Born 24 June 1944 in Surrey, England, Jeff Beck was inspired to take up guitar by the recordings of Muddy Waters and Buddy
Guy. Also prominent among Beck's early influences were two relatively unheralded guitar heroes: James Burton, whose solos
ignited Ricky Nelson's 1950s hits; and Cliff Gallup, original lead guitarist of Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps. As a student at
art school, Beck tapped into the passion that underlies his chops. "If I hadn't had a guitar," he later observed, "I'd have
been locked up long ago."
It was another art student, Jimmy Page, who provided Beck with his earliest professional encouragement. But Beck resisted
the temptation to follow Page into the studio as a session guitarist. His uncompromising musical integrity was in place from
the beginning: Jeff Beck plays only the music he's inspired to play. In 1963, that meant playing R&B in the Deltones and the
Tridents-local groups which allowed Beck to cultivate an individual style rather than merely emulate the US stars of the day.
By 1964, the UK blues revival was in full flower. The Rolling Stones and the Animals had begun to make names for
themselves. So had a group called the Yardbirds, whose lead guitarist was Eric Clapton. In 1965, when the group decided to
mount an attack on the pop charts with "For Your Love," blues purist Clapton bailed out. Page, the first guitarist the
Yardbirds approached, was earning a decent living in the studio and demurred. He recommended that Beck be taken on in his
place.
During the twenty months that followed, Jeff's high-octane guitar playing, glittering with bent notes and fuzz-box
distortion, made rock classics of the Yardbirds hits "Heart Full Of Soul," "Over Under Sideways Down," and "Shapes Of
Things"-all of which reached the US Top 20. (These songs, like all the Yardbirds recordings, were issued in the US on Epic
Records: Jeff Beck had begun his three-decade-plus association with Epic.) Years later, Yardbirds rhythm guitarist Chris
Dreja offered a well-deserved testimonial: "We all feel the period Jeff spent with the band was the most creative. His scope
of inventiveness was probably the widest of the three guitarists we played with-and none of them were exactly slouches."
By 1966, Beck had left the Yardbirds in search of new musical directions. Beginning in March 1967, he recorded a trio of
solo singles under the auspices of producer Mickey Most. "Hi-Ho Silver Lining"-the first of these to be released-became a #14
UK hit in summer 1967 (and, remarkably, reached #17 on the UK chart when reissued in 1972). But Beck wanted to put together a
band with which he could pursue his musical ideals, and it began to take shape as the result of an accidental barroom meeting
with singer Rod Stewart. Beck had seen Stewart perform with a London-based R&B group called Steampacket. If the singer shared
his desire to form a band, Beck suggested, "Just call." Stewart did, and the first Jeff Beck Group was born.
Featuring Ron Wood on bass and Mickey Waller on drums, the Jeff Beck Group recorded Truth (1968) and Beck-Ola
(1969)-landmark albums that settled comfortably in the US Top 20. The intensity with which the group was working couldn't
last, though. On the eve of its scheduled appearance at Woodstock in August 1969, the first Jeff Beck Group blew apart.
By 1971, Beck had welded drummer Cozy Powell, keyboard player Max Middleton, and vocalist Bob Tench into a second Jeff
Beck Group. Two albums-Rough and Ready (1971) and the gold-certified Jeff Beck Group-were US successes, but soon Beck was
once again ready to move on. He returned to a project sidelined by his serious car crash a year earlier: the formation of a
power trio featuring Vanilla Fudge rhythm section Tim Bogert (bass) and Carmine Appice (drums). The eponymous Beck Bogert &
Appice (1972) reached #12 on the Billboard album chart in 1973, and became Beck's second gold LP. But, ever in search of new
horizons, Beck dissolved this group, leaving a second studio album unfinished and a live album unissued outside of Japan.
The 1974 album Blow By Blow found Jeff Beck rising to the new challenges he had set for himself. Reaching #3 on the
Billboard chart and selling more than 2 million copies, Blow By Blow was a breakthrough for instrumental rock. Famed Beatles
producer George Martin mid-wived for a second time in 1976 on Beck's platinum-plus Wired, which consolidated the guitarist's
position in the forefront of the fusion movement. It was during this period that Beck began his long friendship with
keyboards player and composer Jan Hammer. In 1977, the live jazz-rock classic Jeff Beck With The Jan Hammer Group became the
eighth Jeff Beck album to reach the US Top 50.
In 1980, Beck released There And Back. Five years later, inspired by a series of guest appearances on albums by Rod
Stewart, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, the Honeydrippers, and Mick Jagger, Beck released Flash. The album, featuring vocals by old
pal Jimmy Hall and Beck himself, contained the track "Escape," which garnered the guitarist his first Grammy Award (for Rock
Instrumental Performance). Flash was also notable for reuniting Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart on the Curtis Mayfield classic
"People Get Ready."
Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop With Terry Bozzio and Tony Hymas, released in 1989, was universally hailed for its stirring
melodies and superlative musicianship. With Bozzio drumming and Hymas at the keyboards, the album earned Beck a Grammy for
Best Rock Instrumental. The trio, co-headlining with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, kicked off "The Fire & The Fury"
tour on 25 October 1989 in Minneapolis. Reviewing the concluding performance-a 19,000-seat sell-out at New York's Madison
Square Garden-The New York Times noted: "Jeff Beck still knows how to make notes sound hard-won-sustained and ethereal, then
nasty or tearing-and when he stays with the melody...it sounds as heartfelt as any vocal could make it." November 1991
brought the release of Beckology, a 55-track, three-CD box set surveying the length and breadth of a remarkable career.
Two Jeff Beck albums were welcomed Stateside in 1993. Frankie's House was a soundtrack for a cable-tv miniseries set
during the Vietnam War. It was also a triumph of musical multiculturalism in which Beck managed to blended traditional Asian
koto music seamlessly and beautifully with his own patented licks. Crazy Legs found the guitarist paying breathtakingly
accurate homage to his early hero Cliff Gallup. With the backing of UK revivalists the Big Town Playboys, Beck re-created
seventeen songs from the repertoire of Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps. For a precious moment, the primal American rock and roll
of the 1950s lived again. But all over the world, rock fans worried that Jeff's well-publicized devotion to restoring vintage
cars was prolonging his absences from studio and stage.
Happily, Beck was not yet ready to exchange his guitars for a set of metric wrenches. On 31 July 1995, Jeff Beck, Terry
Bozzio, and Tony Hymas along with bassist Pino Palladino kicked off a major US tour co-headlining with Santana. In its review
of the 9 August show, The New York Daily News wrote: "At one moment glistening and sweet, at another ruthless and fleet,
Beck's soloing communicated the fullness of a human voice."
Proud of his new album and eager to perform it, in 1999 Jeff Beck feels "there's never been a wider door for me than there
is now. Before, it seems I've always been clashing with something [in contemporary musical trends], or not quite happy with
what's going on. I think there's more focus on this project than ever before, 'cos it's serious now. We can't afford to mess
around."