Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold Beck (24 June 1944 – 10 January 2023) was an English guitarist. He rose to prominence as a member of the rock band the Yardbirds, and afterwards founded and fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice. In 1975, he switched to an instrumental style with focus on an innovative sound, and his releases spanned genres and styles ranging from blues rock, hard rock, jazz fusion and a blend of guitar-rock and electronica.

Beck has been consistently ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone and other magazines' lists of the greatest guitarists. He was often called a "guitarist's guitarist". Rolling Stone described him as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock". Although he recorded two successful albums (1975's Blow by Blow and 1976's Wired) as a solo act, Beck did not establish or maintain commercial success like that of his contemporaries and bandmates. He recorded with many artists.

Beck earned wide critical praise and received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times, winning in three categories at the 2010 Grammy Awards for a career total of eight Grammies. In 2014, he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: first as a member of the Yardbirds (1992) and secondly as a solo artist (2009).

Early life

Geoffrey Arnold Beck was born on 24 June 1944 to Arnold and Ethel Beck at 206 Demesne Road, Wallington, Surrey (now London Borough of Sutton, Greater London). As a ten-year-old, Beck sang in a church choir. He had a sister, Annetta. He attended Sutton Manor School and Sutton East County Secondary Modern School.

Beck cited Les Paul as the first electric guitar player who impressed him. Beck said that he first heard an electric guitar when he was six years old and heard Paul playing "How High the Moon" on the radio. He asked his mother what it was. After she replied it was an electric guitar and was all tricks, he said, "That's for me". Cliff Gallup, lead guitarist with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, was also an early musical influence, followed by B. B. King and Steve Cropper. Beck considered Lonnie Mack "a rock guitarist [who] was unjustly overlooked [and] a major influence on him and many others."

As a teenager, he learned to play on a borrowed guitar and made several attempts to build his own instrument, first by gluing and bolting together cigar boxes for the body and an unsanded fence post for the neck with model aircraft control lines and frets simply painted on it.

After leaving school, he attended Wimbledon School of Art (now Wimbledon College of Arts). Then, he was briefly employed as a painter and decorator, a groundsman on a golf course, and a car paint sprayer. Beck's sister Annetta introduced him to Jimmy Page when both were teenagers.

Career

Beginnings and Yardbirds: 1963–1967

While attending Wimbledon College of Art, Beck played in a succession of groups. In 1963, after Ian Stewart of the Rolling Stones introduced him to R&B, he formed The Nightshift with whom he played at the 100 Club in Oxford Street. Beck joined the Rumbles, a Croydon band, in 1963 for a short period as lead guitarist, playing Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly songs, displaying a talent for mimicking guitar styles. Later in 1963, he joined the Tridents, a band from the Chiswick area. "They were really my scene because they were playing flat-out R&B, like Jimmy Reed stuff, and we supercharged it all up and made it really rocky. I got off on that, even though it was only twelve-bar blues." He was a session guitarist on a 1964 Parlophone single by the Fitz and Startz titled "I'm Not Running Away", with B-side "So Sweet". Also in 1964, Beck was part of Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages when they recorded "Dracula's Daughter"/"Come Back Baby" for Oriole Records.

In March 1965, Beck was recruited by the Yardbirds to succeed Eric Clapton on the recommendation of fellow session musician Jimmy Page, who had been their initial choice. The Yardbirds recorded most of their Top 40 hit songs during Beck's short but significant 20-month tenure with the band allowing him only one full album, which became known as Roger the Engineer (titled Over Under Sideways Down in the U.S.), released in 1966. In May 1966, Beck recorded an instrumental titled "Beck's Bolero". Rather than members of the Yardbirds, he was backed by Page on 12-string rhythm guitar, Keith Moon on drums, John Paul Jones on bass, and Nicky Hopkins on piano. In June, Page joined the Yardbirds, at first on bass and later on second lead guitar. This dual lead-guitar lineup was filmed performing an adaptation of "Train Kept A-Rollin'", titled "Stroll On", for the 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film Blowup.

Beck was fired during a U.S. tour for being a consistent no-show and for difficulties caused by his perfectionism and explosive temper on stage.

Band leader and co-leader: 1967 to 1974

In 1967, he recorded several solo singles for pop producer Mickie Most, including "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and "Tallyman", which also included his vocals. He then formed the Jeff Beck Group, which included Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano, and Aynsley Dunbar on drums (replaced by Micky Waller).

The group produced two albums for Columbia Records (Epic in the US): Truth (as Jeff Beck, August 1968) and Beck-Ola (July 1969). Truth, released five months before the first Led Zeppelin album, features "You Shook Me", a song written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Muddy Waters, also covered on the Led Zeppelin debut with a similar arrangement. It sold well (reaching No. 15 on the Billboard charts). Beck-Ola saw drummer Micky Waller replaced by Tony Newman, and, while well-received, was less successful both commercially and critically. Resentment, coupled with touring incidents, led the group to disband in July 1969.

In his autobiography, Nick Mason recalls that, during 1967, Pink Floyd had wanted to recruit Beck to be its guitarist after the departure of Syd Barrett, but "none of us had the nerve to ask him." In 1969, following the death of Brian Jones, Beck was approached about joining the Rolling Stones.

After the break-up of his group, Beck took part in the Music from Free Creek "super session" project, billed as "A. N. Other" and contributed lead guitar on four songs, including one co-written by him. In September 1969, he teamed with the rhythm section of Vanilla Fudge: bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice (when they were in England to resolve contractual issues), but when Beck fractured his skull in a car accident near Maidstone in December the plan was postponed for two-and-a-half years, during which time Bogert and Appice formed Cactus. Beck later remarked on the 1960s period of his life: "Everyone thinks of the 1960s as something they really weren't. It was the frustration period of my life. The electronic equipment just wasn't up to the sounds I had in my head."

In 1970, after Beck had regained his health, he set about forming a band with the drummer Cozy Powell. Beck, Powell, and producer Mickie Most flew to the United States and recorded several tracks at Motown's famed Studio A in Hitsville U.S.A. with the Funk Brothers, Motown's in-house band, but the results remained unreleased. By April 1971 Beck had completed the line-up of this new group with guitarist/vocalist Bobby Tench, keyboard player Max Middleton, and bassist Clive Chaman. The new band performed as "The Jeff Beck Group" but had a substantially different sound from the first line-up.

Rough and Ready (October 1971), the first album they recorded, on which Beck wrote or co-wrote six of the album's seven tracks, 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 with the same personnel. Beck employed Steve Cropper as producer and the album displayed a strong soul influence, five of the nine tracks being covers of songs by American artists. One, "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 dissolved and Beck's management put out the statement that: "The fusion of the musical styles of the various members has been successful within the terms of individual musicians, but they didn't feel it had led to the creation of a new musical style with the strength they had originally sought".

Beck then started collaborating with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, who became available following the demise of Cactus but continued touring as the Jeff Beck Group in August 1972, to fulfill contractual obligations with his promoter, with a line-up including Bogert, Appice, Max Middleton and vocalist Kim Milford. After six appearances, Milford was replaced by Bobby Tench, who was flown in from the United Kingdom for the Arie Crown Theatre Chicago performance and the rest of the tour, which concluded at the Paramount North West Theatre, Seattle. After the tour, Tench and Middleton left the band and the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice emerged. Appice took on the role of vocalist with Bogert and Beck contributing occasionally.