Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck (actually Geoffrey Arnold Beck, * June 24, 1944 in Wallington, England ) is a British rock guitarist and multiple Grammy Award winner.

History

How many guitarists in the early 1960s in England Jeff Beck earned his living as a session musician. 1965 - after the change Eric Clapton to John Mayall - examined the Yardbirds a new lead guitarist. Beck was one of the first electric guitarist who experimented with electronic fuzz distortion and noise. After a legendary, but short lead guitar duo with Jimmy Page, he left the end of 1966 the group.

Early in 1967 he released his solo single, Hi Ho Silver Lining / Beck's Bolero, which was a big hit. Beck sang here itself in the same year founded a new band, Jeff Beck, Jeff Beck Group. It was Rod Stewart (vocals), Ron Wood ( bass), Micky Waller (drums) and Nicky Hopkins (keyboards). The group produced two albums, Truth ( 1968) and Cosa Nostra Beck- Ola (1969). Despite this, tensions in the Jeff Beck Group developed and in 1969 rose Stewart and Wood, in order to join the Faces. Ron Wood then moved in 1975 to the Rolling Stones.

1968 was the psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd, Beck enlisted as a guitarist. Pink Floyd needed because of mental problems Syd Barrett, the band leader of Pink Floyd was at this time, an additional guitarist; but then ultimately the choice fell on David Gilmour.

After the second failure of the Jeff Beck Group ( 1972 fell apart ) founded Beck 's world class trio Beck, Bogert & Appice (BBA ) with Carmine Appice (drums) and Tim Bogert (bass ), both formerly of Vanilla Fudge and Cactus. This group found mainly in specialist circles attention and broke up soon again. After all, she had a hit with Stevie Wonder's Superstition and Beck played lead guitar on Wonder's Talking Book album. 1975 Beck released an instrumental, very inspired by jazz solo album entitled Blow by Blow, which was highly praised by critics. This was followed by a collaboration with the jazz-rock keyboardist Jan Hammer and his band 1976: Wired, which also met with great approval. During this time, Beck also produced two albums the group Upp, in which he also starred himself.

In the 1980s and 1990s Jeff Beck brought only occasionally albums out: Flash (1985, including some pieces together with Rod Stewart and Jan Hammer), Guitar Shop (1989 ), Crazy Legs (1993, a tribute to Cliff Gallup, guitarist Gene Vincent ) Who else ( 1999) and You Had It Coming ( 2001). Jeff Beck won the Grammy for the third time in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for his play Dirty Mind from the album You Had It Coming. In addition, he played as a guest musician in other musicians projects (eg Jon Bon Jovi Blaze of Glory and Roger Waters Amused to Death 1992).

Jeff Beck had never celebrated successes such as Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, yet he is with his musical visions between jazz-rock and fusion music (eg on Wired and There and Back, feat. Simon Phillips), Psychedelic and Progressive Guitar Music as an equally dominant force in rock music. For his rock instrumentals he was so far six times won a Grammy Award: 1986 Escape, 1990 Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop with Terry Bozzio and Tony Hymas, 2002 for Dirty Mind, 2004 for Plan B, 2010 A Day in the Life and 2011 for Nessun dorma.

Beck plays almost exclusively Fender Stratocaster guitars. Fender has designed together with him a " Signature" Stratocaster model, which is produced and marketed by the Fender Custom Shop.

Gibson has recently presented a Jeff Beck model a Les Paul. The color is true to the original " Oxblood ". A widespread assumption is that the company Seymour Duncan since the 70s, equipped with a standard humbucker of the name of Jeff Beck carries (Item SH -4 in the range ), draws up. However, this is wrong, the term " JB " stands for " Jazz / Blues " instead of " Jeff Beck".

Beck plays almost exclusively with the fingers and rarely used a plectrum (only for particularly fast solos runs). Also characteristic of his game since the 1990s, the excessive use of the tremolo lever and the volume and tone control his guitar.

Discography

When The Yardbirds

When Jeff Beck Group

As Beck, Bogert & Appice

Solo