Jeff Beck

• Genre: Jazz Rock
• Hometown: Surrey
• Jeff Beck Website

About

Beck got his start in the Yardbirds, a group that also boasted the one-time membership of Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. Beck experimented with electronic effects and played the snarling, distorted solo on the wonderful "Heart Full of Soul." After leaving the Yardbirds he started the Jeff Beck Group, along with future solo star Rod Stewart on vocals and eventual Rolling Stone Ron Wood on bass. The band played electrifying Blues Rock -- Stewart's mighty voice was a perfect match for Beck's over-the-top, Buddy Guy-influenced guitar attack. Beck continued to grow as a stylist and an innovator after the Jeff Beck Group broke up, but he has never had a vocalist anywhere near as good as Stewart. Of his later works, his best are the Fusion type instrumental records that he made in the mid- to late-1970s, the most notable being Blow By Blow.

- Tom Heyman