Beck ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone and other magazine's list of 100 greatest guitarists. He was often called a "guitarist's guitarist". Rolling Stone describes him as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock". Although he recorded two hit albums (in 1975 and 1976) as a solo act, Beck did not establish or maintain the sustained commercial success of many of his contemporaries and bandmates.
Beck earned wide critical praise and received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times and Best Pop Instrumental Performance once. In 2014 he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Beck was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: as a member of the Yardbirds (1992) and as a solo artist (2009).
Beck was born on 24 June 1944 to Arnold and Ethel Beck at 206 Demesne Road, Wallington, England. As a 10-year-old, Beck sang in a church choir. He attended Sutton Manor Schoo and Sutton East County Secondary Modern School.
Beck cited Les Paul as the first electric guitar player who impressed him. Beck said that he first heard an electric guitar when he was 6 years old and heard Paul playing "How High the Moon" on the radio. He asked his mother what it was. After she replied it was an electric guitar and was all tricks, he said, "That's for me". Cliff Gallup, lead guitarist with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, was also an early musical influence, followed by B.B. King and Steve Cropper. Beck considers Lonnie Mack "a rock guitarist [who] was unjustly overlooked [and] a major influence on him and many others."
As a teenager he learned to play on a borrowed guitar and made several attempts to build his own instrument, first by gluing and bolting together cigar boxes for the body and an unsanded fence-post for the neck with model aircraft control-lines and frets simply painted on.
Upon leaving school, he attended Wimbledon College of Art, after which he was briefly employed as a painter and decorator, a groundsman on a golf course and a car paint-sprayer. Beck's sister Annetta introduced him to Jimmy Page when both were teenagers.
Beck stopped regular use of a pick in the 1980s. He produces a wide variety of sounds by using his thumb to pluck the strings, his ring finger on the volume knob and his little finger on the vibrato bar on his signature Fender Stratocaster. By plucking a string and then 'fading in' the sound with the volume knob he creates a unique sound that can resemble a human voice, among other effects. He frequently uses a wah-wah pedal both live and in the studio. Eric Clapton once said, "With Jeff, it's all in his hands".
Along with Stratocasters, Beck occasionally played Fender Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul models as well. His amplifiers were primarily Fender and Marshall. In his earlier days with the Yardbirds, Beck also used a 1954 Fender Esquire guitar (now owned by Seymour W. Duncan, and housed in the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) through Vox AC30s. He also played through a variety of fuzz pedals and echo units along with this set-up and has used the Pro Co RAT distortion pedal. The pickup was based on a Gibson pickup rewound by Duncan and used in a salvaged Telecaster dubbed the "Tele-Gib" which he had constructed as a gift to Beck. Scott Morgan of the Rationals, who at one point shared a dressing room with the Yardbirds, recalls how Beck amplified his lead guitar through a Vox Superbeetle while using banjo strings for the unwound G string on his guitar because "they didn't make sets with an unwound G at that point."
During the ARMS Charity Concerts in 1983 Beck used his battered Fender Esquire along with a 1954 Stratocaster and a Jackson Soloist. On Crazy Legs (1993) he played a Gretsch Duo Jet, his signature Stratocaster and various other guitars. In 2007, Fender created a Custom Shop Tribute series version of his beat-up Fender Esquire as well as his Artist Signature series Stratocaster.
Described by Rolling Stone as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock", Beck cited his major influences as Les Paul, the Shadows, Cliff Gallup, Ravi Shankar, Roy Buchanan, Chet Atkins, Django Reinhardt, Steve Cropper and Lonnie Mack. Of John McLaughlin, Beck said: "[he] has given us so many different facets of the guitar and introduced thousands of us to world music, by blending Indian music with jazz and classical. I'd say he was the best guitarist alive."
According to musicologist and historian Bob Gulla, Beck is credited for popularising the use of audio feedback and distortion in rock guitar. Prior to Beck's arrival, guitar playing generally conformed to the "clean, bright, and jangly" sounds of early-1960s British Invasion bands or the bluesy aesthetic of 1950s African-American performers like Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley. During his short time with the Yardbirds, Beck's experimentation with feedback, distortion, and "fuzz" tone "pushed the band into directions that would open the door for psychedelic rock" while "jolt[ing] British rock forward", according to Gulla. While Beck was not the first rock guitarist to experiment with electronic distortion, he nonetheless helped to redefine the sound and role of the electric guitar in rock music. Beck's work with the Yardbirds and the Jeff Beck Group's 1968 album Truth were seminal influences on heavy metal music, which emerged in full force in the early 1970s. Gulla identifies one of Beck's characteristic traits to be his sense of pitch, particularly in exercising the whammy bar to create sounds ranging from "nose-diving bombs to subtle, perfectly pitched harmonic melodies".
According to guitarist and author Jack Wilkins, Beck is regarded alongside Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as one of his generation's greatest guitarists, receiving praise for his technical skill and versatile playing. Stephen Thomas Erlewine finds him to be "as innovative as Jimmy Page, as tasteful as Eric Clapton, and nearly as visionary as Jimi Hendrix", although unable to achieve their mainstream success, "primarily because of the haphazard way he approached his career" while often lacking a star singer to help make his music more accessible. On his recorded output by 1991, Erlewine remarked that "never has such a gifted musician had such a spotty discography", believing Beck had largely released "remarkably uneven" solo records and only "a few terrific albums". In Christgau's Record Guide (1981), Robert Christgau essentialised Beck as "a technician" and questioned his ability to "improvise long lines, or jazz it up with a modicum of delicacy, or for that matter get funky", although he later observed a "customary focus, loyalty, and consistency of taste".
