Jeff Beck: 1944-2023

Just how good he sounded in his seventies was made clear by his last album, 18

- By Charles Waring

Often described as "the guitarist's guitarist", Jeff Beck was a sonic alchemist ahead of his time. Not only did he help develop the blueprint for rock guitar with his innovative use of distortion and feedback but he also played a pivotal role at several key inflection points in pop history: first with The Yardbirds during the mid-60s British blues-rock boom, then later with The Jeff Beck Group, which laid the groundwork for heavy metal; and then in the mid-70s, when as a fully-fledged solo artist, he became a leading light of the jazz-funk fusion movement.

Beck brought a new, intensely virtuosic mindset to the electric guitar, redefining the instrument's expressive capabilities by creating an ecosystem composed of various effects pedals and gadgets, which offered him a broad orchestral palette of tone colours. Another crucial part of his musical armoury was the "whammy bar" (or tremolo arm), from which he conjured an array of sounds, ranging from delicate ethereal tones to the sonic equivalent of a plane swooping in a crash dive.

Beck was also one of the first guitarists to harness the creative potential of feedback. "That came as an accident," he confessed to Ultimate Rock in 2022. "We [The Yardbirds] played larger venues, 'round about '64-'65 and the PA was inadequate. So, we cranked up the level and then found out that feedback would happen." Beck's unerring ability to sculpt coherent melodies by controlling feedback impressed Queen's Brian May, who witnessed The Yardbirds live: "I remember seeing him put the guitar down, make it feed back, and play a whole tune without even touching the fingerboard."