Jack White pays touching tribute to Jeff Beck: “he was amazingly kind”
Following the passing of legendary guitarist Jeff Beck, The White Stripes frontman Jack White has posted a video of the two collaborating.
White took to Instagram to share the clip from 2002, where Beck joined The White Stripes on stage at London’s Royal Festival Hall. He captioned the video: “Jeff Beck, guitar innovator extraordinaire, has moved to the next realm. I wrote to him a couple of years ago to show him that I was standing where he once stood inside Sam Phillips studio in Memphis some 50 odd years before. He was amazingly kind and instructional to me over the years.”
He continued: “Many shows that I’ve played began moments after listening to his song ‘Led Boots’ backstage. This bootleg clip that I’m posting is when I had one of the greatest thrills of my life, along with Meg White and Jack Lawrence of the Greenhornes, we were “the yardbirds” for one night backing up Jeff at the Royal Festival Hall in London.”
“In our rehearsals he plugged straight into an amp, no effects pedals. He was changing the sound of the guitar and doing things people didn’t know were possible from his earliest days on stage. God Bless you Jeff, you must already be chatting with Cliff Gallup somewhere.”
Beck died suddenly on Tuesday, January 10th, after contracting bacterial meningitis. The guitarist gained recognition as a member of The Yardbirds, which he joined as a replacement for Eric Clapton in 1965. He recorded one album with the band before he was sacked, leading him to form the Jeff Beck Group with the likes of Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart.
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