In 2015, Beck was ranked No. 5 in Rolling Stone' magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists". In an accompanying essay, guitarist Mike Campbell applauded Beck for his "brilliant technique" and "personality" in his playing, including a sense of humor expressed through the growl of his wah-wah effects. Campbell also credited Beck with expanding the boundaries of the blues, particularly on his two collaborations with Stewart.
A Day in the Life
Jeff Beck Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph.
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords.
I saw a film today oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
but I just had to look
Having read the book.
I'd love to turn you on
Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke,
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream
I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I'd love to turn you on
Jeff Beck's song A Day in the Life is a tribute to the Beatles' song with the same name. The lyrics of the song talk about different events that occur during a day. The first verse is about reading a sad news story about a man who had an accident and had "blown his mind out." Despite the distressing news, the singer feels like laughing because of the absurdity of the situation. It refers to the possibility that the man might have been a member of the House of Lords, creating a sense of ambiguity in the lyrics.
The second verse refers to watching a film about the winning of a war by the English Army, which the crowd watched and then turned away. The ambiguity of this verse, like the previous verse, is still present, reflecting the ambivalence of the songwriter about events happening around him.
The third verse is an ordinary story, recounting someone's morning routine, and then the person enters into a dreamlike state. The final verse discusses 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, which had to be counted, creating a marvelous reference to the Beatles' album cover Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The song's cryptic and fragmented lyrics, together with its soaring guitar work, make it a masterful musical composition.
Line by Line Meaning
I read the news today oh boy
I read a news article today, expressing either positive or negative news.
About a lucky man who made the grade
The article was about a man who succeeded in something important.
And though the news was rather sad
Despite the negative aspects of the news article,
Well I just had to laugh
I couldn't help but laugh.
I saw the photograph.
I saw a picture or image of the man mentioned in the news article.
He blew his mind out in a car
The man had a fatal car accident.
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
He didn't realize that the street lights had changed from green to red, perhaps because he was distracted.
A crowd of people stood and stared
There were bystanders who witnessed the car accident.
They'd seen his face before
The man was known to some of the people who saw the accident.
Nobody was really sure
However, there was uncertainty about something related to the man.
If he was from the House of Lords.
There was doubt about whether the man was a member of the House of Lords, a prestigious legislative body in the UK.
I saw a film today oh boy
I watched a movie or film today.
The English Army had just won the war
The movie portrayed a version of events where the English Army emerged victorious after a war.
A crowd of people turned away
Some people were not interested in the movie and chose to leave.
but I just had to look
I, however, was compelled to continue watching despite the lack of interest from others.
Having read the book.
Perhaps, the movie was an adaptation of a book that I had already read.
I'd love to turn you on
I'd be thrilled to arouse your senses, excite your imagination or inspire your passion.
Woke up, fell out of bed,
I woke up suddenly from my sleep and rolled out of bed.
Dragged a comb across my head
I ran a comb through my hair, perhaps after waking up with messy hair.
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
I found my way to the lower level of my house and had a cup of coffee or tea.
And looking up I noticed I was late.
As I lifted my head from my cup, I realized I was running late for something.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
I quickly located my coat and hat so that I could leave the house.
Made the bus in seconds flat
I was able to board the bus very quickly, almost immediately after leaving my house.
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke,
I went back upstairs to my house and had a cigarette or similar smokeable product.
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream
Perhaps as someone talked to me, I briefly lost focus and became lost in thought, like a daydream.
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
There were a significant number of potholes or similar road damage in Blackburn, Lancashire, UK.
And though the holes were rather small
Although the holes were not excessively large,
They had to count them all
Someone had to count every single hole.
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
After counting every single pothole, it is now known how many potholes it would take to fill the large performance venue, the Albert Hall in London.
Lyrics © OBO APRA/AMCOS
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Peter Hammer
one of the best Beatles covers for sure
jemp1965
Yep!!!
Ken Vail
Beck is a god
SeaLisa
Peter Hammer Jaco does Blackbird, that a worthy mention also.
Raymond Boorojian
Among the giants of guitar when officially polled a few years ago, Jeff Beck was the winner among his peers. You can have tens of thousands of people write in and say Michelangelo couldn't paint..but to those who really know...know what the top of the heap looks like.. when they see it...Amen!
B Randall Wellborn
You're probably very right about that but they might have a greater appreciation of the talent necessary to create the art.
Joshua Goldschmidt
Just because someone creates art doesn't mean they have a greater appreciation for it than anyone else.
Katherine Inaction
Raymond Boorojian ha I know...if you tried to fight Jeff Beck he would poke you in the eye and walk away!
Tim Chauvin
Beck has truly Mastered his craft. He has created his own Style and perfected it over the years! What a great performance of a wonderful song!
Diego Alonso Perez de Gracia
Jeff Beck toca como si tuviera la guitarra conectada al alma. Viva la música!