 Beck began playing the guitar when he was quite young. He attended the Wimbledon College of Music, Beck joined a band called Lord Sutch, This gave him a jumping off point to his most famous and most successful gig as the lead guitarist for the Yardbirds, replacing Eric Clapton.
Jeff stayed with the Yardbirds for a couple of years, and then took a few years off . But, after a couple of years he formed the Jeff Beck Group, featuring Rod Stewart as the lead singer. The group had a couple of albums, but fought all the time and only experienced marginal success. In this writers opinion some of his best music was recorded on the Truth and Beck-ola albums.
The group broke up officially in 1970. After this, Beck was in a bad car crash, and by the time he recovered, he started a new Jeff Beck Group. After a couple of more albums, the band again broke up. After this, there would be months and sometimes years of silence, but Beck would occasionally come forth with some solo material.
 I have met Jeff several times, he tends not to speak alot and seemed very quiet and brooding. He is truly one of the most famous guitar players ever to hit the rock & roll blues scene. Some of his music will live forever
Ed Roman
Ed Roman usually has
the Jeff Beck Strat model guitar in stock.
Ed's people will do a full setup and thorough check up of the guitar &
give you a great price to boot.
 Jeff
Beck isn’t your typical guitar legend. His goal, in fact, is to make you
forget that he plays guitar.
“I don’t understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an
instantly recognizable guitar sound,” says Beck. “Finding ways to use the
same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one
has heard before is truly what gets me off. I love it when people hear my
music but can’t figure out what instrument I’m playing. What a cool
compliment.”
Beck burst onto the music scene in 1966 after joining the Yardbirds.
Although his stint with the band lasted only 18 months, Beck played on
almost all of the group’s hits. More importantly, Beck’s innovative style
heard on classics like “Heart Full of Soul” and “Shapes of Things” helped
influence the psychedelic sound of the ‘60s.
At the height of the Yardbirds’ popularity in 1967, Beck left the group
and embarked upon unpredictable journey of musical discovery that has
lasted nearly four-decades as an Epic recording artist. During that time,
Beck has left his distinctive mark on hard rock, jazz-fusion and modern
music history.
While many of his contemporaries are satisfied with musical inertia, Beck
continues to add to his legacy as an innovator with the release of his
14th album, simply titled " Jeff.” Produced by Andy Wright (Simply Red,
Eurythmics) and mixed by Mike Barbiero (Blues Traveler, Metallica), the 13
songs on “Jeff” reflect how Beck’s fascination with electronic music
continues to evolve.
“On my last album, " You had it coming,’ I spent a lot of time in the
studio with Andy Wright just toying around with different sounds. We had a
great time, but I bogged down in the possibilities,” says Beck, who earned
a Grammy for instrumental performance for the song “Dirty Mind” from that
album. “When I went back to the studio for Jeff’ I didn’t want to get
bogged down again so I brought in a few people to help push us along.”
Although they only met when the album was almost finished, Beck says David
Torn of the New York trip-hop group Splatter cell became an important
collaborator. Much to Beck’s delight, Torn gutted an early version of the
song, “Plan B.” “Dave ripped the vocals out straight away and made my
guitar line the song’s main hook. That’s what I should have done in the
first place, but it takes a remix guy to come along and put a different
spin on what you’re doing,” he says. “The instant I heard Dave’s album
with Splattercell, I wanted him to dismember one of my songs, and he came
through beautifully.”
While working on the album at Metropolis Studio, Beck met Liverpudlian
electronic trio Apollo 440—programmers Howard Gray, his brother Trevor and
guitarist Noko Fisher-Jones. Before long, Beck had recorded three songs
using the group’s rhythms.
“When we first met, they wrote me one of those amazing ‘nail your head to
the wall’ kinds of grooves that they’re famous for and I ate it up,” says
Beck. “I played off that track for two hours and wound up writing ‘Grease
Monkey’ around their groove.”
Finding inspiration in a unique rhythm track is how songs like “Dirty
Mind” from "You had it coming" and “Psycho Sam” from " Who Else”
were written, says Beck. “I play guitar, but that’s rarely my starting
point,” he explains. “The drums have to kick me in the ass and make me
want to play or I’ll just sit there all day. Sure, I can write a song on
guitar and then try to add drums in later, but it never sounds quite
right. For me, a good song has to begin with an inspiring rhythm.”
