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Guitar Hero Jeff Beck
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The electric guitarist Jeff Beck (born June 24, 1944) is a British rock musician who played in a number of influential bands in the 1960s. Jeff Beck isn’t your typical guitar legend. His goal, in fact, is to make you forget that he plays guitar. While he is as innovative as Jimmy Page, as tasteful as Eric Clapton, and nearly as visionary as Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck never achieved the same commercial success as any of his contemporaries. Beck was born Jeffrey Arnold Beck in Wallington. Like many rock musicians in the early 1960s, he began his career working as a session guitarist. Beck burst onto the music scene in 1966 after joining the Yardbirds. Jeff Beck began his musical career following a short stint at London's Wimbledon Art College. He earned a reputation by supporting Lord Sutch, which helped him land the job as the Yardbirds' lead guitarist following the departure of Eric Clapton. Beck stayed with the Yardbirds for nearly two years, leaving in late in 1966 with the pretense that he was retiring from music. He returned several months later with "Love Is Blue," a single he played poorly because he detested the song. Although his stint with the band lasted only 18 months, Beck played on almost all of the group’s hits. More importantly, Beck’s innovative style heard on classics like “Heart Full of Soul” and “Shapes of Things” helped influence the psychedelic sound of the ‘60s.
At the height of the Yardbirds’ popularity in 1967, Beck left the group and embarked upon unpredictable journey of musical discovery that has lasted nearly four-decades as an Epic recording artist. During that time, Beck has left his distinctive mark on hard rock, jazz-fusion and modern music history. Later in 1967, he formed the Jeff Beck Group with vocalist Rod Stewart, bassist Ron Wood and drummer Aynsley Dunbar, who was quickly replaced by Mickey Waller; keyboardist Nicky Hopkins joined in early 1968. With their crushingly loud reworkings of blues songs and vocal and guitar interplay, the Jeff Beck Group established the template for heavy metal.
In 1965, Beck joined the Yardbirds (after Eric Clapton left the group for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers). It was during Jeff's tenure with the Yardbirds that they recorded most of their hits. In 1966, Jeff shared the dual-lead guitar role with Jimmy Page. Beck's tenure in the Yardbirds was a short one; he left after 18 months, partly for health reasons. The following year, Beck formed a new band, Jeff Beck Group, which featured him on lead guitar, Rod Stewart on vocals, Ron Wood on bass, Mick Waller on drums, and Nicky Hopkins on piano. The group produced two albums, Truth in 1968 and Cosa Nostra Beck-Ola the following year. Owing to friction within the band, Stewart and Wood left the group in 1969 to form The Faces. Wood later joined The Rolling Stones.
After Rod Stewart left the Jeff Beck Group in 1971, Beck never worked with a charismatic lead singer who could have helped sell his music to a wide audience. Furthermore, he was simply too idiosyncratic, moving from heavy metal to jazz fusion within a blink of an eye. As his career progressed, he became more fascinated by automobiles than guitars, releasing only one album during the course of the '90s. All the while, Beck retained the respect of fellow guitarists, who found his reclusiveness all the more alluring. Beck had intended to form a power trio with Vanilla Fudge members Carmine Appice (drums) and Tim Bogert (bass), but those plans were derailed when he suffered a serious car crash in 1970. By the time he recuperated in 1971, Bogart and Appice were playing in Cactus, so the guitarist formed a new version of the Jeff Beck Group. Featuring keyboardist Max Middleton, drummer Cozy Powell, bassist Clive Chaman, and vocalist Bobby Tench, the new band recorded Rough and Ready (1971) and Jeff Beck Group (1972). Neither album attracted much attention. Cactus dissolved in late 1972, and Beck, Bogert and Appice formed a power trio the following year. The group's lone studio album -- a live record was released in Japan but never in the U.K. or U.S. -- was widely panned due to its plodding arrangements and weak vocals, and the group disbanded the following year.
After the failure of the second Jeff Beck Group (it disbanded in 1972), Beck formed the power trio Beck, Bogert, and 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). For about 18 months, Beck remained quiet, re-emerging in 1975, Beck did a solo, all-instrumental jazz fusion album entitled Blow by Blow. Produced by George Martin, Blow by Blow received strong positive critical reviews and substantial sales, reaching number 4 in the U.S. charts. It was followed up by a collaborative effort with keyboardist Jan Hammer on the 1976 Wired album, which also received critical acclaim. Beck collaborated with Jan Hammer, a former keyboardist for Mahavishnu Orchestra, for 1976's Wired, and supported the album with a co-headlining tour with Hammer's band. The tour was documented on the 1977 album, Jeff Beck With the Jan Hammer Group --Live. After the Hammer tour, Beck retired to his estate outside of London and remained quiet for three years. He returned in 1980 with There and Back, which featured contributions from Hammer. Following the tour for There and Back, Beck retired again, returning five years later with the slick, Nile Rodgers-produced Flash. A pop/rock album recorded with a variety of vocalists, Flash featured Beck's only hit single, the Stewart-sung "People Get Ready," and also boasted "Escape," which won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental. During 1987, he played lead guitar on Mick Jagger's second solo album, Primitive Cool. There was another long wait between Flash and 1989's Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop With Terry Bozzio and Tony Hymas. Though the album sold only moderately well, Guitar Shop received uniformly strong reviews and won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental. Beck supported the album with a tour, this time co-headlining with guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. Again, Beck entered semi-retirement upon the completion of the tour.
In 1992, Beck played lead guitar on Roger Waters' comeback album, Amused to Death. A year later, he released Crazy Legs (1993), a tribute to Gene Vincent and his lead guitarist Cliff Gallup, which was recorded with Big Town Playboys. Beck remained quiet after the album's release prior to resurfacing with You Had It Coming (2001) followed two years later with Who Else. 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. The song "Plan B" from this release earned him his fourth Grammy Award, again, for 'Best Rock Instrumental Performance'.
"Let me introduce you to A real Guitar Pioneer.... Mr. Jeff Beck..."
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Updated: 3/4/07
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