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ON JANUARY 10, the guitar world lost one of its greatest when Jeff Beck passed away. We had sent our previous issue off to the printer that very morning when the word came, and we knew we had to make this month’s issue of Guitar Player a special event to celebrate his life and music. He was certainly good to this magazine. From October 1968 to June 2010, Jeff appeared within our pages on countless occasions, and on our cover nearly a dozen times. Reading some of his interviews, I was struck by his commitment to his interviewers, whose questions dodged from topic to topic as they tried to make sense of the motiviations behind his career shifts and stylistic transformations. Jeff gamely stuck it out, one answer after another.…

Paul McCartney likes to explain the sleuth-like method by which he, John Lennon and George Harrison learned new chords in their Liverpool days. In the absence of an internet — not to mention guitar magazines and lesson books — they would get wind of another guitarist who had solved the mystery of a particular triad and travel by bus some distance to receive this new key, unlocking yet another dimension of the guitar’s fretboard. IT WAS A SIMILAR sort of quest that brought Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page together when they were both about 16 or 17, around 1960 or 1961. Beck’s sister, Annetta, told him about a kid at her art college in Epsom who played a “funny guitar” like his, and she decided they should meet. As it…

IN MAY 1966, Melody Maker announced that Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker had joined forces to form what would arguably become the world’s first “supergroup,” the as-yet-unnamed Cream. Just a few days later, on May 16, five moonlighting musicians slipped into London’s IBC Studios to form their own impromptu supergroup. There, Yardbirds guitarists Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, Who drummer Keith Moon, renowned session bassist John Paul Jones and keyboard player Nicky Hopkins recorded “Beck’s Bolero,” the guitarist’s intended solo debut that would precipitate his departure from the Yardbirds and sow the seeds for Led Zeppelin. Here’s what went down on May 16 and 17, in the participants’ own words. JIM McCARTY (Yardbirds’ drummer) Jeff Beck was our guitarist at that point, but it had always been the…

IN JULY 29, 1968, Jeff Beck, along with a kick-around vocalist, a future Rolling Stone and a drummer with a lot of bash released Truth. The album was a miracle of fury and berserk beauty, a testament to the jaw-dropping chops of a 24-year-old guitarist who, over the course of 10 tracks and around 40 minutes, ran the gamut from electric blues and modified R&B to psychedelically influenced rock, classical and even a little heavy-metal instrumentalism. With Truth, released just months before Led Zeppelin’s debut — and with songs and personnel in common — the core band of Beck, singer Rod Stewart, bassist Ronnie Wood and drummer Mickey Waller made an album that would become every guitar player’s bible and every hard rock band’s Holy Grail. But Beck would laugh…

OCTOBER 1968 Do you find it easier to work individually or within a group? When I was with the Yardbirds, they used to get certain things out of me, but now it is like giving a little child a piece of ground to play in, a huge 20-mile field, and saying “play.” He has all that space to play, and he’ll probably just sit down and do nothing. You know what I mean? But when you are restricted you want to get out. When I was with the Yardbirds, I was restricted so badly that I used to be like a naughty boy and play all these weird things all the time. Now I’ve got my own band and it’s like being in my own field…there’s so much to do…

SEPTEMBER 2003 Jimi acknowledged being inspired by your playing and your performance style during your Yardbirds days. That’s amazing. And what he did with the Experience was, in some ways, an intensification and extension of Beck’s Yardbirds. How did that affect you at the time? It was a horrible time, really. Not because of him, but because of the fact that he swept us all aside and put us in a bin. I think that was more the case for us than for the public at large, who were happy to have us all. But I know how it felt having a girl ring up and ask, “Did you hear Jimi Hendrix?” I was having trouble with relationships and getting by on a little money. It was rough all the…

SIR BRIAN MAY “THIS IS SUCH an extraordinary loss and he was such an extraordinary person. Jeff was completely and utterly unique and the kind of musician who was impossible to define. And I was absolutely in awe of him. He was only a couple of years older than me, and came from the same area where I came from, but he was a hero to me all along. Doing things which I kind of dreamed of doing when I was at school, even. He was already up there in the Tridents, in the Yardbirds, doing extraordinary things and a major, major inspiration for me to try and do the same. Not the same, but to give myself a voice the way he had. “If you want to hear his…

SINCE ITS INTRODUCTION in 2007, the PRS DGT (for David Grissom Trem) has been one of the most successful, and most highly acclaimed, variations on the flagship PRS models and a firm favorite of numerous guitarists. Created in close collaboration with the Texas guitar slinger, the DGT is often held up as the PRS to convert players who didn’t think they liked PRS, and as one of the most versatile electric-guitar designs period from any major maker. Given that history, the arrival of the more affordable PRS SE DGT is seen as a big deal in some circles — and should be a big deal for anyone seeking an extremely flexible, capable performer at a sub-$1k price point. PRS’s SE range, manufactured at the Cor-Tek Musical Instrument Co. factory in…

