British guitarist Jeff Beck died of meningitis at the age of 78, his family said. Beck became known to the general public in 1965 as a replacement for Eric Clapton in the rock band The Yardbirds.
Jeffery Beck was born in Wallington, Surrey, England on June 24, 1944. He showed interest for music at a very young age, and he was a part of a church choir and took piano lessons for 2 years. His interest in string instruments came after his uncle showed him how to play an upright bass and the violin. His encounter with an electric guitar was when he went to a Buddy Holly concert at Croydon School in the spring of 1958. This inspired him to get his first guitar which was an acoustic, and which he borrowed from a friend – who never asked it back. He also made an attempt of building his own guitar, but never really succeeded. Jeff joined his first band “the Rumbles” in 1963, with whom he played mostly Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly songs, and he got his first gig as a session guitarist in 1964 on a single by the Fitz and Startz titled “I’m Not Running Away”. His breakthrough came in 1965 when he replaced Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds on the recommendation of his childhood friend Jimmy Page, who also joined the band shortly after. Jeff left the Yardbirds 20 months later, and started doing his own stuff. He recorded a couple of singles, and formed his own band called “the Jeff Beck Group”, whose members among others were Shadow Jet Harris, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Nicky Hopkins and Micky Waller. From then on Jeff mostly went by himself, but he also appeared on great ton of albums by musicians such as Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Jon Bon Jovi, Roger Waters, Donovan, Stevie Wonder, and many other. He was even approached by Rolling Stones to join the band following the death of Brian Jones, and he the members of Pink Floyd intended to ask him to join as a replacement for Syd Barrett, but as they said, “None of us had the nerve to ask him.” Today Jeff was considered to by one of the most influential guitarists of all time. Beck has won five Grammy Awards and is fifth on the Rolling Stone list of greatest guitarists of all time.
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