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FENDER MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS CORPORATION, CORONA, CALIFORNIA, 2006 A SOLID-BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR, CUSTOM SHOP JEFF BECK ESQUIRE RELIC REISSUE
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FENDER MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS CORPORATION, CORONA, CALIFORNIA, 2006 A SOLID-BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR, CUSTOM SHOP JEFF BECK ESQUIRE RELIC REISSUE
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FENDER MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS CORPORATION, CORONA, CALIFORNIA, 2006
A SOLID-BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR, CUSTOM SHOP JEFF BECK ESQUIRE RELIC REISSUE
With artificially simulated wear to the finish, bearing the logo Fender / "ESQUIRE" at the headstock, GF444 / Greg Fessler and Fender logo on the reverse, the neckplate stamped 1056, the bridge plate stamped FENDER / PAT. PEND., together with an Anvil flight case marked externally FRAGILE / J.BECK, vintage style Fender strap and certificate of authenticity
Length of body 15 7⁄8 in. (40.4 cm.)Jeff Beck
The Extraordinary Life of a Visionary Electric Guitar Virtuoso
After Jeff Beck passed away on January 10, 2023, numerous obituaries described him as one of the world’s greatest guitarists. While that lofty observation is certainly accurate, it’s also somewhat incomplete as Beck was much more than a guitarist and rather was more of a master, visionary musician who transcended the perceptions, limitations, and rules of how his chosen means of expression – the electric guitar – was played. Indeed, Jeff Beck may have played guitar, but in his hands the instrument was much more than plucked strings and fingers touching frets. The sounds that emanated from his instrument were otherworldly, evoking the pathos of the human voice, elegiac wind and horn instruments, tremulous storms, rumbling engines, and so much more – a virtual orchestra of emotion and commotion. Dozens of guitarists can be described as truly great, but Beck was one-of-a-kind, inimitable, and revolutionary in ways that elevated him to an even more rare and distinguished class of epochal musicians who redefined their instruments and the music associated with it.
Geoffrey Arnold Beck was born June 24, 1944 in Wallington, Surrey, to Arnold and Ethel Beck. As a child, Jeff was constantly exposed to music. His mother often played a baby grand piano that was in the house or listened to music on the radio. “All I listened to was marching bands from World War II and dance orchestras that played music to entertain housewives,” Beck recalled in 2010.
Then one day in early 1951 when he was six and his mother was listening to Housewives’ Choice on the BBC, his ears perked up when he heard an entirely different style of music. “All of a sudden this scatty guitar came over the airwaves. The song was ‘How High the Moon’ by Les Paul and Mary Ford. The sound was fantastic, especially the slap echo and the trebly guitar. I never heard an instrument like that before. To a kid like me who had been around music all of the time it sounded so different compared to a bunch of trombones and whatever else I was used to hearing. It just leapt out of the speakers.”
Young Jeff instantly decided that he wanted to play guitar, but his mother had other plans and signed him up for piano lessons. It wasn’t until the age of 12 that he finally had an opportunity to get an actual guitar into his hands when he borrowed a neglected acoustic from a friend. Although the instrument was missing a few strings, he did his best to imitate the playing he heard on rock and roll records owned by his older sister, Annetta, and pop music broadcasts from Radio Luxembourg.
A truly defining moment in the aspiring guitarist’s life took place about a year later during the summer of 1957 when the American rock and roll comedy The Girl Can’t Help It finally made its way to theatres in the UK. Young Jeff’s impressionable mind was expanded by the unfolding spectacle in a manner similar to the movie’s intro where the screen transforms from black and white to bold Technicolor and grows from a small square frame to widescreen CinemaScope.
In addition to the eye-catching allure of the vivacious, voluptuous blonde actress Jayne Mansfield and a dazzling red convertible 1957 Lincoln Premiere, he became enthralled by the wild rock and roll performances of Little Richard, Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, and Eddie Cochran. The blonde Fender Esquire electric guitars with black pickguards played by the guitarists in Richard’s and Vincent’s bands particularly captured his rapt attention. When Beck told Charles Shaar Murray of the New Musical Express in late 1974 that “music and cars and sex are my main driving forces, and that’s the way I’m gonna keep it,” that could all be traced back to this film.
