black Cloud.
- "Mystery Train" on Never Stop Rockin, Carlo Little All Stars album (released 2009, Angel Air Records)
- Beverly Craven album Love Scenes (EPIC 1993) on the songs Love is the Light, Hope and The Winner Takes It All
Copyright Citations
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