Jeff Beck 1966

Jeff Beck 1966 Caricature, illustrated here with his 1959 Gibson Les Paul, backstage in London, 1966 age 22.

Beck was an English rock guitarist. He is one of the three noted guitarists to have played with the Yardbirds (the other two being Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page). Beck also formed the Jeff Beck Group.

The Yardbirds were an English rock band, formed in London in 1963. The band scored its first major hit with “For Your Love”; however Eric Clapton abruptly left the band on March 25, 1965, the day the single was released.
Soon Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, but not before he recommended Jimmy Page, a prominent young session guitarist, to replace him. Content with his lucrative sessions work, and worried about both his health and the politics of Clapton’s departure, Page in turn recommended his friend Jeff Beck.

Beck played his first gig with the Yardbirds only two days after Clapton’s departure.

The Beck-era Yardbirds produced a number of groundbreaking recordings. These included the hit singles “Heart Full of Soul”, “Evil Hearted You”/”Still I’m Sad”, a cover of Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man” (US only), “Shapes of Things” and “Over Under Sideways Down”, and the Yardbirds album (known popularly as Roger the Engineer).

The single “Shapes of Things”, released in February 1966, “can justifiably be classified as the first psychedelic rock classic”, according to music journalist Richie Unterberger and heralded the coming of British psychedelia three months before the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” B-side “Rain”.

Samwell-Smith quit the band at a drunken gig at Queen’s College in Oxford and embarked on a career as a record producer. Jimmy Page, who was at the show, agreed that night to play bass until rhythm guitarist Dreja could rehearse on the instrument.
Page took over as lead guitarist at the Carousel Ballroom (San Francisco) on August 25, 1966 and Dreja switched to bass.
The Beck–Page lead guitar tandem created the avant garde psychedelic rock single “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” (with future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones on bass instead of Dreja), which the band recorded in July and September 1966.

In late 1966, Beck officially left the band and began a solo career with the Jeff Beck Group.

He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.
Beck has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: as a member of the Yardbirds (1992) and as a solo artist (2009).

Beck died from bacterial meningitis at a hospital near Riverhall on January 10, 2023, at the age of 78.

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