Jeff Beck Biography

Geoffrey Arnold ("Jeff") Beck (born June 24, 1944 in Wallington, Greater London, England) is a rock/blues guitarist who played in several influential bands in the 1960s and 1970s. He has maintained a sporadic solo career over the last 25 years. Despite never attaining the commercial visibility of his contemporaries, Beck has gained widespread critical acclaim, especially in the guitar playing community. Never one to be tied to one particular genre, he has experimented with blues rock, heavy metal, and jazz fusion. Most recently, he has absorbed the influence of techno, creating a groundbreaking blend of heavy guitar rock and electronica.

Beck was one of the first electric guitarists in the 1960s to experiment with electronic distortion (most notably in The Yardbirds' 1966 album, Roger the Engineer) and helped to redefine the sound and role of the electric guitar in rock music. Beck's work with The Yardbirds and The Jeff Beck Group's 1968 album Truth were seminal influences on heavy metal music, which emerged in full force in the early 1970s.

Unlike some guitarists, Jeff Beck does not rely heavily on electronic effects. He produces a wide variety of sounds by using only his thumbnail and the stock tremelo bar on his signature Fender Stratocaster. Along with Stratocasters Beck occasionally plays Fender Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul models as well. His amplifiers are primarily Fenders and Marshalls. In his earlier days with the Yardbirds, Jeff also used a Fender Esquire guitar. Recently, Fender created a Custom shop version of his beat-up Esquire.