Weekend special (paid subscribers only): Revisiting Jeff Beck
Three distinctive covers show he was always moving forward
For all the accolades and praise following his death, the one compliment Jeff Beck has not received is over his distinctive sound.
That’s because Beck — ever curious and musically migratory — never developed his own “sound.”
Most major guitar stars have that “sound” where you know it is them within a few bars. Beck’s fellow Yardbirds’ guitarists, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, both have very distinctive “sounds” — a combination of their instrument, tuning, amplification gear, and methods of playing (how they pick or strum, the way they bend their notes, etc.) The same is true of Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Mark Knopfler, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ted Nugent, Eddie Van Halen, and many others.
In fact, that’s often a goal of a young guitarist — to craft a signature sound, a musical calling card if you will.
Beck never did that. There was no “Jeff Beck sound.”
Over the course of his career, he played blues, hard rock, jazz fusion, R&B, industrial and probably a bunch more I’m overlooking.
And he played a variety of different guitar brands and models — often in the course of a single show.
Oftentimes, the only way you could tell that it was Jeff Beck playing a passage is precisely because it was Jeff Beck playing that passage!
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