Scotsman Obituaries: Jeff Beck, British rock musician

Jimmy Page called him a “six-stringed warrior,” Aerosmith’s Joe Perry has described him as “the Salvador Dali of the guitar” and for Billy Joel he was, simply, “the best”. Following the announcement of the death of Jeff Beck, aged 78, fellow guitar slingers such as Brian May, The Edge, Johnny Marr and Steve Van Zandt were queuing up to pay sincere tribute to this musician’s musician, who regularly featured in lists of the Greatest Guitarists of All Time – as recently as 2015, Rolling Stone placed him in their Top 5. He was also a six-time Grammy winner in the Best Rock Instrumental category and a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer twice over – as a member of The Yardbirds and as a solo artist.

Ironically, he is best known in wider culture for his cheesy singalong hit Hi Ho Silver Lining but his legacy to rock’n’roll is as a fierce, adventurous, single-minded stylist on the Fender Stratocaster, first in The Yardbirds and then with his own Jeff Beck Group. His experimentation with feedback, fuzztone and judicious use of the whammy bar influenced the psychedelic rock and heavy metal to come.

However, while his technical ability was never in dispute – his fleet fingers were reportedly insured for £7 million – Beck struggled to maintain a consistent commercial presence. He was a notorious perfectionist – on one occasion he had to be reminded by producer George Martin that he could not tweak a recording any further as the album was already in the shops.

Jeff Beck performs at Wembley Stadium in 2014 (Picture: Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)

In a wide-ranging career, he collaborated with artists as diverse as Kate Bush, Brian Wilson, Morrissey, Herbie Hancock and Imelda May, though he arguably found his most fruitful foil in a young buck called Rod Stewart, who has hailed his old amigo, writing: “Jeff Beck was on another planet. He took me and Ronnie Wood to the USA in the late Sixties… and we haven’t looked back since.”

Jimmy Page, who had known Beck since they were teenagers, was feeling more florid when he posted that “the 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 imagination apparently limitless.”

Beck was born Geoffrey Arnold Beck to Arnold and Ethel Beck in the Surrey town of Wallington. His mother encouraged him to take up piano but, like many of his generation, he was enchanted by the sophisticated, resonating sound of Les Paul’s How High the Moon emanating from his family’s radio. “The electric guitar seemed to be a totally fascinating plank of wood with knobs and switches on it,” he said. “I just had to have one.” Family finance was an issue so Beck attempted to build his own guitar from cigar boxes with painted frets, while borrowing an acoustic to master the rudiments.

Inspired by BB King and Lonnie Mack, and admiring of progressive peers such as John McLaughlin, he played in bands while attending Wimbledon Collage of Art, starting out in Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages and burning through a host of groups on London’s burgeoning blues boom scene before being recommended to The Yardbirds by Jimmy Page as a replacement for the departing Eric Clapton. Page had been their first choice and he later joined Beck in the band, creating an unbeatable pincer attack on proto-psychedelic single Happenings Ten Years Time Ago.

Beck’s tenure in the band lasted an intense 20 months. He was fired at the end of 1966, later saying “every day was a hurricane in The Yardbirds”. He wasted no time in recording the technical fireworks of Beck’s Bolero but became far better known for its A-side, Hi Ho Silver Lining.

Determined to ensconce himself in the driving seat, he formed the Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, pianist Nicky Hopkins and drummer Aynsley Dunbar, later quipping that he and Stewart “have a love hate relationship – he loves me and I hate him”. Their albums Truth and Beck-Ola fared better in the US than the UK, but this iteration of the group split just before they were due to play at the legendary Woodstock festival.

Beck’s momentum was further stalled by a car accident. After recuperating from a head injury, he was eyed by Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones as a possible replacement for Syd Barrett and Brian Jones. Instead, he put together a new line-up of the Jeff Beck Group with drummer Cozy Powell, recording in Memphis with Steve Cropper of Booker T & the MGs as producer. When this incarnation went the way of the first, he formed a power trio, releasing one album as Beck, Bogert & Appice before splitting in 1974.

He achieved his best-selling success with the jazz rock stylings of his 1975 solo album Blow By Blow but switched directions again on Flash, a 1985 vocal pop/rock album produced by Nile Rodgers. For much of the Eighties, Beck was blighted by tinnitus, which was surely not helped by going temporarily deaf while rehearsing with Guns N Roses.

The Nineties onwards were taken up with guest contributions to film scores, albums such as Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes, and experiments with fingerstyle guitar and electronica. Beck remained in demand as a collaborator and was working up to his death, appearing on Ozzy Osbourne’s 2022 album Patient Number 9 and releasing his final album, 18, with Johnny Depp, who appeared on stage with Beck in the days following Depp’s win in the defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard.

Beck is survived by his second wife Sandra Cash.

Obituaries

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