Determined to play electric guitar, Beck made a few failed attempts at making his own instruments. Eventually by 1960 he acquired his first proper electric, a Guyatone LG-50 followed shortly afterwards by a new Burns Vibra-Artist, and started playing in a succession of bands which included the Bandits and the Deltones. While in the Deltones, he swapped his Burns for a white Fender Telecaster with a rosewood neck owned by rhythm guitarist John Owen, until Owen asked for its return. Later in 1961, he borrowed money from his mother to purchase a brand new Fender Stratocaster, which he played with the Deltones and the Crescents as he began his journey as a professional musician.
Around this time, Beck forged new friendships with fellow guitarist Jimmy Page, who he had met through his sister, and pianist Ian Stewart, both of whom expanded Jeff’s musical universe by introducing him to records by artists encompassing a wide variety of musical styles, particularly the blues. Beck soon joined the burgeoning ranks of young British guitarists playing electric blues, and eventually he became a member of the Tridents in 1964. Equipped with a simple rig consisting of the white 1959 Fender Telecaster which he had reacquired from John Owen, a Vox AC30 Top Boost amp, and a Binson Echorec delay unit, the young guitarist displayed dazzling playing technique and innovative imagination on early Tridents and session recordings featuring his wild triplet pull-offs and outbursts of avant-garde noise.
In March of 1965, Jimmy Page, who at that point in his career was a highly successful and in-demand session guitarist but did not want to join a band, recommended his childhood friend Jeff to the Yardbirds when the band’s manager Giorgio Gomelsky approached Page about replacing Eric Clapton. At first Beck was hesitant to leave the Tridents but when he auditioned for the Yardbirds only a few days after Clapton’s departure he was quickly swept up into the maelstrom of mainstream pop music success. Beck’s non-traditional playing style was the perfect fit for the Yardbirds’ new ambitious explorations. On his first recording with the Yardbirds, ‘Heart Full of Soul’, he imitated a sitar using his white Tele and a fuzz box, helping pioneer raga rock in the process. Numerous adventurous new sonic explorations soon followed suit, including sustaining feedback on ‘Shapes of Things’, Middle Eastern-inspired lines on the former and ‘Over Under Sideways Down’, howling train whistles on ‘The Train Kept A-Rollin’’, and his wild percussive rave-up on ‘I’m a Man’. The guitar showcase ‘Jeff’s Boogie’ also proved that Beck possessed instrumental chops on a par with his more exploratory side.
Beck’s stint with the Yardbirds lasted only 20 short months, ending in November 1966, but during that period he recorded the album Roger the Engineer/Over Under Sideways Down, had seven Top 20 UK/US singles and EPs, and toured the United States. Less than 10 years after seeing The Girl Can’t Help It he was living the rock ‘n’ roll fantasy: with the cheque from the album, he bought a Chevy Corvette, rolling up to Jimmy Page’s house bearing a new Telecaster as a gift for his friend; he had a short-lived romance with American blonde starlet Mary Hughes; and he bought his first Gibson Les Paul – a late ’50s sunburst model now known as the ‘Yardburst’ – which became one of his main guitars throughout the remainder of the ’60s.
Free from the Yardbirds and under the direction of managers Peter Grant, Mickie Most, and Simon Napier-Bell, Beck half-heartedly allowed himself to be talked into singing ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’, which became a UK pop hit single, peaking at #14. The single’s B-side, the Ravel-inspired instrumental ‘Beck’s Bolero’, recorded a year earlier whilst still in the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, John Paul Jones, and Nicky Hopkins, was more in line with the direction he actually wanted to pursue. Soon he put together the Jeff Beck Group with vocalist Rod Stewart, and had a revolving roster of bassists and drummers before he settled on Ronnie Wood on bass and Mickey Waller on drums. This was the lineup which accompanied Beck on the Truth album. Hailed as a prototype of blues-inspired hard rock and possibly even heavy metal, the album changed the way many players viewed the guitar. Beck’s cover of Muddy Waters’ ‘You Shook Me’ even seemed to inspire Led Zeppelin’s version recorded a year later.
Stewart and Wood remained for the heavy blues-influenced second Jeff Beck Group album, Beck-Ola, however, by the early ’70s the guitarist had assembled an entirely new Jeff Beck Group consisting of vocalist/rhythm guitarist Bobby Tench, keyboardist Max Middleton, Clive Chaman on bass, and Cozy Powell on drums. This lineup accompanied Beck on the albums Rough and Ready and Jeff Beck Group (a.k.a. The Orange Album), where Beck’s playing showcased his growing interest in funk/R&B and jazz styles. Response to the albums by the second iteration of the Jeff Beck Group was mixed, but most critics agreed that Beck’s playing had progressed impressively.
