I'm still upset about the death of Jeff Beck. He was my favourite guitar player.







What's most disturbing is that Jeff Beck was known to be clean living unlike some of his contemporary still living guitar legends, e.g. Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page. He was basically straight and drank only very moderately. But he somehow contracted bacterial meningitis and it killed him quickly.

Moreover unlike most of those other guitar legends, Jeff wasn't content to rest on the laurels of glories past but continued to expand the boundaries of guitar playing into uncharted territory until contracting meningitis. Here are some of my favourite tracks featuring his guitar playing:



The Yardbirds had initially brought in a sitar player to get the sound they wanted for the above track. But he couldn't adapt his playing to a rock beat. When Jeff arrived on the scene though he scoffed and said he could produce sitar licks with his guitar. And he did.















Incidentally the exquisite bass player in the above video is Hagar Ben-Ari.

What made Beck's playing unique is that he had the ability to play a note and then extend and bend it to his will by employing a whammy bar. Very few guitarists can even come close to duplicating that particular trick.