When asked in 2018 why he thought the 1960s created so many great blues guitarists — including himself, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page — Jeff Beck had a ready response that reached high, deep and wide. “WE WERE DOWN on our luck until the blues arrived,” he replied. “And it became natural music for us. We became disciples. We had to discover more. Anyone who ever had the slightest fascination with music had to find out what that sound was and where it came from. Me, Eric and Jimmy Page were stricken to the soul. We were obsessed. Thank God we were.” For Jeff Beck, the blues was just one part of a lifelong journey that encompassed rock and roll, fusion, soul, instrumental and electronica. Deeply curious, innately inventive, he…

HEART FULL OF SOUL Ground zero for psychedelic guitar, “Heart Full of Soul” shows how ready, willing and able Beck was to cut a new facet in the British Invasion’s rock gem by emulating a sitar with his Fender Esquire through a Sola Sound Tone Bender, with the D string droning beneath his fuzz-toned Indian-tinged riff. It was the launch of a new exotic era for rock. SHAPES OF THINGS Beck upped the psychedelic ante by layering two guitar solos on this 1966 followup to “Heart Full of Soul.” Beneath his slithery fuzz-toned lines, he demonstrates his creative use of controlled feedback and string bending to produce demonic howls that reportedly influenced the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s “East-West” and Jimi Hendrix’s sonic experiments. “I started finding the resonant points on…

If Jeff Beck was aimless after the Yardbirds, there was one man who was willing to point him in a particular direction. MICKIE MOST WAS a producer and manager who, by the dawn of 1967, had scored hits with the Animals (“House of the Rising Sun”), Herman’s Hermits (“I’m Into Something Good”) and Donovan (“Sunshine Superman”). Beck’s impact on the Yardbirds hadn’t gone unnoticed by Most, and he quickly set about signing the guitarist with an eye toward turning him into a pop star. It was in this guise that Beck released his first solo records “Hi Ho Silver Lining” and “Tallyman,” which reached number 14 and 30, respectively, in the U.K. mid-year. He followed them up with an instrumental version of “Love Is Blue,” a song that had been…

In 1974, Jeff Beck found himself in a repeating cycle that rivaled the predicament of Bill Murray’s character, Phil, in the movie Groundhog Day. AFTER BEING BOOTED from the Yardbirds in late November 1966, Beck formed three different bands — two iterations of the Jeff Beck Group, and the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice — that enjoyed moderate popularity primarily as touring acts. But no matter how much Beck varied his approach with the three bands, the outcome was always the same. Each managed to release two albums (in BBA’s instance a studio and a live album), but none of those records delivered any hits, and commercial success remained elusive. All three groups lasted only a few years before Beck became frustrated or disinterested in the projects and moved…

One day, maybe soon, geologists and hydrographers will perform studies in and around Surrey, England, to divine the magical compounds that have contributed to a strange and almost unbelievable phenomenon: Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton — three of the most terrifyingly talented guitarists the world has ever known — all grew up in this dull, prim section of Britain, where they lived within 20 miles of one another. TWO OF THESE guitarists, Page and Beck, met as teenagers, and became fast friends, spending hours trading information and jamming together at Page’s house, learning all the latest Scotty Moore, James Burton and Cliff Gallup licks. Using Jimmy’s two-track tape machine — a rarity in those days — they started making their own primitive recordings. And they got pretty good…

THE MOST MERCURIAL guitarist of his generation, Jeff Beck never conformed to the conventional image of a guitar hero, except maybe when it came to looks (and to that end, he almost certainly inspired the sartorial style of Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel). Beck repeatedly left or broke-up bands before their commercial potential could be realized. He restlessly changed style from one album to the next, refusing to be tied down musically. And his live performances were intermittent, although seldom short of breathtaking. But what did he think of his own catalog? In 2008, we asked Beck to give us the details behind his favorite tracks. These are the few that remained dear to his heart, right up to the end. TRAIN KEPT A-ROLLIN’ The Yardbirds Single release (1965); Beckology (1991)…

CREATING A VINTAGE-QUALITY instrument with modern dependability at an affordable price is a lofty goal, and Gibson is shooting for the moon with the J-45 ’50s Faded, which features ’50s specs and a muted burst top with light finish. To make the mission possible, the Nashville-based manufacturer has doubled the size of its “craftory” in Bozeman, Montana, where the entire acoustic range is made using a whole lot of handiwork. As Gibson president and C.E.O. James “J.C.” Curleigh explains, the expansion was the result of several converging factors. “There was a pent-up, consistent demand exceeding supply,” he says, “and then during the height of the pandemic, when people had extra time, the acoustic guitar became a thing. Orders went through the roof, so we’ve doubled down on capacity and modernization…

