From David Gilmour to Keith Richards: Six guitar greats who worshipped Jeff Beck
Wielding the Fender Stratocaster, the most inherently dynamic guitar on the planet, Jeff Beck blurred lines from the very beginning. A visitor from the coming postmodern age, he touched down on Earth long before many of his futuristic compatriots even entered the stratosphere. While most of those he had developed alongside in the London scene were deeply ensconced in the blues, Beck’s sights were focused differently, concentrating on fusing genres to create a genuinely new sound. From ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago’ with The Yardbirds to ‘Beck’s Bolero’, his scintillating early works were sonic extractions from a tomorrow where genres are practically obsolete.
Of course, Beck could only have achieved what he did in the 1960s with a hefty dose of natural ability. However, as we have seen many times across the musical timeline, when this is fused with authentic character and, most importantly, imagination and a clear creative vision, sparks occur, and musical refinement emerges. Beck would also continue to develop as an artist as the years wore on, drawing on a more expansive field of sonics and refining his influential approach to fingerpicking, the primary weapon in his arsenal.
His artistic scope was undoubtedly the greatest out of the triumvirate of guitar maestros that Beck formed with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page to rule the ‘Swinging Sixties’ London scene. For instance, he pioneered psychedelic and progressive rock with The Yardbirds, committed to jazz fusion with The Jeff Beck Group, and later instilled absolute power into hard rock with the supergroup Beck, Bogert and Appice.
Following playing in these groups, in 1975, his style switched to purely instrumental, which allowed him to refine his unique sound and continue to innovate, not pegged back by the demands of vocalists, who always dictate a different angle to music than the instrumentalist conceives. Since that watershed moment, his span would continue to broaden. Eventually, he would blend guitar music with ubiquitous electronic sounds, an outcome his futuristic approach had always signalled.
Given the significance of his sound and the means by which he brought it to life, Jeff Beck’s work reverberates around rock music today, living on through the efforts of many prominent figures who continue to carry the torch after his 2023 death. As with all lifelong fans, they’ve always been forthcoming about just how impactful he was on their arcs.
Find six guitarists who loved Jeff Beck below.
Six guitarists who loved Jeff Beck:
Eddie Van Halen
Although the late Eddie Van Halen is one of the definitive pioneers of the electric guitar, thanks to weaponising, searing, soloing and string-tapping, there were several players he held dear. One of this gilded set was Jeff Beck, whose dynamism never failed to impress the Amsterdam native, who was also famed for his vitality.
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2011, the ‘Eruption’ star reflected on Beck’s unique essence and the record that introduced him to the Londoner. He said: “I didn’t get into him until ‘Blow By Blow’. Just the instrumentalness of it. And ‘Wired’ (1976). Interesting stuff in there. I guess it was just the experimentation in there that I liked.”
He offered a first-hand account of Beck’s outlandish approach: “Jeff Beck is definitely a standalone. You never know what the hell he’s gonna do. My brother and I were in France 20 years ago, and Jeff Beck was playing. He was doing a rockabilly thing. And we were like, ‘What the hell is this?’ You never know what to expect with him”.
David Gilmour
Outside of utilising the Stratocaster to push guitar-playing forward, there has long been a more tangible connection between Jeff Beck and David Gilmour. Legend states that Beck was the man Pink Floyd originally wanted to hire before they settled upon their friend from back home in Cambridge.
Although Gilmour has many favourite guitarists, all of whom he has discussed at great length, Beck was the best of the bunch, citing his consistency and innovation. In an interview on his YouTube channel in 2022, the Pink Floyd leader explained: “I have lots of favourite guitar players. Probably the person who I have admired the longest and the most consistent is Jeff Beck, in the guitar playing stakes. A lovely guy”.
Gilmour and Beck were such kindred spirits that they even converged in 2009 at one of the former’s shows at the Royal Albert Hall. Nearly a decade after this career highlight, Gilmour again praised his friend in the 2018 documentary Jeff Beck: Still on the Run.
He asserted: “He is a maverick. A maverick guitar player who doesn’t like to repeat himself. Who takes big risks all the time and has done all the way throughout his career”.
Nile Rodgers
Nile Rodgers might have pioneered disco with Chic, but he came from the rock tradition, finding himself creatively and philosophically amid the significant psychedelic advancements made by Jimi Hendrix in the late 1960s. Although he credits the Seattlean’s 1967 debut, Are You Experienced as the most crucial record in his life, Beck also greatly impacted him. The pair would also work on the 1985 album Flash together, which Rodgers helmed, and boasted the Rod Stewart-featuring single, ‘People Get Ready’.
While discussing working with Beck for Metal Express Radio in 2009, Rodgers said: “Jeff is one of my personal favourite guitar players of all time. I don’t know anybody that plays guitar like Jeff Beck. He’s a unique individual. He just sounds like Jeff Beck and no one else. One of my favourite periods in rock is the Jeff Beck Group.”
Joe Walsh
The 1970s had its own set of guitar heroes, and James Gang and Eagles axeman Joe Walsh is undoubtedly one of them. Although he might have come to inhabit a much distinct sonic space from his English counterpart when playing in the Eagles during the decade, he has the utmost respect for the many artistic successes Beck achieved across it. He even believes Beck took the guitar to a different realm entirely, all of his own making, which echoes the statements from other notable players.
Walsh told PRS: “I think Jeff Beck has taken the guitar to another galaxy. It’s not really a guitar, it’s his own instrument. He has made his own instrument. We’re the guitar, and no one can figure out what he’s doing. I listen to that and just shake my head. I don’t know”.
Keith Richards
Like Beck, The Rolling Stones’ melodic driving force, Keith Richards occupies his own realm in the annals of guitar playing. A blues connoisseur who blended open-tunings and Flamenco textures, the ‘Gimme Shelter’ writer knows a great when he saw one, and that was certainly the case for the late Yardbirds guitarist.
As a figure who has seen the world of guitar playing change markedly since his band broke out in the early 1960s, Richards is fully aware of his peers’ importance in transforming the landscape. To him, one of the most important designers was Beck, who he deemed one of the finest ever after his death. He revealed that he was particularly impressed with his tremolo arm use.
Richards told Guitar World in 2023: “He was a tremendous player. The odd times we got together, I was always amazed by the stuff that he did with his tremolo bar. He was one of the best, man”.
Slash
Slash is a fascinating prospect in that he might have risen out of the ashes of the punk and hair metal movements, but spiritually, his approach is indebted to the great guitarists of the classic rock era, from Jimmy Page to Keith Richards. Yet, for him, only one influence truly blew him away, and that was Beck. However, in proper punk form, he did caveat his point by saying the Stratocaster icon eventually became “too jazzy”.
The Guns N’ Roses powerhouse told Guitar Magazine in 1988: “I’m completely taught by ear. If there was something that I liked, that I thought was cool, I’d learn it. I’d learn Jeff Beck like you wouldn’t know. I’d learn any lick that I thought was really good from Wired, Truth and Blow by Blow. Then he got into There and Back and it was too jazzy for me. Jeff Beck is the most amazing guitar player out of anybody that I can think of. He is the only guy that blows me away. So I would sit down and learn licks that hit me.”
