{"id":184481,"date":"2023-01-12T09:52:09","date_gmt":"2023-01-12T09:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/legendary-rock-guitarist-jeff-beck-dies-aged-78-jeff-beck-2\/"},"modified":"2023-01-12T09:52:09","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T09:52:09","slug":"legendary-rock-guitarist-jeff-beck-dies-aged-78-jeff-beck-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/legendary-rock-guitarist-jeff-beck-dies-aged-78-jeff-beck-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary rock guitarist Jeff Beck dies aged 78 | Jeff Beck"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jeff Beck, the celebrated guitarist who played with the Yardbirds and led the Jeff Beck Group, has died aged 78, his representative has confirmed.<\/p>\n

Beck died on Tuesday after \u201csuddenly contracting bacterial meningitis\u201d, the representative confirmed. \u201cHis family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

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Often described as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Beck \u2013 whose fingers and thumbs were famously insured for \u00a37m \u2013 was known as a keen innovator. He pioneered jazz-rock, experimented with fuzz and distortion effects and paved the way for heavy subgenres such as psych rock and heavy metal over the course of his career. He was an eight-time Grammy winner, recipient of the Ivor Novello for outstanding contribution to British music and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame both as a solo artist and as a member of the Yardbirds.<\/p>\n

Musicians and longtime friends began paying tribute minutes after the news broke. on Twitter, Jimmy Page wrote<\/a>, \u201cThe 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. His technique unique. His imaginations are apparently limitless. Jeff I will miss you along with your millions of fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the death of Jeff Beck we have lost a wonderful man and one of the greatest guitar players in the world,\u201d Mick Jagger wrote<\/a>. \u201cWe will all miss him so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

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With the death of Jeff Beck we have lost a wonderful man and one of the greatest guitar players in the world. We will all miss him so much. pic.twitter.com\/u8DYQrLNB7<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) January 11, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Rod Stewart, who toured with the Jeff Beck Group in the late 60s, called him \u201cone of the few guitarists that when playing live would actually listen to me sing and respond … you were the greatest, my man. Thank you for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jeff Beck was on another planet . He took me and Ronnie Wood to the USA in the late 60s in his band the Jeff Beck Group
and we haven’t looked back since . pic.twitter.com\/uS7bbWsHgW<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Sir Rod Stewart (@rodstewart) January 11, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Gene Simmons called it<\/a> \u201cheartbreaking news \u2026 no one played guitar like Jeff. Please get ahold of the first two Jeff Beck Group albums and behold greatness. RIP.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow Jeff has gone, I feel like one of my band of brothers has left this world, and I’m going to dearly miss him,\u201d Ronnie Wood tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ozzy Osbourne tweeted<\/a>, \u201cI can’t express how saddened I am to hear of Jeff Beck’s passing. What a terrible loss for his family, friends & his many fans. It was such an honor to have known Jeff and an incredible honor to have had him play on my most recent album.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour wrote<\/a>\u201cI am devastated to hear the news of the death of my friend and hero Jeff Beck, whose music has thrilled and inspired me and countless others for so many years \u2026 He will be forever in our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnny Marr called him<\/a> \u201ca pioneer and one of the all time greats\u201d, while Whitesnake’s David Coverdale wrote<\/a>\u201cOh, My Heart \u2026 RIP, Jeff \u2026 I miss you already\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Kinks’ Dave Davies tweeted<\/a>, \u201cI’m heartbroken he looked in fine shape to me. Playing great he was in great shape. I’m shocked and bewildered \u2026 it don’t make sense I don’t get it. He was a good friend and a great guitar player.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>The Jeff Beck Group in the late 60s: (LR) Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Mickey Waller and Jeff Beck.<\/span> Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beck was born Geoffrey Beck in 1944, in Wallington, south London. As a child, he sang in a church choir, and began playing guitar as a teenager, getting his first instrument after trying to dupe a music store in a hire-purchase scheme. \u201cThere was this guy, he wasn’t old enough to be my dad but he offered to be my guarantor. He said, ‘I’ll tell them I’m your stepfather’,\u201d he told the New Statesman in 2016. \u201cWithin a month, they’d suspended out he was nothing to do with me whatsoever and they snatched the guitar back. My dad went along and explained that we couldn’t afford it \u2013 so they waived the rest of the payments and I got the guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

