Jeff Beck

Born June 24, 1944 in Wallington, Greater London, England  Jeff Beck is one of the “Big Three” guitar gods who came from the mid 60’s band The Yardbirds (Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page the other two) Although never quite becoming as popular as his contempories Jeff has maintained a huge amount of respect among guitarists worldwide by diversifying into many different genres. He has experimented with blues rock, heavy metal, and jazz fusion and more recently, dabbled with techno, creating a blend of heavy guitar rock and electronica.

Starting as a session guitarist in the early 60’s Beck was in a group called The Tridents, before being asked to join the Yardbirds in 1965. Although only recording one album with them it was during his tenure with the Yardbirds that they recorded most of their hits. Beck left the Yardbirds partly for health reasons and partly for his on going problem of not getting along with people in general after 18 months.

In 1967 Beck formed a new band, the Jeff Beck Group, which featured him on lead guitar, Rod Stewart on vocals, Ron Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano, and Micky Waller on drums. This group produced two albums, Truth in 1968 and Beck-Ola the following year that are considered the two most influential blues/rock albums in Beck’s career.  They also started the blues/rock format that Led Zeppelin would perfect two years later.  After Stewart and Wood left the band to join Faces  (then Small Faces) Beck went on to form a second. incarnation of the Jeff Beck Group, which featured Clive Chaman (bass), Max Middleton (keyboards), Cozy Powell (drums), and Bob Tench (vocals). With this group Beck used the blues as a basis but piled on heavy amounts of R&R and R&B to the music.  They released two albums: Rough and Ready (1971, produced by Jeff Beck) and The Jeff Beck Group (1972, produced by Steve Cropper).  The song Going Down is the one most remembered from this era.

After this second Jeff Beck Group disbanded in 1972, Beck formed the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice, with former Cactus members Carmine Appice on drums and Tim Bogert on bass. This group failed to attract much critical or popular attention even though the nature of the music was geared for that and soon split up, although they did have a minor hit with a version of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" (Beck had earlier played lead guitar on Wonder's Talking Book album).

Then Jeff did a complete 180 in a different direction. Obtaining the services of fomer Beatle producer George Martin, Beck went into London's AIR Studios to record a solo album. What came out was the critically acclaimed and popular  all-instrumental jazz fusion album entitled Blow by Blow, with a band that included Max Middleton (keyboards), Phil Chen (bass), and Richard Bailey (drums). It was followed up by a collaborative effort with former Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboardist Jan Hammer on the 1976 Wired album, which also received critical acclaim and featured a version of the famous Charles Mingus tune "Goodbye Pork-Pie Hat".  They also released a live album based on two tours called Jeff Beck With the Jan Hammer Group Live.  Not only did these albums lend visibility to the jazz fusion genre by Beck’s rock audience it also opened the door for  a new wave of solo rock guitarist's non-vocal albums by such artists as Joe Satriani .

Since the early 1980s Jeff Beck  has record sporadically: There and Back (1980, featuring Simon Phillips and Tony Hymas), Flash (1985, including performances with Rod Stewart and Jan Hammer), Guitar Shop (1989, with Terry Bozzio and Tony Hymas), Crazy Legs (1993), Who Else! (1999), and You Had It Coming (2001). Jeff in2003.   The first  four had Beck using a mixture of Blues, Heavy Metal and Jazz while the latter three Jeff has turned another 90 degrees by fusing electronica influence with his blues/jazz past.  

Two earlier tours this decade had Beck paired with Terry Bozzio and Tony Hymas. Beck's most recent tours in 2005 and 2006 have included: Jason Rebello on keyboards, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and Pino Palladino on bass (replaced by Randy Hope-Taylor due to Palladino's prior commitment to The Who).

Jeff Beck is surely the most progressive of all the guitar gods of the late 60’s and continues his influence over a whole new generation of guitarists.