I’m verklempt. Here, y’all, the full act live at Ronnie Scott’s–I’ll be listening to this right soon and crying a bit.
When I first joined up here, there was a huge Beck fan here (@Wordman), who wasn’t really big on the fusion aspects of Jeff’s career, IIRC, meanwhile I’ve always been gaga over Wired and especially There and Back.
The only thing I liked about “Blow Up” (ug I just wanted to smack Hemmings) was JB getting frisky wirh his amp in the Yardbirds scene.
Heard something about him living with lots of cats.
R.I.P.
ETA - giving Truth a spin again, with beer-pour.
Though he could play anything, he was ultimately his own musical genre.
At his Blues peak in the '60s:
Ripping through a classic:
A poster who I don’t think I’ve seen in a long time, Wordman, was a big Beck guy. He was always fun to talk guitarists with. Personally, while I always knew Beck was great, he wasn’t someone I listened to a lot, but the clips in this thread are phenomenal.
I was thinking about WordMan, too, when I saw the news on Mr. Beck. (WordMan stepped away from the boards a few years ago, BTW, and has not yet returned.)
Thanks for letting me know.
It’s unfortunate. I’m still a big fan of The Yardbirds. And I’m grateful a buddy introduced me, way back when, to Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop.
“Jeff, thank you for believing in me before anyone else did. You stood behind me & told everyone to take me seriously. You treated me like a daughter to the point where Wikipedia actually thought that was true. Actually, I did too.” – Tal Wilkenfeld
I just saw that on Tal’s Facebook page a few minutes ago. I cried.
I’m not the biggest Zepplin fan. But I like them more than the 1969 Rolling Stone did.
My condolences to his family and friends. It’s taken me a few days to respond here, just because I wanted to listen to some of his work first. Although I’ve admired his playing for a long time, he’s not a guitarist I’ve spent a lot of time listening to. Last year, I think it was, I came across one of the many videos of him playing with Tal Wilkenfeld, who impressed me greatly. Looking for more of her, I came across more of him and spent a few days getting reacquainted with his playing.
I think it’s no exaggeration to say that he was among the most original and tasteful of electric guitarists. You can’t say that about many guitarists, and it’s even more impressive in light of the “facts” that he sounded fresh, enthusiastic and innovative right to the end and that, although his style has never been overtly copied, it’s at the heart of modern electric guitar. I still don’t know much about him, but the more I look, the more I see to admire.
So, with an eye toward writing about him this morning, I checked YouTube last night and came across this video of his version of Mná na hÉireann at the Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2013, which hasn’t been mentioned here:
When I like something new, I’ll often listen two or even three times, but I had to listen to this four times last night. So beautifully, perfectly beautiful. During his solo (from 2:55 onward), I hear a second guitar slowly arpeggiating muted chords. Anyone else?
Now that I’ve located the video this morning, I’ve learned about the poem on which this and many more versions are based:
Prayers and cares to his family and friends.