Geoffrey Arnold  Beck (b. 6/24/1944) of Wallington, England is in my opinion the greatest living guitar player. Throughout his career he has been an innovator –  experimenting with fuzz tone, feedback, and moving into different genres of music – blues, pop, rock, psychedelic rock, jazz, jazz fusion, and classical. He also was the inspiration (at least physically) for “This is Spinal Tap’s” lead guitarist – Nigel Tufnel. Beck never became as well known commercially  as Clapton and Page because  he was too much into experimentation of different musical styles and is very taciturn -not saying much and just letting his guitar do his talking for himself.  As a reviewer of his recent October concert in Tel Aviv  said “When Jeff Beck took the stage in Tel Aviv the other night, he wasn’t there to perform. He wasn’t there to entertain. He was there to play guitar – and the audience was lucky enough to be allowed to watch. ……The man is a rock legend for all the right reasons!”

Beck was a boyhood friend of Jimmy Page and started his musical career as a guitar player for a dance group called The Tridents as well as being Page’s understudy as a session player. When Page was offered the position of lead guitar player when Eric Clapton left The Yardbirds, he recommended Jeff Beck and Beck joined that group and took The Yardbirds to their peak performances as a band. A year later Page joined the group and they both shared dual lead guitar positions for only a couple of months. Beck left and formed his own group The Jeff Beck Group with an unknown lead singer named Rod Stewart and a bass player named Ronnie Wood. Nowadays that would be considered a super group, however internal band disputes and not enough material to work with prevented the JBG from becoming a top rated group. Beck disbanded it in 1969 on the verge of Woodstock (in which they were scheduled to appear) because he did not think that they were ready and Stewart went on to a solo career while Wood became a member of the Rolling Stones. He formed another version of the band which broke up in 1972. After that he was in a band called Beck, Bogert and Appice which did not last long until he finally went on a solo career. When Mick Taylor left the Rolling Stones in 1975, the Stones offered Beck his position but Jeff turned them down because he did not want to get involved in a Rolling Stones lifestyle and was not certain that he and Keith Richards would get along sharing the guitar roles, eventually Ronnie Wood got the job. Jeff recently said in an interview that had the joined, he would have  made  millions but probably would have died young.

His first great album was 1975’s “Blow by Blow” produced by George Martin. Beck has collaborated with many musical greats such as Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, B.B. King, Imelda May, and Carlos Santana. He is a two time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer – 1992 with The Yardbirds and 2009 as a solo performer.

1. As you can tell he does not use a pick, just his finger tips

2. He makes great use of the “whammy bar ” on his guitar and uses a “slide” on his middle finger a lot

There is never any doubt as to who’s in command of a performance when a guitar is in Jeff Beck’s hands.

Imelda May is an Irish singer who specializes in blues and rockabilly music. Here she (accompanied by Jeff Beck) does a wonderful version of the Shangri-la’s 1964 “Remember (walking in the sand)”  at the Iridium Jazz Club in NYC.

B.B.King is a legendary blues guitarist and singer/song writer. This is from a  television performance from 2003

Jimmy Page  as you all know is also a Yardbirds alumni and was  lead guitar player for Led Zeppelin (also a two time Hall of Famer). This is from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance of 2009. Beck starts off with “Beck’s Bolero” (written by Page back in 1966)  and then breaks it off when Jimmy comes on and they go into Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrants Song” and after a couple of minutes they go back to  “Beck’s Bolero”.

Imogen Heap is a Grammy winning singer/song writer and composer. This performance is from 2007 DVD  “Performing This Week….. Jeff Beck” from Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho, London.

I was at this concert at the Fillmore East back in April 2009 when I was visiting New York. Here Beck plays a duet on the bass with Tal Wilkenfeld ( a young and extremely talented bass player from Australia). The piece they are playing is from “Blow by Blow” and is called “Freeway Jam”.  At one point she playfully pushes his fingers away as they both reach for the same note.

Billy Gibbons is the lead guitar player for ZZ Top. Here Beck and Gibbons rock Ernie Ford’s 1956 song “Sixteen Tons”