The allure of American R&B music took a strong hold upon Beck during the early ’70s as he hired Steve Cropper (Booker T. & the M.G.’s and Stax studios session guitarist) to produce the final Jeff Beck Group album, attempted to record an album at Detroit’s legendary Motown studio, and collaborated with Stevie Wonder on his album Talking Book. This legendary session would result in Jeff and Stevie collaborating on what would become the latter’s biggest hit to date – ‘Superstition’. In the summer of 1972, he formed the supergroup/power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice with former Vanilla Fudge/Cactus members Tim Bogert (bass) and Carmine Appice (drums). This band released its only studio album in 1973, notably featuring Beck’s version of Wonder’s hit ‘Superstition’. During a break from touring with ‘BBA’, which took them to the US, Japan and Europe, Beck made a memorable guest appearance for the finale/encore of David Bowie’s last performance as his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973.
Beck eventually became frustrated with the politics of being a band member, and in April 1974 he parted ways with Bogert and Appice in favour of pursuing a solo career, even turning down an invitation to join The Rolling Stones in early 1975. Over the years he had become increasingly fascinated with the growing jazz fusion movement that embraced the energy of rock music. He particularly admired guitarist John McLaughlin’s work with Miles Davis on the Jack Johnson album and with McLaughlin’s own Mahavishnu Orchestra as well as recordings by Billy Cobham and Stanley Clarke. In October 1974 he entered AIR Studios in London, working with legendary producer George Martin whom he admired not only for his work with the Beatles but more significantly for his recent efforts on the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Apocalypse album.
The result was Blow By Blow, a landmark instrumental album that introduced the rock audience to jazz fusion music. The funk influence still remained strong throughout, but tracks like the FM radio stalwart ‘Freeway Jam’ and the reggae-inspired cover of the Beatles’ ‘She’s a Woman’ were warmly accepted by his dedicated rock following. The album’s showcase is ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’, written by Stevie Wonder (originally written for his wife Syreeta; one of two Wonder tracks on the album along with ‘Thelonius’, which Stevie played on) and dedicated to guitarist Roy Buchanan, where Beck cast aside his usual bombast and bravado for a pensive performance filled with mournful emotion, making his guitar seemingly cry through subtle note bends and masterful volume and tone control swells. No one missed the vocals when Beck’s performance was more expressive than anything mere words could convey.
Blow By Blow and its 1976 follow-up Wired were the guitarist’s most successful efforts, each enjoying Platinum certification. Beck poached keyboardist Jan Hammer and drummer Narada Michael Walden from McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra when it dissolved after Beck and McLaughlin toured together in 1975, with Walden contributing four songs to Wired while Hammer delivered the rocking ‘Blue Wind’. A cover of Charles Mingus’ ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat' showcased Beck’s increasingly masterful phrasing and touch.
The 1977 live album Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live and the 1980 studio There & Back brought Beck’s fusion era to a creative peak, but as he entered the ’80s he soon found himself seeking new creative inspiration. Beck played on albums by Tina Turner (Private Dancer) and Mick Jagger (She’s The Boss) before joining forces with producer Nile Rodgers and making his own foray into pop music featuring vocals once again. The resulting album, Flash, is notable mostly for Beck’s reunion with Rod Stewart on a cover of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘People Get Ready’, but the Jan Hammer-penned instrumental track ‘Escape’ earned Beck his first Grammy.
Beck continued to work with Jagger once again on the Rolling Stones frontman’s Primitive Cool album before getting the energy to focus on his own career once again. His decision to return to instrumental music was a wise one, and his resulting 1989 album Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop was widely hailed as a return to form in an updated modern package. Forming a different kind of power trio with keyboardist Tony Hymas and drummer Terry Bozzio, Beck delivered a dazzling showcase of his ever-evolving guitar prowess. Aggressive blasts of metallic industrial noise were contrasted by soulful melodic pieces with nary a typical guitar cliché to be found. ‘Where Were You’, where Beck transformed plucked harmonics, whammy bar bends, and volume control swells into an otherworldly vocal-like melody was jaw-dropping for both how beautiful and how much unlike a guitar it sounded. The song became a prototype for further exploration in Beck’s career from that point onward, a unique stylistic approach that no other guitarist has ever managed to replicate or master.
When Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan toured together later that year, the shows were hailed as the guitar event of the decade. Beck seemed truly inspired by his new direction, but over almost the entire ’90s he struggled to deliver a proper follow-up. The guitarist continued to remain busy, appearing on notable sessions for artists including Jon Bon Jovi, Buddy Guy, Roger Waters, Paul Rodgers, Kate Bush, Seal, John McLaughlin, and Brian May plus an epic instrumental cover of the Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’ for the Sir George Martin tribute album. He also recorded music for several soundtracks, including his own take on Vietnamese music for the score for Frankie’s House, and indulged in a note-perfect rockabilly tribute to his early inspirations, Gene Vincent guitarists Cliff Gallup and Johnny Meeks, on Crazy Legs. A 1995 co-headlining tour with Carlos Santana found him reunited with Hymas and Bozzio once again with the addition of Pino Palladino on bass.
But it wasn’t until 1999 that he released his next proper solo album, Who Else! Beck found new inspiration from the punk-like energy of electronic acts like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers, which resulted in a trio of albums released within a surprisingly short time span, also including You Had It Coming (2000) and Jeff (2003). In addition to the electro-inspired frenzy, blues-rock and fusion-style instrumentals, Beck’s evolving vocal-inspired techniques featured heavily as well. ‘Angel (Footsteps)’ where Beck expertly navigates the micro notes well beyond the fretboard with a slide is a standout track from Who Else! which reveals how Beck was completely unintimidated by the usual perceived limitations of the instrument.
After that brief but inspired burst of output, Beck was relatively quiet again, focusing mainly on touring and releasing occasional live albums over the next few years, including a celebrated week-long residency at London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s in 2007, and being inducted (for the second time) into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2010 he released Emotion and Commotion, an album title which perfectly describes his unique approach to the guitar in three succinct words. Providing a balance of songs featuring five different female vocalists and five instrumental tracks, Emotion and Commotion may represent the peak of Beck’s command of the guitar, particularly the sheer emotional heights reached with his impeccable performances of the timeless ballad ‘Over the Rainbow’ and Puccini’s opera aria ‘Nessun Dorma’.
In 2010 Beck also paid a touching tribute to his recently deceased mentor and good friend Les Paul, performing a pair of dates at New York’s Iridium nightclub to celebrate what would have been Paul’s 95th birthday, collaborating with the singer Imelda May and her band along with numerous guests. These performances were recorded and packaged as the Rock ’n’ Roll Party (Honoring Les Paul) album and video. This was an even more ambitious undertaking than his Crazy Legs album, featuring Beck’s uncanny chameleon-like ability to replicate the sounds and styles of numerous guitarists who inspired him, including Les Paul, Cliff Gallup, Scotty Moore, Eddie Cochran, and several others, using an array of different guitars rather than relying solely on his trusted white Stratocaster, ‘Anoushka’. Most impressive and surprising of all was his dead-perfect replication of Barney Kessel’s jazz chord melody playing on his interpretation of Julie London’s ‘Cry Me a River’.
The final chapter of Jeff Beck’s recording career was aptly bookended by emotion and commotion, though not necessarily in that order. In 2016 he released the album Loud Hailer – a band-style collaboration between Beck with guitarist Carmen Vandenberg and singer Rosie Bones. Although Beck was nearly 40 to 50 years older than his female counterparts, the pairing ignited a youthful, noisy aggression in his playing. Around the same time, Beck first met actor/musician Johnny Depp, with whom he formed a deep friendship, and which eventually led to the duo recording Beck’s final album, 18, released in 2022. Beck joked that playing with Depp made them both feel 18 again, inspiring the album’s title. Beck also made a guest appearance on two tracks on Ozzy Osbourne’s Patient Number 9.
However, the final recordings released by Beck display his more mature, emotional side: a cover of ‘Moon River’ where he trades soulful lines with his longtime friend Eric Clapton, and his very last studio recording, ‘Going Home (Theme From Local Hero)’, where he performed as part of Mark Knopfler’s Guitar Heroes supergroup along with Clapton, Peter Frampton, David Gilmour, Buddy Guy, Brian May, John McLaughlin, Slash, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend, and about 50 other notable guitarists.
Jeff Beck had planned to continue touring during 2023 after playing his final show in Reno on November 12, 2022, but fate had other plans. Suddenly and unexpectedly he was stricken with bacterial meningitis and passed away on 10 January 2023, at the age of 78. Even up until the very end, Beck’s playing remained as vital, precise, and energetic as ever, and he never once stopped innovating, exploring, and pushing the boundaries. He left behind numerous gems for all lovers of guitar music to appreciate for decades to come, both in his decades of work on his own music and his numerous guest appearances with artists both famous and obscure. Jeff Beck along with his peers Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page may have formed the triumvirate of British blues-rock guitar legends, but even Clapton and Page admit that Beck was the most talented and visionary of them all. There will never be another guitarist like him.
