Jeff Beck was a guitar hero revered by Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood and Johnny Depp
JEFF BECK was the guitarist’s guitarist . . . and the singer’s guitarist.
His sudden death at 78 from bacterial meningitis has prompted an outpouring of superlatives from British rock royalty.
Such was his mercurial talent as a six-string god that his peers, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood and the rest, revered him in a “we are not worthy” kind of way.
Sir Rod, who sang in The Jeff Beck Group, said his old mucker was on “another planet”.
“He took me and Ronnie Wood to the US in the late Sixties and we haven’t looked back since.”
And Wood’s heartfelt message read: “Now Jeff is gone, I feel like one of my band of brothers has left this world.”
Beck, known for his dry humour, was less complimentary about Stewart when inducting him into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 1994.
“We have a love-hate relationship,” he quipped. “He loves me and I hate him.”
Known as a perfectionist who didn’t suffer fools gladly, Beck led the British blues-rock charge in the Sixties with fellow guitarists Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page.
Remarkably, all three launched their careers in The Yardbirds, with Beck taking over from Clapton — with whom he had an “uncomfortable rivalry” — in 1965.
Page took to social media to remember the budding musician he befriended as a teenager. “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.”
And Eric Clapton simply tweeted: “Always and ever”.
‘Jeff plays with so much f***king taste’
Still working, still touring (with pub standard Johnny Depp no less) right up to November last year and still pushing the boundaries, Beck pitched up on Ozzy Osbourne’s latest album, Patient Number 9, just last year for a couple of typically searing solos.
“I’ve met Jeff a few times and now we share business managers,” Ozzy told me in August.
“I was so f***ing honoured to have him on my record. I was blown away. Jeff plays with so much f***ing taste.”
Also last year, ZZ Top’s bearded frontman Billy Gibbons spoke to me about his deep affection for Beck that went way back to the late Sixties.
In ’68, when he was still in a band called The Moving Sidewalks, Gibbons was “assigned to take a few shows supporting The Jeff Beck Group”.
“I’ll never forget the power those guys were laying down,” he recalled.
“Then Jeff actually made arrangements for us to take delivery of the first Marshall amplifiers in the States. That led to us getting ZZ Top on the go.
“And since my humble beginnings with Jeff, I’ve enjoyed a friendship with him and we still frequently communicate.”
They share a love for hot rods, with Gibbons known for his red and yellow “Eliminator” and Beck for a variety of souped-up Fords.
Back in 2016, Chrissie Hynde told me about her new Pretenders album and revealed that Beck was an early influence on her for a different reason than most. “When I was 16, I thought it would be great to play guitar in a band. I never saw myself as Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page but I admired them.
“I was also not one of these girls who wanted to meet them and be their girlfriend. I wanted to look like them so I cut my hair like Jeff Beck.”
And Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, talking about 2014’s swansong The Endless River album, mused: “We make this particular Floyd sound without quite understanding how it works.
“If you introduced Ginger Baker instead of me or Jeff Beck instead of David (Gilmour), you wouldn’t get it. Maybe you’d get something better!”
It’s worth noting that Beck was mooted as a replacement for Syd Barrett in the late Sixties but none of the Floyd members had the nerve to ask him. Gilmour, of course, got the gig.
It’s pretty obvious that Beck’s best known hit, the novelty singalong Hi Ho Silver Lining, was not his favourite.
He once likened it “to having a pink toilet seat hung around your neck for the rest of your life.”
Then again he did bring it out very occasionally, notably with Gilmour at the Royal Albert Hall in 2009.
And the home crowds at several big football clubs have adopted Hi Ho Silver Lining . . . Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday, Aston Villa and Queen’s Park Rangers.
Beck was born in Wallington, South London, in 1944, and his infatuation with the guitar began at a very early age.
He admired figures from the rock ’n’ roll era such as Les Paul, Gene Vincent’s guitarist Cliff Gallup and BB King.
As a teenager, hard-up Beck had to borrow a guitar to learn the instrument and even attempted to build his own.
After stints in a succession of local bands such as Croydon’s The Rumbles and Chiswick’s The Tridents, Beck got his big break when Clapton left The Yardbirds.
During his fruitful 20-month stay, he turned the volume up to max and employed a raw, pioneering R&B sound with distortion, reverb and feedback all coming into play.
It yielded hits such as Heart Full Of Soul, on which Beck aped the sound of a sitar, Evil Hearted You and Shapes Of Things.
With the guitarist on fire, The Yardbirds’ signature “rave-up” added rocket fuel to Bo Diddley’s I’m A Man.
After a brief period when duelling guitarists Beck and Page were both in the band, the former was fired following a series of no-shows.
When, in 1992, The Yardbirds were inducted into the Hall Of Fame, Beck delivered a cutting reponse.
“Someone told me I should be proud tonight. But I’m not, because they kicked me out. They did. F*** them!”
After the band that helped him make his name came solo singles, including Hi Ho Silver Lining (1967), followed by the formation of The Jeff Beck Group in which Rod and Ronnie started out.
‘A fitting mystique’
Despite his prowess, you could argue that Beck’s recorded output is disappointing in the years since his heyday.
But the list of his collaborators is mightily impressive . . . Kate Bush, Roger Waters, Brian Wilson (Beck was a huge Beach Boys fan), Herbie Hancock and Jon Bon Jovi.
When not off making music, the long-standing vegetarian lived in East Sussex with his second wife Sandra Cash, who he married in 2005.
I was introduced to Beck during the social whirl after the Mercury Prize ceremony one year in the late Noughties.
He was wearing black leather trousers, sporting his trademark mop of spiky black hair (which looked dyed) and appearing every inch the rock elder statesman.
Even by that time, he still bore a strong resemblence to the Nigel Tufnel character in comedy fake band Spinal Tap.
But he seemed like a nice bloke, amiable yet inscrutable. His demeanour was in sharp contrast to the flamboyant sound he made with his white Fender Stratocaster.
I thought there was a fitting mystique about Jeff Beck.
For nearly 60 years, he let his nimble fingers do the talking.