After briefly attending art school in London, Beck began playing with Screaming Lord Sutch until, after Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds, Jimmy Page recommended Beck as his replacement. Although already successful by that time, the Yardbirds had many of their biggest hits during Beck’s short tenure in the band, including the 1966 album Yardbirds and the No 3 single Shapes of Things. Beck was only in the Yardbirds for 20 months, leaving the group in 1966 due to inter-band tensions that had arisen during a US tour. (Later, he would say that \u201cevery day was a hurricane in the Yardbirds\u201d.)<\/p>\n

In 1968, Beck released Truth, his debut solo album, which drew on blues and hard rock to form a prototypical version of heavy metal. One year later, he released an album with Jeff Beck Group, Beck-Ola but had his solo career derailed after he suffered a head injury in a car accident.<\/p>\n

In 1970, after recovering from his skull fracture, Beck formed a new incarnation of the Jeff Beck Group, and released two records \u2013 1971’s Rough and Ready and 1972’s Jeff Beck Group \u2013 which displayed his earliest forays into the jazz fusion sound he would become known for.<\/p>\n

In the mid-70s, Beck supported John McLaughlin’s jazz-rock group Mahavishnu Orchestra on tour, an experience that radically changed how he saw music. \u201cWatching [McLaughlin] and the sax player trading solos, I thought, ‘This is me’,\u201d he said in 2016.<\/p>\n

Inspired, Beck embraced jazz fusion fully on the George Martin-produced Blow By Blow. A platinum-selling hit in the US which peaked at No 4, it was Beck’s most commercially successful album ever, but he later expressed regret. \u201cI shouldn’t have done Blow By Blow,\u201d he told Guitar Player in 1990. \u201cI wish I had stayed with earthy rock’n’roll. When you’re surrounded with very musical people like Max Middleton and Clive Chaman, you’re in a prison, and you have to play along with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>Jeff Beck on stage in London in 1972.<\/span> Photograph: Fin Costello\/Redferns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite his later feelings about Blow By Blow, Beck continued to experiment throughout the 70s, releasing another platinum-selling jazz fusion album, Wired, in 1976, and There and Back, in 1980.<\/p>\n

Beck’s output slowed dramatically in the 80s, in part due to his suffering from tinnitus. His projects through the decade were sporadic but notable: in 1981, he performed with Clapton, Sting and Phil Collins at Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Other Ball benefit concerts, and returned with his first solo album in five years, Flash, in 1985. Produced by Chic’s Nile Rodgers, it presented a dramatic shift for Beck in that it primarily featured vocal-led pop tracks, a change from his largely instrumental 70s output. People Get Ready, a collaboration with Rod Stewart, became one of Beck’s rare hit singles under his own name, charting in the US, New Zealand, Sweden, Belgium and Switzerland.<\/p>\n

The 1989 album Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop was his last solo album for a decade, but he remained active through the 90s, collaborating with Jon Bon Jovi, Kate Bush and Roger Waters, among others; in 1999, he released Who Else, which incorporated techno and electronic elements.<\/p>\n

In the 2000s and 2010s, Beck only released a handful of albums, but began to settle into his role as an elder statesman and lauded influence, performing with artists such as Kelly Clarkson and Joss Stone. He has lived on an East Sussex estate since 1976, and married his second wife, Sandra Cash, in 2005.<\/p>\n

Beck’s most recent project was last year’s 18, a collaborative album with Johnny Depp that featured original songs penned by Depp and covers of Marvin Gaye, the Velvet Underground and other classic artists. The album was widely panned; in a two-star review, the Guardian’s Michael Hann described it as a \u201cpeculiar and hugely uneven record,\u201d while noting that \u201cit’s to Beck’s credit that alone among the guitar heroes of the 1960s UK R&B boom, he has not retreated into coffee -table blues.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    This article was amended on 12 January 2023. Beck-Ola was released in 1969, not 1971 as an earlier version suggested, and Sandra Cash was Beck’s second wife, not his sixth.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n