Jeff Beck is the most progressive and expressive guitar player of my generation. Seriously!
In 1962, my father won a Silvertone guitar and amplifier in a sales contest. My mother played the piano, and at her urging, I had taken lessons. But I never developed a passion for the instrument. The guitar was different. Over the next decade I taught myself basic chords, twelve-bar blues progressions, and how to play bottleneck slide in an open tuning with a glass Coricidin bottle. This was driven by my exposure to five musicians who redefined guitar playing in the 1960s by synthesizing blues and rock channeled through the new technology of an amplified solid-body electric guitar.
I watched, listened to, and played along with the revolution in popular music led by the Beatles in 1963, and I learned to play the Animals' version of "House of the Rising Son," and Van Morrison’s "G-L-O-R-I-A." But it was a succession of lead guitarists for the Yardbirds—Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page—that initially fueled my passion for blues-based rock played on an electric guitar. In 1967, Jimi Hendrix introduced psychedelic pyrotechnics. And in 1969, I discovered the sonic resonance of a glass slide gliding over electric guitar strings in the hands of Duane Allman.
The December 2011 Special Issue of Rolling Stone lists the 100 greatest guitar players of all time. All five of the guitar players that influenced me are listed in the top 9, which are:
- Jimi Hendrix
- Eric Clapton
- Jimmy Page
- Keith Richards
- Jeff Beck
- B.B. King
- Chuck Berry
- Eddie Van Halen
- Duane Allman
The majority of guitar players on this list came to prominence between the mid 1950s and early 1970s (Eddie Van Halen being the exception). In my opinion, only one of the seven living guitar players has continued to progress beyond his initial brilliance. That one is Jeff Beck.
I have music on my iPod from Allman, Beck, Clapton, Hendrix, and Page (as well as Richards), which I listen to often and thoroughly enjoy. But I only have songs recorded after the mid-1970s by Jeff Beck. Obviously, Hendrix and Allman have a good excuse for no new recordings since 1970 and 1971, respectively. But while Clapton and Page are still playing very well, neither has produced new, progressive music since the 1970s. Although it pains me to say this, Clapton and Page (and Richards) are classic rock artists. When they perform in concert, they overwhelming play oldies—songs they initially recorded 30 to 40 years ago.
On the other hand, Jeff Beck has progressed from blues and rock through jazz and electronica to his present style of using the guitar as a vocal instrument. In a June 2010 NPR interview, Liane Hansen delivers the most revealing interview I’ve heard with the reclusive artist. Beck says of his present style, "I try to become a singer. The guitar has always been abused with distortion units and funny sorts of effects, but when you don't do that and just let the genuine sound come through, there's a whole magic there."
Most great artists experience a short burst of creative brilliance over a few years, but a few—Matisse and Beethoven immediately come to mind—continue to evolve and produce at a high level of creativity throughout their lives. Among the electric guitar heroes of the 1960s, Jeff Beck, who turns 68 in June, is the only one who still produces new, progressive and expressive guitar music. I rarely look for the Grammy Award to legitimize musical excellence, but it is revealing that Jeff Beck has been awarded the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times over four decades—1986, 1990, 2002, 2004, 2010, and 2011.
Here are three recent examples of his guitar vocals: A Day in the Life, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and Nessun Dorma.
