Rock guitar great Jeff Beck, 78, died yesterday according to his representative.. He was a member of one of the early influential British groups, the Yardbirds, and then heading his own group, the Jeff Beck Group. His heyday was in the 1960s-early 1970s.
Beck died after a bout with bacterial meningitis.
There is not much I can add here except I listened to him and his band a lot back in the day of FM "progressive rock" stations.
He was regarded as one of the greats of the rock era even though he was less well known than many. However, I don't see where anybody ever had a bad word to say about him either as a musician or as a person. He was highly respected by all who knew and worked with him.
Those two albums from the sixties, Truth and Beck-Ola, were instant classics and had some of the most famous musicians in rock history featured. In addition to Beck, there was Jimmy Page, Rod Stewart, Ron Wood, Keith Moon, and others. As I said above, those albums were staples on FM radio.
Snip:
Often described as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Beck – whose fingers and thumbs were famously insured for £7m – was known as a keen innovator. He pioneered jazz-rock, experimented with fuzz and distortion effects and paved the way for heavier 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.
Musicians and longtime friends began paying tribute minutes after the news broke. On Twitter, Jimmy Page wrote, “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 imaginations apparently limitless. Jeff I will miss you along with your millions of fans.”
"Beck's Bolero," probably his best known performance:
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