Another devastating loss for rockers everywhere – Jeff Beck, one of the most skilled, admired and influential guitarists in rock history, died on Tuesday of bacterial meningitis in a hospital near his home at Riverhall, a rural estate in southern England. He was 78.
In high school, I had two of his albums on 8-track – they were part of my teenage soundtrack:
Blow by Blow:
Wired:
“Jeff Beck is the best guitar player on the planet,” Joe Perry, the lead guitarist of Aerosmith, told The New York Times in 2010. “He is head, hands and feet above all the rest of us, with the kind of talent that appears only once every generation or two.”
The day Blow by Blow was released I bought and spend weeks learning to play every note of every song on guitar. Even after doing that I was still amazed at how wonderfully complex yet simple it was. The guy was flawless. A blow indeed to rockers and musicians everywhere. Cool of you to devote blog time to this Jim.
Thanks Marc – have you ever seen anyone hold the guitar as delicately as Beck?
It was like he was holding a baby or something.
I saw him in concert around the time he was playing with Jan Hammer.
One of a kind.