Another Apollo 440 rhythm track provided the spark for “Hot Rod
Honeymoon,” which juxtaposes a raging club beat against 60s surf-pop
harmonies and blues slide guitar. The unexpected contrast gives the song a
fresh edge. “If I used a shuffle on this song, which is the kind of beat
you would expect to hear, it would have killed the song instantly,”
explains Beck. “Instead, the Apollo guys and I came up with a
tongue-in-cheek Beach Boys song complete with techno-drums and screaming
guitar, which I think sounds more interesting.”
 With its haunting melody
anchored by Beck’s violin-like tone and a 40-piece orchestra,
“Bulgarian”—a traditional folk song arranged by Beck and Wright—is one of
the guitarist’s most majestic songs. At the other end of the spectrum is
the album’s wildest ride, “Trouble Man.” Beck starts out by coaxing
numb-tongue mumbles from his Fender Stratocaster before launching into a
mercurial solo that soars, spirals out of control and crashes into a
pulsating heap of noise that sounds like an overdriven modem. The song,
like much of Beck’s work, creates an atmosphere of violent elegance by
pitting the raw emotions of the heart against the calculated technique of
the mind.
A rare breed of guitarist like Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix, Beck is not
only compelling for what he plays, but for how he plays it. While some
guitar players use racks of gear to create sound, Beck prefers a simple,
natural approach that emphasizes manual dexterity over gadgets. As Eric
Clapton once said, “With Jeff, it’s all in his hands.”
Like few guitarists before him, Beck plays the entire guitar. Using his
fingers instead of a guitar pick for greater speed and control over the
fretboard, Beck adds deft twists of the volume and tone knobs to shape the
notes as he’s playing them and further bends sounds into a rubbery tangle
with his controlled cruelty on the whammy bar. “I play the way I do
because it allows me to come up with the sickest sounds possible. That’s
the point now isn’t it?” says Beck with a wicked grin. “I don’t care about
the rules. In fact, if I don’t break the rules at least 10 times in every
song then I’m not doing my job properly.”
ELECTRONIC ROOTS
Beck started his career by exploring the heavier side of rock before
switching gears in 1975 with the jazz-fusion albums, Blow By Blow
and Wired.
Produced by Sir George Martin, famed producer of The Beatles, the two
albums shattered people’s preconceptions of what a rock guitarist was
supposed to sound like. By fusing the complexity of progressive rock and
improvisatory freedom of jazz with intergalactic guitar tones and a sense
of humor, Beck opened up the horizon for future guitar instrumentalists
like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.
In the wake of those two albums, Beck became increasingly interested in
the possibilities of electronic music thanks to his collaborations with
former Mahavishnu
Orchestra keyboardist, Jan Hammer. On stage, Hammer’s legendary mastery of
the Mini-Moog synthesizer imbued Beck classics like “Freeway Jam” and
“Blue Wind” with a funky, otherworldly aura that was ahead of its time.
Looking back on the tour for Wired —documented on Jeff Beck
with the Jan Hammer Group Live (1978)—Beck says the shows left some in the
audience scratching their heads.
“I don’t suppose many people knew what the hell was happening on stage,”
says Beck. “I can tell you it was an exciting—electric—time for us as
musicians because we were pushing the music in new directions. At the
time, I think we were a little out there for most people, but when you
look back now…it sounds like we were on to something.”
Although their partnership only lasted a few years, Beck says Hammer
continues to inspire him to search out and use new sounds in his music.
“The way Jan used technology really turned my head around and opened up a
new world for me,” says Beck. “He made me realize that things are always
changing and you can’t sit still. You have to keep your ears wide open to
hear what’s going on or the music will pass you by.”
BACKGROUND
Born on 24th June 1944, just before the end of World War II, Beck grew up
in Wallington, England. His mother’s piano playing and the family’s radio
tuned to everything from dance to classical made sure Beck was surrounded
by music from a young age.
“For my parents, who lived through the war, music was a source of comfort
to them. Life was tense and music helped them forget about their troubles.
I’m sure that made an impression on me,” recalls Beck. “I was really small
when jazz broke through in England and I can still remember sneaking off
to the living room to listen to it on the radio—much to my parent’s
disapproval.”
