Known as “the guitarist’s guitarist”, Jeff Beck was one of three electric guitar icons to rise to fame in The Yardbirds in the 1960s (the others being Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page). He later formed the Jeff Beck Group, for which he recruited Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart and set a blues rock template that would prove inspirational for Page’s Led Zeppelin.
1975’s Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers (penned for him by Stevie Wonder) became Beck’s signature track, distilling the violining technique and stunning fingerstyle touch that would secure his legacy as one of the most distinctive and masterful electric guitar players of the 20th century.
Latest about Jeff Beck
From the Archive Jimmy Page could have been a Yardbird before Jeff Beck, had he accepted the somewhat clandestine offers of the band’s management
From the Archive Beck was asked to follow Slowhand’s footsteps out of the Yardbirds and into the Bluesbreakers before he decided to go solo
From the Archive Beck shared his thoughts on the Van Halen school of guitar back in 1985
The Fender Stratocaster would just be a glorified carpentry project without the players who danced across its neck and gave it life. Here we celebrate 25 of the best
From the Archive In a momentous sliding doors moment in rock history, Page and Beck had plans to form a twin-guitar act that would have been supported by Keith Moon and John Entwistle
How a gift of thanks from one Yardbird alumnus to another turned a guitar into a bona-fide icon
Long before he was a Rolling Stone, Ronnie Wood played bass guitar on a ragged 12-bar blues with Jeff Beck
The late guitar hero thought he’d been invited to jam for a weekend in the mid ’70s. He didn’t realize Keith Richards wanted him to replace Mick Taylor, as told in this exclusive book excerpt
