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.
Situation
Jeff Beck Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
To live a life we don't intend to lose
The time has come when we must all decide
To end our evil ways or let the whole world slide
Who would of thought
That wars were fought to free our nation
We must make the changes
Ooh yeah, yeah
Listen people
It's all right
When you've fought on foreign soil
Not your very own
'Cause you don't want it destroyed
We are keepin' our own identity
We must look around for ideas to be real
So many of the people have been justified
We must face the truth
'Cause there ain't no real place to hide
Listen people
If it's true that no one really cares
We've got to sacrifice through the changing years
Do the things we feel no matter most of all
So let the people yeah
Sweet music is our home
Please realize happiness is your conviction
You'll find in people all kinds of good reaction
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
The lyrics to Jeff Beck's song "Situation" are a call to action to end evil ways and make changes in the world. The first lines speak to the basic right to choose the life we want to live without losing it. The next line asks us to decide if we want to end our evil ways or if we want to let the whole world slide. These lines are a call to action, urging people to think about their actions and their consequences.
The second paragraph references wars fought to free our nation, but this time it is a reflection on the sacrifices that soldiers have made for the country. The song urges people to think about the basic situation, which is that we are fighting for our identity and must look around for ideas to be real. The lyrics also reference justified people, suggesting that we must face the truth and cannot hide from reality.
Overall, the lyrics to Beck's "Situation" emphasize the importance of making positive changes in the world, taking responsibility for our actions, and doing what we believe is right, even if it requires sacrifice. The song is an appeal to listeners to embrace positivity and work towards a better future for everyone.
Line by Line Meaning
People fight for the basic right to choose
People struggle and struggle to get their basic right to have choices in life.
To live a life we don't intend to lose
Living a life we don't intend to lose is what we all strive for.
The time has come when we must all decide
It's high time we should all make important decisions and stand by them.
To end our evil ways or let the whole world slide
We need to stop the evilness that is eating into our society or just let the whole world crumble down into chaos.
Who would of thought
Who would have thought that things could turn out like this?
That wars were fought to free our nation
Wars are often fought to create freedom for people and nations around the world.
We must make the changes
We have to constantly improve and make changes to make the world around us better.
From the basic situation
Our reality serves as the starting point to make changes to.
Listen people
People of the world, listen carefully please.
It's all right
Everything will be fine if we all stand together.
When you've fought on foreign soil
Warfare out of your homeland affects your mentality differently.
Not your very own
It's not happening in your country, where you live.
'Cause you don't want it destroyed
You don't want your country to be ruined by warfare or some other destructive event.
We are keepin' our own identity
We try to maintain as much of our own cultural identity as possible.
We must look around for ideas to be real
To create something authentic, one must seek inspiration from various sources.
So many of the people have been justified
Many people have valid reasons for their actions, even if they seem unjustifiable.
We must face the truth
It's important to confront the truth without fear or bias.
'Cause there ain't no real place to hide
There is no escape from the consequences of our actions.
If it's true that no one really cares
If it's a fact that nobody cares anymore.
We've got to sacrifice through the changing years
We need to make sacrifices as life keeps moving on, introducing new challenges and changes.
Do the things we feel no matter most of all
Most importantly, we should do what we feel is right, regardless of any external constraints.
So let the people yeah
Let people be.
Sweet music is our home
Music brings us together and can often feel like the only place we belong.
Please realize happiness is your conviction
Realize that your own internal state of happiness is ultimately in your control.
You'll find in people all kinds of good reaction
When we put good vibes out into the world, they tend to come back to us in various forms.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
Expressing the exuberance of life.
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