How did you happen to join up with the Yardbirds? Well, Giorgio Gomelsky appeared on the scene when I was playing at a club, and after the set we talked about a job he had for me with a new group. I said, “No, go away, you nasty little man!” and after that I joined the group and Giorgio became my manager. The group turned out to be the Yardbiirds. I thought, ‘Well this is interesting,’ because I had heard so much about them. I did my first job with them at the Marquee Club and about blew the place apart. I decided to stay on, and about two weeks later we had a number one record. But that first night with them was something else. I had four days…

“I’m an awkward son of a bitch when it comes to doing the expected,” Jeff Beck said in an interview published in the April 1992 issue of Guitar Player. BECK MADE THE comment while explaining his decision to not record Gene Vincent’s biggest hit, “Be-Bop-a-Lula,” for the Crazy Legs album, but the guitarist’s quote could apply to any moment from his career, or even its entirety. During the late ’80s, when instrumental rock guitar albums became increasingly popular and artists like Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen reached respectable chart positions, the music industry’s “guitar hero” environment seemed perfect for Beck to stage a comeback. He did, indeed, finally emerge from several years of relative silence by releasing Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop in 1989. But instead of returning to his jazz-rock…

NOVEMBER 1975 Did you move toward jazz for the sake of expression or because it was more of a technical challenge? Both. It really wasn’t too much of a challenge, because if anything gets the better of me, I’ll leave it. But it was nice to hear myself play something else than basic rock…. There are many guitarists who are in rock and roll ruts. It’s easy to do. What advice would you have to get out of that to help someone expand into different musical veins? That would make it too easy for them if I told you, wouldn’t it? I’ve spent half my life trying to get out of ruts. You’ve just got to do what you do best. Get a band you really like playing with and…

JUNE 2010 Since you play with your fingers, do you use heavier-gauge strings? My guitar is strung pretty lightly now because I haven’t played live for a while. But by mid tour I’ll go to a .012 on the first and a .052 on the bass. It’s self-torture, but you’ve got to have that. The great Jimi Hendrix picked up my guitar once and he said, “What are these rubber bands doing here? You’ll never get tone out of that.” I was really disappointed because I thought I had found what I was comfortable with. But he was right; there was no guts in there. And there was no effort. The half of playing blues is you have to suffer the pain of the wire digging into your fingers. And…

Afternoon tea with Jeff Beck always seems like a good idea — and it certainly was on this occasion. BECK WAS IN Cleveland on April 4, 2009, to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, on his own this time after going into the shrine as part of the Yardbirds 17 years prior. At that earlier ceremony, the Rock Hall’s seventh, Beck got attention for his memorable acceptance speech in which he acknowledged being tossed out of the band in 1966. While his former bandmates, including Jimmy Page, looked on, Beck remarked, “Somebody told me I should be proud tonight, but I’m not, because they kicked me out. They did. Fuck them!” Fortunately, the smackdown was delivered in genial tones and received considerable laughter, and both Beck…

HARVEY GOLDSMITH RECEIVED a surprising phone call during late 2008. “I had just literally arrived in New York,” Goldsmith, the U.K.’s best-known concert promoter, recalls via Zoom from a holiday in Portugal, the day after Beck’s death was announced. “She said, ‘I’m sitting here with Jeff Beck.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s nice, send him my best,’ and she said, ‘He wants to talk to you.’” Beck got on the phone. “‘When are you coming back?’ I said, ‘I’ve only just got here. Why?’” Goldsmith continues. ‘And he said, ‘I feel that I’m kind of underrated and not really being recognized the way I feel I should be. Can you help?’” That question would kick off a relationship lasting more than five years, during which Goldsmith helped to raise Beck’s profile…

JEFF BE CK IS the ultimate electric lead guitar hero, and Jimmy Page is rock’s ultimate acoustic-electric songsmith. “Beck’s Bolero,” from the Jeff Beck Group’s 1968 release Truth, pits them side by side on one hell of a beautiful romp. As Page has verified, he’s playing his 1965 Fender Electric XII 12-string, while Beck plays the melody on a Les Paul. While it’s the perfect tune for a pair of guitarists, it’s possible to amalgamate a solo acoustic arrangement, which is what we’ll approach here by addressing the main theme. Then you can go it alone, or with a buddy. MASTER THE BOLERO RHTYHM The tune was inspired by Ravel’s Bolero, and nailing the rhythm on guitar is a challenge. Listen carefully to Page’s lone rhythm track as it kicks…