Chris Gill, Associate Editor Guitar World magazine, co-author of Eruption - Conversations with Eddie Van Halen, guitar history/contributor to Jeff Beck’s Beck 01: Hot Rods and Rock & RollThis guitar, one of two examples sent by Fender to Jeff Beck, is one of a limited edition of Master-Built replicas of Jeff Beck’s original unique Fender Esquire, which he used for his main body of work with the Yardbirds leading up to their eponymous album (also known as
Roger the Engineer) released in 1966, which featured his first ‘59 Les Paul (see lot 3). Soon after joining The Yardbirds, Beck acquired a ‘54 Esquire from John Maus, the guitarist in the American band The Walker Brothers, whom Beck met while playing on a package tour with The Kinks in 1965. Walker had contoured the top and back in the style of a Fender Stratocaster, leaving the bare wood exposed, and Beck removed the original white pickguard, replacing it with the black one from his ’59 Telecaster (later given to Jimmy Page), which apparently created quite a buzz amongst guitarists in London.
In an interview with Fender filmed to coincide with the release of the Reissue Esquire, Beck reflected on the original guitar: ‘
At the time we’re talking about it was, I think, the transitory period where Fender started using a rosewood fingerboard and I didn’t want that - I wanted a maple neck and the only one I ever saw or got close to was John Walker’s from the Walker Brothers. And just like as luck would have it we went on tour with them - Yardbirds & Walker Brothers in ’65 and I bought it. And he wanted £75, which is a lot of money - it was only about £10 quid cheaper than the one that was for sale in the shop brand new. But he wouldn’t shift on it so I dug out the 75 quid and gave it to him, so that’s how it started and I’ve never regretted it.
‘Shapes of Things’ it was on, ‘Over Under Sideways Down’ it was on it; ‘I’m the Man’. I didn’t have any other guitar. We’re talking, uh, April, February, March, I joined The Yardbirds and we were just on the road constantly and I didn’t even have my own guitar. I think I used Eric’s red Tele which I think belonged to The Yardbirds. I think they leased it to us, oh they were bastards.’
Following his departure from The Yardbirds, the Esquire was put to one side, and other guitars took the limelight during his time with the first and second line-ups of the Jeff Beck Group and subsequently Beck, Bogert & Appice, including at least three Fender Strats, a second 1959 Sunburst Les Paul, with a ‘zebra’ PAF pickup in the neck, which in July 1969 was stolen following a riotous concert in upstate New York, and his third Les Paul – the Oxblood, which had been purchased in 1972. In around September 1973, the young American guitar restorer and pickup wiz Seymour W. Duncan, who was working for Fender at their repair shop in London, created a guitar for Jeff Beck, whom he had admired since he was a child and for whom he had been devastated following the theft of his ’59 Les Paul. Duncan recounted that ‘
As a kid in New Jersey, I grew up a major fan of Jeff's and the Yardbirds. I used to stare at the 'Rave Up' album cover and wonder what it would be like to see Jeff's Esquire or, better yet, to hold it.’ Duncan took his new creation to the nearby studio where Beck, Bogert & Appice were rehearsing, and presented it to Jeff, which he loved for its feel and the punchy Gibson pickups, and was immediately put to use. In exchange for the new guitar – nicknamed ‘The Tele-Gib’ (see lot 8) for its combined features of a Fender Telecaster and a Gibson, Seymour acquired Beck’s old Yardbirds Esquire.
‘The fact that the same guitar [I had admired as a teenager]
was given to me by Jeff years later is one of the highlights of my life. I worked with the Fender Custom Shop to spec out all the details of the original. And it's amazing how faithful their replica is.’ Fender released details at the time specifying that the ‘Jeff Beck Esquire guitar features an extremely light two-piece offset ash body with the now-famous body contours. The neck is similar to the 10⁄56 neck shape and has nicely rolled edges, as well as the wear pattern identical to the original. Most of the parts on the Tribute Series Esquire are recreations of the original parts found on the original, including brass saddles, which Jeff replaced the usual steel saddles with. Legendary pickup guru, Abigail Ybarra, carefully recreated Jeff's pickups from the original's specifications. Additionally, the control wiring is authentic for those wishing to achieve the classic wah wah and volume swells that Jeff made so famous. Additional features include a black pickguard (with the same chipped edges), a 1056 serial number, the Master Builder's signature and serial number decal on the back of the headstock, and a vintage style, cosmetically-aged guitar strap.’
