Remembering Jeff Beck (24 June 1944 – 10 January 2023)

 

With a headstock that looks like it could slice sushi, the pink Jackson Soloist is a dangerous-looking guitar. And an actual knife is part of its story. Beck used the Jackson when he worked with Tina Turner on the album Private Dancer. He had been in awe of Turner since the 1960s, when he briefly toured with the singer and her husband Ike, but at that time he was too shy to speak to her.

At the end of the Private Dancer session in 1984, Beck asked Turner to sign the guitar. She first autographed it in felt pen, but it was clear that it would not last. So instead she produced a knife from her bag and carved her name into the pink finish. She then rubbed green nail polish into the jagged letters to make them visible and permanent.

The ‘Tina’, as it became known, can be heard on Beck’s duet with Rod Stewart, ‘People Get Ready’, on the 1985 album Flash, produced by Nile Rodgers. It was Beck’s first reunion with the singer he had introduced to the world in the Jeff Beck Group in 1967, along with a young Ronnie Wood. Beck memorably appears in the video, breezily riding an open boxcar and miming the Jackson solo on a Fender Telecaster.

Source: Christie's

Image credit: Michael Putland

Don's Tunes

I tried to find vid of Jeff playing the Jackson but got side tracked . . . . .

Jeff Beck - Nadia - (Live at Ronnie Scott’s)

perhaps my favourite line up of the Jeff Beck Band:

Jeff Beck - Guitar

Vinnie Colaiuta - Drums

Tal Wilkenfeld - Bass

Jason Rebello - Keyboards

still what ya gonna do . . . ? here’s the track mentioned above

Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart - People Get Ready

Remembering Jeff Beck (24 June 1944 – 10 January 2023) | Don's Tunes

MAESTRO

"For most of the '80s, the business just went to a place where I didn’t want to go,” he said. “The clothes were more important than the music at one point, I think. The video prerequisite is something I wasn’t interested in, and the domination of synthesizers in the '80s made me very depressed – to think that they could possibly overshadow real playing. They did for a while, but lo and behold, real playing came back.”

Alan di Perna / Guitar Player Interview

Photo: NEIL ZLOZOWER

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Remembering Jeff Beck (24 June 1944 – 10 January 2023)

GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE MAY 1999

young young young

 

 

Who do you consider the most important guitarists of our time?

Jeff Beck: 

Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, I suppose. Jimmy Page, too, although he was sort of an ambassador for riffs and mystique, rather than an innovator.

Django Reinhardt is still the best guitarist, and there's no question about that, ever. Stevie Ray Vaughan was great, of course. He had a large chunk of Hendrix in him, and Hendrix carried a big chunk of Buddy Guy. In 1959, Buddy was doing all of that showbiz stuff, playing around with the guitar and teasing the audience with it. T-Bone Walker used to do that, too. He used to finish off his act by playing with one hand while carrying his amp off with the other. I thought that was the coolest thing in the entire universe when I saw that.

Albert Lee is still the king of that kind of country stuff, and I don't hear enough of it. And Jennifer (?) is going to be monstrous. I can't wait for her to get out and do her thing.

But Eric has just become phenomenal. There's no one else like him with an electric guitar. Even though he sings non-rock songs these days, he's still a great influence on rock guitar. I'm proud that he's British. And, of course, Hendrix still has more of a bark even though he has been dead for nearly 30 years. It's astonishing, the interest in someone who only had an 18-month to two-year career. It's amazing.

This interview was first published in Guitar Player magazine, May 1999. 

Photo: Val Wilmer

love this Facebook comment by Murray Munn

"Seminal thoughts. Can't believe this guy is gone; he seemed immortal, having a laugh no matter what the gear--souped-up car, amped-up mode, or, no doubt ... he had further interests. Interesting he (said he) thought Django the best. Me, I think there's no best ... Django couldn't play Jimi couldn't play Jeff Beck, who couldn't play Robert J who/ couldn't play Knopfler couldn't play Drake couldn't play Jansch couldn't play Eric couldn't play Gatemouth couldn't play Renbourn couldn't play Segovia ... there're infinite styles and talents and fingers and souls and who's to say."

He’s not wrong . . .  

Jeff Beck

Song: A Day in the Life (Beatles)

The 25th anniversary rock and roll hall of fame concert from the world’s greatest guitarist

Remembering Jeff Beck (24 June 1944 – 10 January 2023) Imelda May & Jimmy Page on Jeff

Imelda May : “He inspired, supported and encouraged me with every whoop, cheer, gasp and tear when I sang with him. He was the genius in the room yet he made everyone else around him feel special. He was dedicated to making pure art. Every single note he played could kill me with its beauty. His light was so blindingly bright it already feels dark without him. The greatest guitarist that ever lived.

“You’d listen to Jeff along the way and you’d say: ‘Wow, he’s getting really good,’” recalled Jimmy Page, when he was inducting Beck into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame (for the second time) as a solo artist in 2009. “Then you’d listen to him a few years later and he’d just keep getting better and better and better. And he still has, all the way through. He leaves us mere mortals just wondering.”

Photo by Fiona Adams

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What Mama Said

and just because you deserve it . . . . . . . . . Here’s Jeff on the Jools’ Hootenanny!

Drown in my own tears . . .

damn!