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.
Tally Man
Jeff Beck Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
A man calls every week
We give him a pound
When he calls his round
To our house on a Friday
A man calls every week
We give and we get
With his plan he carries all we're needing
With his plan most anything is ours
He's the tallyman
Oh yeah
He's the tallyman
Shoes and socks hard wearing for the children
Village frocks all in the latest style
From the tallyman
Oh yeah
From the tallyman
To our house on a Friday
A man calls every week
We've made him a friend
So here's to the end
From cradle to grave
We respect him to say
Here's tick to the end
So we've made him a friend
Here's tick to the end
So we've made him a friend
The lyrics of "Tally Man" by Jeff Beck tell a story of a man who visits every house in the village every Friday and offers a variety of items available for purchase. In this way, he is the "tallyman," keeping track of what each household buys and the debt that is owed. Despite the debt owed, the tallyman becomes a friend to the household and is respected from the start of life to the end.
The song's tone is one of nostalgia, a reflection on a simpler time when life was less complicated and relationships were built on personal interactions. The tallyman represents a time when commerce was done on a much smaller, more personal scale. The lyrics suggest that despite societal changes which have made it harder to live a simple life, we still hold onto the values of friendship and respect. Jeff Beck uses his guitar to punctuate the lyrics and add to the overall wistful feeling of the song, highlighting the notion that the tallyman represents more than just someone who sells goods.
Line by Line Meaning
To our house on a Friday
Every Friday, a man comes to our house
A man calls every week
There is a man who calls us every week
We give him a pound
We give him one pound of money
When he calls his round
He comes to collect money from us and others in the neighborhood in a round
We give and we get
We give him money and in exchange, we get what we need
And we're always in dept
We never fully pay him, we always owe him money
With his plan he carries all we're needing
He brings us everything we need as per our request
With his plan most anything is ours
We can have almost anything we want from him
He's the tallyman
This man is known as the tallyman
Shoes and socks hard wearing for the children
He brings us durable shoes and socks for our kids
Village frocks all in the latest style
He brings us fashionable clothes that are popular in our village
From the tallyman
We get these items from the tallyman
We've made him a friend
We have developed a friendly relationship with him
So here's to the end
We cheers to the end of our transactions with him
From cradle to grave
Throughout our lives, from birth to death
We respect him to say
We show him respect and honor
Here's tick to the end
Here's to the end of our dealings with him
So we've made him a friend
We have become friends with him and grateful for his services
Lyrics © SCHUBERT MUSIC PUBLISHING INC.
Written by: GRAHAM GOULDMAN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Brian O'Brain
Great guitar solo at 1:25. When we heard that first we knew Jeff Beck was going to be a name to remember...... and to think that it's 54 years old now!
James Brozyna
Written by Graham Goldman of 10cc.
He's also written songs for The Yardbirds, the Hollies and Herman's Hermits.
Stephan Hacker
Right. Very nice popsongs. GG recorded some own versions on a 1968 RCA album. Tallyman is not included.
Stephan Hacker
This is a nice tune, better than Beck's two other 45s. The reason is that Graham Gouldman wrote it. He also wrote For Your Love, Heart Full Of Soul and Evil Hearted You for The Yardbirds, Pamela Pamela for Wayne Fontana, Bus Stop for The Hollies, No Milk Today for Herman's Hermits and some more. In the 70s he was a member of 10 c.c.
Sara Richmond
Actually the best of Jeff's 3 'Mickey' Most' singles, though Hi Ho is my football club's anthem. I've always liked Jeff's vocals, though he didn't like singing. And naturally, astounded by his guitar playing. Been a fan since his Yardbirds days. Love the way he's his own man.
FinditUK
Love this song....2 dislikes,...don't understand!!
Glicksman1
Sort of The Who meets Mr. Beck. Love it.
ptrisonic
And he's actually singing! He used to have trouble with his "r" s when he was young....
James Craig.
Was he not on Only Fools And Horses?
john rossini
great single by the beckster