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Classic rock guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck dies at 78 : NPR


Guitarist Jeff Beck performs during the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival. The influential guitarist passed away on January 10, 2023 after contracting bacterial meningitis.

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images


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Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images


Guitarist Jeff Beck performs during the 43rd Montreux Jazz Festival. The influential guitarist passed away on January 10, 2023 after contracting bacterial meningitis.

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

Call him “guitar saint” or “artist’s guitarist,” but Jeff Beck has his own class. Beck, one of the most famous guitarists in rock and roll history, died Tuesday after contracting bacterial meningitis, according to a statement released by a journalist on behalf of his family. your family. He was 78 years old.

Beck can play rock, jazz, blues, soul and anything else he can hear. For Beck, the guitar – at least the way he plays it – can be as versatile an instrument as the human voice. “I’m just trying to be a singer,” he told NPR in a 2010 interview. “I think the Stratocaster, the Stratocaster special guitar, has endless possibilities thanks to the spring bridge that it has. I can hit the whammy stick they call it, but it’s really a vibrating bar. And I can do it. showing infinite variations on that by increasing or decreasing the pitch. I can play a chord and lower that pitch — six strings at once.”

Beck was born in Wallington, England in 1944. He fell in love with the guitar as a child and first rose to fame playing in The Yardbirds – where he replaced Eric Clapton and joined Jimmy Page. Beck left the band shortly after and formed the Jeff Beck Group (along with a little-known singer at the time, Rod Stewart).

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In debates about virtuoso guitar technique, Beck is often listed alongside the likes of Clapton, Page and Keith Richards. But Beck has always been a bit of a recluse – wary of the attention that comes with being a famous musician. He explained to New York Times in 2010, how he feels about the music industry as a whole:

“It’s a devilish business,” he said. “I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to be hunted down like Amy Winehouse and people like that. I have a little periphery in the celebrity periphery, when I go to premieres. and stuff like that, it’s almost like I’d like to have it. I respect my privacy and I’m sorry for anyone who tries to interfere with that.”

Despite his best efforts to stay out of the limelight, Beck is still recognized and praised. He’s amassed 17 Grammy nominations, including one for Best Rock Performance at this year’s ceremony, and has won eight. He’s been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice — once with The Yardbirds and once with himself.

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