Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck was born Geoffrey Arnold Beck in Wallington, Surrey, England, on June 24, 1944, and grew up steeped in early rock and roll and blues, drawing on influences from Les Paul, Cliff Gallup, and B.B. King before teaching himself guitar as a teenager. After high school Beck attended Wimbledon College of Art, after which he worked briefly as a painter and decorator, a groundsman on a golf course, and an auto-painter. He cut his teeth as a session player and gained notice while backing rock and roll showman Screaming Lord Sutch, which led directly to the opportunity that would define his early career. A supporting stint with rock-and-roll eccentric Screaming Lord Sutch brought young guitarist Beck to the attention of blues-rock group the Yardbirds, whose lead guitarist he became in 1965, replacing Eric Clapton. Beck's breakthrough came almost immediately with the Yardbirds, where his prodigious talent was evident from the moment he joined the group, nudging it toward mind-bending rock on such seminal mid-'60s singles as "Shapes of Things" and "Over Under Sideways Down." Though his tenure lasted less than two years, it produced the band's most celebrated work, including the one full-length album recorded with Beck, "Roger the Engineer," released in 1966. He briefly shared dual lead guitar duties with Jimmy Page before departing, and later in 1967 formed the Jeff Beck Group with vocalist Rod Stewart, bassist Ron Wood, and drummer Aynsley Dunbar, who was quickly replaced by Mickey Waller, with keyboardist Nicky Hopkins joining in early 1968. This lineup proved hugely influential: their 1968 debut, Truth, drew the blueprint Led Zeppelin would soon follow, though Beck never rivaled Jimmy Page's group in terms of popularity. The following decades saw Beck continually reinvent himself. After Stewart and Wood departed to join the Faces, Beck was injured in a car accident in 1970, forcing him to put his career on hiatus, before resurfacing in 1971 with a new Jeff Beck Group featuring Bobby Tench on lead vocals. He then formed a power trio with former Vanilla Fudge members, releasing Beck, Bogert & Appice in 1973, after which the trio disbanded due to negative reception and Beck embarked on a solo career. That solo path produced his most acclaimed work, the critically acclaimed Blow by Blow in 1975, produced by Beatles collaborator George Martin, which featured an all-instrumental jazz fusion approach where Beck's guitar playing essentially took the place of a lead vocalist, a style he would largely maintain for the rest of his career. He continued to evolve through collaborations with Jan Hammer, the commercially successful Nile Rodgers-produced "Flash" in 1985, and later projects with Brian Wilson and Imelda May. Over his career Beck won eight Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice , first with the Yardbirds in 1992 and then as a solo artist in 2009.