Posted on 01/11/2023 2:14:00 PM PST by Drew68
Edited on 01/11/2023 10:05:37 PM PST by Jim Robinson. [history]
Jeff Beck, among the most innovative and certainly the most unpredictable of ’60s guitar heroes, has died. He was 78.
A fleet, imaginative soloist, Beck brought formidable instrumental firepower to British band the Yardbirds, which he joined in 1965 as a replacement for Eric Clapton. Entirely at home with the group’s blues roots, he burnished their pop hits with an adventurous and virtually unprecedented use of feedback, sustain and fuzz.
(Excerpt) Read more at variety.com ...
can you just catch bacterial meningitis out of the blue?
Don't you need to be exposed?
Getting on 50 freaking years ago, 1972, one of my pals noticed in the paper that Beck was playing at Berkeley Community Theater that night....in about an hour. We gathered ourselves together and power walked to the venue. I had zero expectation of being able to get in, but we somehow group-assumed we could and would. We get there with about 3 minutes to spare, walk in, the place was jammed. Miraculously, we found 4 adjoining empty seats in the center of the fourth or fifth row...unbelievable. We climbed in. Literally the moment our asses hit the seats, the band burst onto stage. This was the “Rough and Ready” band with Max Middleton and Cozy Powell. What a great, memorable show.
Jeff Beck - he went to eleven.
Were you questioning if that was Johnny Depp in the Hedy Lamarr song?
That song you presented was indeed Beck & Setzer. 🙂
Rest in Peace good sir, and thank you for all of the incredible music you've blessed us with over the years.
Yep, along with Jimmy Page.
Surprising since JB seemed to be in the best shape of the ‘60s Brit guitar heroes. He’s one of those guys whose playing never plateaued. He kept getting better with age like you said. I saw a fairly recent video of him on tour with Johnny Depp and he sounded great.
Yep. When so many of these old rockers die, you look them up and realize they haven't played in public in 20 years and retired quietly.
Beck was playing shows with Johnny Depp as recently as last October.
Did you by chance mean to say “au revoir”? 🙂
No Sir, I was simply contributing a different Beck duet, that I thought was far superior to the Depp effort you offered. Setzer is also a Christian, verses Depp, who is, who knows.
Here’s Beck from that same concert with Setzer, playing Setzer’s grammy award winning song Sleepwalk, along with another called Apache.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlyunWX6Y9s
Yes, too sad. I now have no tolerance for the knocks against us older FReepers. My dear wife died last year and I’m havin a hard time.
Jeff Beck was a class act. I didn’t happen to see him live unlike most of the greats but have 90% of his cds and dvds.
His main limitation was he couldn’t sing well, so had to rely on others in his groups who would soon leave him for their own careers(Rod Stewart on Beck’s first album for example.) As he said to Eric Clapton on a DVD the lack of pop singles like those that Clapton had all along was a drawback. There have been instrumental hits from the 50s onward but building a career on them isn’t easy.
His lyrical, improvisational playing was more related to Wes Montgomery and even Django Reinhardt than to the hard rockers even though he could keep pace with the very best of them and surpass them.
His Grammy Award for A Day in the Life by the Beatles and the acclaim for Emotion and Commotion and the 2007 Eric Clapton Crossroads festival—both with the prodigy bassist Tal Wilkenfeld were well deserved. The Crossroads performance included a standing ovation combination of Beck’s guitar and her bass improvisation that were stunning.
He will be missed.
May he rest in peace.
I think the song I offered was appropriate for the news, as a kind of tribute to Jeff Beck. It wasn’t really about Johnny Depp at all. After all, Beck had no problem playing with Depp apparently. 🙂
Saw him during the “Wired” tour. Sat about 15 feet away from him and his stack. Unbelievable concert. Hair on my arms stood straight up well after the show ended.
Favorite song for me: “Cause we’ve ended as lovers” (Blow By Blow album)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xiOPvOBd8IA
Thanks, it should be all about Jeff today, obviously. Here he is with another instrumental remake of a classic (a day in the life). By himself, pretty much:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNoDSKeCNA4
Most of his music was hard to dance to.
But one of the greats. RIP.
My sole familiarity with him is from Futurama!
Yes, I am a pop music Philistine.
Yes. I always heard him as heavily jazz influenced... less bluesy than Clapton and Page. A very smooth touch... much like Santana without the Latin rhythm...
Agree. He made contributions to the advance of the art of the guitar that were unique.
“And while he never reached the level of fame that Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page enjoyed, he was arguably the most skilled guitarist of the three.”
I once heard a very good local guitar player say that Jeff Beck was the guitar player Eric Clapton secretly dreamed of being.
Wonder how far Page would have gotten without Zeppelin?
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