When Fender sent him a prototype of the Reissue, Beck was taken aback: ‘
I thought you were having a laugh. I thought it was the original one. ... It's spooky. Until I opened the lid, it didn't really hit me. I thought, “Oh, this is my original guitar back!”’ This prototype was sent back to Fender following Beck’s approval, and they sent two of the production models to Beck following its release – one built by John Cruz (subsequently given to Beck’s close friend Johnny Depp) and this one, built by Greg Fessler.
A SOLID-BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR, CUSTOM SHOP JEFF BECK ESQUIRE RELIC REISSUE
With artificially simulated wear to the finish, bearing the logo Fender / "ESQUIRE" at the headstock, GF444 / Greg Fessler and Fender logo on the reverse, the neckplate stamped 1056, the bridge plate stamped FENDER / PAT. PEND., together with an Anvil flight case marked externally FRAGILE / J.BECK, vintage style Fender strap and certificate of authenticity
Length of body 15 7⁄8 in. (40.4 cm.)Jeff Beck
The Extraordinary Life of a Visionary Electric Guitar Virtuoso
After Jeff Beck passed away on January 10, 2023, numerous obituaries described him as one of the world’s greatest guitarists. While that lofty observation is certainly accurate, it’s also somewhat incomplete as Beck was much more than a guitarist and rather was more of a master, visionary musician who transcended the perceptions, limitations, and rules of how his chosen means of expression – the electric guitar – was played. Indeed, Jeff Beck may have played guitar, but in his hands the instrument was much more than plucked strings and fingers touching frets. The sounds that emanated from his instrument were otherworldly, evoking the pathos of the human voice, elegiac wind and horn instruments, tremulous storms, rumbling engines, and so much more – a virtual orchestra of emotion and commotion. Dozens of guitarists can be described as truly great, but Beck was one-of-a-kind, inimitable, and revolutionary in ways that elevated him to an even more rare and distinguished class of epochal musicians who redefined their instruments and the music associated with it.
Geoffrey Arnold Beck was born June 24, 1944 in Wallington, Surrey, to Arnold and Ethel Beck. As a child, Jeff was constantly exposed to music. His mother often played a baby grand piano that was in the house or listened to music on the radio. “All I listened to was marching bands from World War II and dance orchestras that played music to entertain housewives,” Beck recalled in 2010.
Then one day in early 1951 when he was six and his mother was listening to Housewives’ Choice on the BBC, his ears perked up when he heard an entirely different style of music. “All of a sudden this scatty guitar came over the airwaves. The song was ‘How High the Moon’ by Les Paul and Mary Ford. The sound was fantastic, especially the slap echo and the trebly guitar. I never heard an instrument like that before. To a kid like me who had been around music all of the time it sounded so different compared to a bunch of trombones and whatever else I was used to hearing. It just leapt out of the speakers.”
Young Jeff instantly decided that he wanted to play guitar, but his mother had other plans and signed him up for piano lessons. It wasn’t until the age of 12 that he finally had an opportunity to get an actual guitar into his hands when he borrowed a neglected acoustic from a friend. Although the instrument was missing a few strings, he did his best to imitate the playing he heard on rock and roll records owned by his older sister, Annetta, and pop music broadcasts from Radio Luxembourg.
A truly defining moment in the aspiring guitarist’s life took place about a year later during the summer of 1957 when the American rock and roll comedy The Girl Can’t Help It finally made its way to theatres in the UK. Young Jeff’s impressionable mind was expanded by the unfolding spectacle in a manner similar to the movie’s intro where the screen transforms from black and white to bold Technicolor and grows from a small square frame to widescreen CinemaScope.
In addition to the eye-catching allure of the vivacious, voluptuous blonde actress Jayne Mansfield and a dazzling red convertible 1957 Lincoln Premiere, he became enthralled by the wild rock and roll performances of Little Richard, Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, and Eddie Cochran. The blonde Fender Esquire electric guitars with black pickguards played by the guitarists in Richard’s and Vincent’s bands particularly captured his rapt attention. When Beck told Charles Shaar Murray of the New Musical Express in late 1974 that “music and cars and sex are my main driving forces, and that’s the way I’m gonna keep it,” that could all be traced back to this film.