Inspired by the music he heard, it wasn’t long before Beck picked up a
guitar and began playing around London. He briefly attended Wimbledon’s
Art College before leaving to devote all of his time to music. Beck worked
as a session player, with Screaming Lord Sutch—the British equivalent to
Screaming Jay Hawkins—and the Tridents before he replaced Eric Clapton as
the Yardbirds’ lead guitarist in 1965.
Beck left the band in 1967 and formed The Jeff Beck Group, which featured
Rod Stewart on vocals and Ron Wood on bass. The band released two albums—Truth
(1968) and Beck-Ola (1969)—that became
musical touchstones for hard rockers in the years to come.
Stewart and Wood left to join the Faces and Beck disbanded the group until
1971 when he formed a new version of the band and recorded two
albums—Rough & Ready (1971) and The Jeff Beck Group(1972). Beck again
dissolved the group and formed a power trio with bassist Tim Bogert and
drummer Carmine Appice, which released Beck
Bogert & Appice (1973).
Veering away from hard rock, Beck created two landmark two jazz-fusion
albums— Blow By Blow (1975) and
Wired (1976). The all-instrumental albums
were a critical and popular success and remain two of the top-selling
guitar instrumental albums of all time. The live album, " Jeff Beck With
The Jan Hammer Group" Followed in 1977.
 Music may have been
one of Beck’s earliest passions but it has always shared space with a love
of hot rods that began as soon as he could see over the dashboard. After
the success “Blow by Blow &
Wired" ,” Beck began devoting more time to
his fleet of hot rods. “I like the studio because it’s delicate; you’re
working for sound. I like the garage because chopping up lumps of steel is
the exact opposite of delicate,” explains Beck. “The garage is a more
dangerous place though. I’ve never almost been crushed by a guitar, but I
can’t say the same about one of my Corvettes.”
Beck returned in 1980 with There & Back, but he wouldn’t be heard
from again until 1985’s Flash which earned him the Best Rock Instrumental
Grammy—his first—for the song “Escape.” Beck re-emerged from
semi-retirement in 1989 with “Jeff
Beck’s Guitar Shop with Terry Bozzio and Tony Hymas .”
The album earned him his second Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental. After a
co-headlining tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan, Beck gave retirement another
try, but it didn’t last.
Beck returned to the studio in 1993 backed by the Big Town Playboys to
record Crazy Legs a tribute to seminal
rockabilly artist Gene Vincent and his guitarist Cliff Gallup. Six years
passed before the release of Who Else (1999)
but the album opened a relative floodgate of music by Beck standards. It
only took two years before “You had it coming,”
(2001), which earned Beck his third Grammy for Best Rock
Instrumental for the song “Dirty Mind.”
To support his album "Jeff ”, Beck returned
to the road in the summer of 2003 on a coast-to-coast tour with blues
legend B.B. King on the 12th Annual B.B. King Music Festival. The landmark
event, presented by VH1 Classic, also featured New Orleans-based
progressive funk outfit Galactic and up-and-coming Florida-bred murky
blues band Mofro. An official bootleg “Live at B.B. King Blues Club” was
recorded in the New York club in September 2003, and released for online
retail only at
www.jeffbeckmusic.com.
In the summer of 2004 Jeff Beck toured the UK, the first time since 1990,
using momentum gained from a fourth Grammy for the track “Plan B” on the
album “Jeff”. He put together a new band for comprising Vinnie Coliauta,
Pino Palladino and Jason Rebello for Japan in July 2005 and kept them for
a 6 date US West Coast tour in the spring of 2006. It was from those dates
that the ‘must have’ Jeff Beck live CD, the “Official Bootleg” was
created. Although Pino wasn’t available, Jeff kept Vinnie and Jason,
adding Randy Hope-Taylor for UK and European dates, plus two Japanese
festivals in the summer of that year, followed by a long tour of the US in
September.
2007 began in public with a duet with Kelly Clarkson on TV’s American Idol
Gives Back to a reputed audience of 30 million! During the summer Jeff
undertook 7 dates in Europe and finished playing to a crowd of over 30,000
at the Crossroads Guitar festival in Chicago.
Ed Roman usually has
the Jeff Beck Strat model guitar in stock.
Ed's people will do a full setup and thorough check up of the guitar &
give you a great price to boot. |