key points
- Iconic rock guitarist Jeff Beck has died at age 78 on Tuesday after contracting bacterial meningitis.
- The news of his death has stunned the music world as rock legends pay tribute to his legacy.
- Beck has been described as the “Picasso of Rock & Roll” and the “guitarists’ guitarist” by fellow musicians.
Jeff Beck, the influential British guitarist who had a prolific career in rock and roll, has died aged 78, his website confirmed.
The eight-time Grammy award-winner, a guitar virtuoso and innovator who was also one of the world’s great rhythm and blues interpreters, died “peacefully” after a sudden bout of bacterial meningitis.
“On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday,” a statement on the English-born musician’s website said.
“His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss.”
Jeff Beck rose to fame when he joined rock group The Yardbirds in 1965. Here, they posed for a portrait in England in 1966. Source: Getty / Michael Ochs Archives
‘Picasso of Rock and Roll’
Beck’s death quickly reverberated around the music world, with tributes pouring in from rock icons like Ozzy Osbourne, with whom Beck once collaborated, and Kiss lead singer Gene Simmons, who called Beck’s passing “heartbreaking”.
“No one played guitar like Jeff,” Simmons posted on Twitter. “Please get ahold of the first two Jeff Beck Group albums and behold greatness. RIP.”
Musician Paul Young said he was “devastated” to hear the news.
“He was loved by everyone in the know,” Young tweeted, calling Beck “the guitarists’ guitarist”.
“Jeff Beck was the Picasso of Rock & Roll. Unlike every other guitar player, he created music that literally sounded as if he was an alien, following no rules, no clichés, a true master of the instrument,” musician and actor Michael Des Barres wrote on Twitter.
Who was Jeff Beck?
Jeff Beck first came to prominence as a member of The Yardbirds in 1965 immediately after the departure of one of the band’s star guitarists, Eric Clapton.
By 1966 he was paired in The Yardbirds with fellow guitar wizard Jimmy Page, who went on to found the British blues rock sensation Led Zeppelin.
He then went out on his own in a solo career that incorporated hard rock, jazz, funky blues and even opera.
Beck was known for his improvising, love of harmonics and the whammy bar on his preferred guitar, the Fender Stratocaster.
Guitar master Jeff Beck poses for a portrait in 1985 in Los Angeles. Source: Getty / Aaron Rapoport
He was described as the best guitarist on the planet by Aerosmith lead guitarist, Joe Perry, in a 2010 interview with the New York Times.
“He is head, hands and feet above all the rest of us, with the kind of talent that appears only once every generation or two,” Perry said at the time.
Beck’s guitar work can be heard on the soundtracks of such films as Stomp the Yard, Shallow Hal, Casino, Honeymoon in Vegas, Twins, Observe and Report and Little Big League.
He helped propel the British avant-garde rock sound with multiple groundbreaking recordings, including the fuzz-filled guitar licks on “Heart Full of Soul.”
In 2015 Rolling Stone magazine placed Beck at number five in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.
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