Determined to play electric guitar, Beck made a few failed attempts at making his own instruments. Eventually by 1960 he acquired his first proper electric, a Guyatone LG-50 followed shortly afterwards by a new Burns Vibra-Artist, and started playing in a succession of bands which included the Bandits and the Deltones. While in the Deltones, he swapped his Burns for a white Fender Telecaster with a rosewood neck owned by rhythm guitarist John Owen, until Owen asked for its return. Later in 1961, he borrowed money from his mother to purchase a brand new Fender Stratocaster, which he played with the Deltones and the Crescents as he began his journey as a professional musician.
Around this time, Beck forged new friendships with fellow guitarist Jimmy Page, who he had met through his sister, and pianist Ian Stewart, both of whom expanded Jeff’s musical universe by introducing him to records by artists encompassing a wide variety of musical styles, particularly the blues. Beck soon joined the burgeoning ranks of young British guitarists playing electric blues, and eventually he became a member of the Tridents in 1964. Equipped with a simple rig consisting of the white 1959 Fender Telecaster which he had reacquired from John Owen, a Vox AC30 Top Boost amp, and a Binson Echorec delay unit, the young guitarist displayed dazzling playing technique and innovative imagination on early Tridents and session recordings featuring his wild triplet pull-offs and outbursts of avant-garde noise.
In March of 1965, Jimmy Page, who at that point in his career was a highly successful and in-demand session guitarist but did not want to join a band, recommended his childhood friend Jeff to the Yardbirds when the band’s manager Giorgio Gomelsky approached Page about replacing Eric Clapton. At first Beck was hesitant to leave the Tridents but when he auditioned for the Yardbirds only a few days after Clapton’s departure he was quickly swept up into the maelstrom of mainstream pop music success. Beck’s non-traditional playing style was the perfect fit for the Yardbirds’ new ambitious explorations. On his first recording with the Yardbirds, ‘Heart Full of Soul’, he imitated a sitar using his white Tele and a fuzz box, helping pioneer raga rock in the process. Numerous adventurous new sonic explorations soon followed suit, including sustaining feedback on ‘Shapes of Things’, Middle Eastern-inspired lines on the former and ‘Over Under Sideways Down’, howling train whistles on ‘The Train Kept A-Rollin’’, and his wild percussive rave-up on ‘I’m a Man’. The guitar showcase ‘Jeff’s Boogie’ also proved that Beck possessed instrumental chops on a par with his more exploratory side.
Beck’s stint with the Yardbirds lasted only 20 short months, ending in November 1966, but during that period he recorded the album Roger the Engineer/Over Under Sideways Down, had seven Top 20 UK/US singles and EPs, and toured the United States. Less than 10 years after seeing The Girl Can’t Help It he was living the rock ‘n’ roll fantasy: with the cheque from the album, he bought a Chevy Corvette, rolling up to Jimmy Page’s house bearing a new Telecaster as a gift for his friend; he had a short-lived romance with American blonde starlet Mary Hughes; and he bought his first Gibson Les Paul – a late ’50s sunburst model now known as the ‘Yardburst’ – which became one of his main guitars throughout the remainder of the ’60s.
Free from the Yardbirds and under the direction of managers Peter Grant, Mickie Most, and Simon Napier-Bell, Beck half-heartedly allowed himself to be talked into singing ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’, which became a UK pop hit single, peaking at #14. The single’s B-side, the Ravel-inspired instrumental ‘Beck’s Bolero’, recorded a year earlier whilst still in the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, John Paul Jones, and Nicky Hopkins, was more in line with the direction he actually wanted to pursue. Soon he put together the Jeff Beck Group with vocalist Rod Stewart, and had a revolving roster of bassists and drummers before he settled on Ronnie Wood on bass and Mickey Waller on drums. This was the lineup which accompanied Beck on the Truth album. Hailed as a prototype of blues-inspired hard rock and possibly even heavy metal, the album changed the way many players viewed the guitar. Beck’s cover of Muddy Waters’ ‘You Shook Me’ even seemed to inspire Led Zeppelin’s version recorded a year later.
Stewart and Wood remained for the heavy blues-influenced second Jeff Beck Group album, Beck-Ola, however, by the early ’70s the guitarist had assembled an entirely new Jeff Beck Group consisting of vocalist/rhythm guitarist Bobby Tench, keyboardist Max Middleton, Clive Chaman on bass, and Cozy Powell on drums. This lineup accompanied Beck on the albums Rough and Ready and Jeff Beck Group (a.k.a. The Orange Album), where Beck’s playing showcased his growing interest in funk/R&B and jazz styles. Response to the albums by the second iteration of the Jeff Beck Group was mixed, but most critics agreed that Beck’s playing had progressed impressively.
The allure of American R&B music took a strong hold upon Beck during the early ’70s as he hired Steve Cropper (Booker T. & the M.G.’s and Stax studios session guitarist) to produce the final Jeff Beck Group album, attempted to record an album at Detroit’s legendary Motown studio, and collaborated with Stevie Wonder on his album Talking Book. This legendary session would result in Jeff and Stevie collaborating on what would become the latter’s biggest hit to date – ‘Superstition’. In the summer of 1972, he formed the supergroup/power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice with former Vanilla Fudge/Cactus members Tim Bogert (bass) and Carmine Appice (drums). This band released its only studio album in 1973, notably featuring Beck’s version of Wonder’s hit ‘Superstition’. During a break from touring with ‘BBA’, which took them to the US, Japan and Europe, Beck made a memorable guest appearance for the finale/encore of David Bowie’s last performance as his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973.
Beck eventually became frustrated with the politics of being a band member, and in April 1974 he parted ways with Bogert and Appice in favour of pursuing a solo career, even turning down an invitation to join The Rolling Stones in early 1975. Over the years he had become increasingly fascinated with the growing jazz fusion movement that embraced the energy of rock music. He particularly admired guitarist John McLaughlin’s work with Miles Davis on the Jack Johnson album and with McLaughlin’s own Mahavishnu Orchestra as well as recordings by Billy Cobham and Stanley Clarke. In October 1974 he entered AIR Studios in London, working with legendary producer George Martin whom he admired not only for his work with the Beatles but more significantly for his recent efforts on the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Apocalypse album.
The result was Blow By Blow, a landmark instrumental album that introduced the rock audience to jazz fusion music. The funk influence still remained strong throughout, but tracks like the FM radio stalwart ‘Freeway Jam’ and the reggae-inspired cover of the Beatles’ ‘She’s a Woman’ were warmly accepted by his dedicated rock following. The album’s showcase is ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’, written by Stevie Wonder (originally written for his wife Syreeta; one of two Wonder tracks on the album along with ‘Thelonius’, which Stevie played on) and dedicated to guitarist Roy Buchanan, where Beck cast aside his usual bombast and bravado for a pensive performance filled with mournful emotion, making his guitar seemingly cry through subtle note bends and masterful volume and tone control swells. No one missed the vocals when Beck’s performance was more expressive than anything mere words could convey.
Blow By Blow and its 1976 follow-up Wired were the guitarist’s most successful efforts, each enjoying Platinum certification. Beck poached keyboardist Jan Hammer and drummer Narada Michael Walden from McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra when it dissolved after Beck and McLaughlin toured together in 1975, with Walden contributing four songs to Wired while Hammer delivered the rocking ‘Blue Wind’. A cover of Charles Mingus’ ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat' showcased Beck’s increasingly masterful phrasing and touch.
The 1977 live album Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live and the 1980 studio There & Back brought Beck’s fusion era to a creative peak, but as he entered the ’80s he soon found himself seeking new creative inspiration. Beck played on albums by Tina Turner (Private Dancer) and Mick Jagger (She’s The Boss) before joining forces with producer Nile Rodgers and making his own foray into pop music featuring vocals once again. The resulting album, Flash, is notable mostly for Beck’s reunion with Rod Stewart on a cover of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘People Get Ready’, but the Jan Hammer-penned instrumental track ‘Escape’ earned Beck his first Grammy.
Beck continued to work with Jagger once again on the Rolling Stones frontman’s Primitive Cool album before getting the energy to focus on his own career once again. His decision to return to instrumental music was a wise one, and his resulting 1989 album Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop was widely hailed as a return to form in an updated modern package. Forming a different kind of power trio with keyboardist Tony Hymas and drummer Terry Bozzio, Beck delivered a dazzling showcase of his ever-evolving guitar prowess. Aggressive blasts of metallic industrial noise were contrasted by soulful melodic pieces with nary a typical guitar cliché to be found. ‘Where Were You’, where Beck transformed plucked harmonics, whammy bar bends, and volume control swells into an otherworldly vocal-like melody was jaw-dropping for both how beautiful and how much unlike a guitar it sounded. The song became a prototype for further exploration in Beck’s career from that point onward, a unique stylistic approach that no other guitarist has ever managed to replicate or master.
When Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan toured together later that year, the shows were hailed as the guitar event of the decade. Beck seemed truly inspired by his new direction, but over almost the entire ’90s he struggled to deliver a proper follow-up. The guitarist continued to remain busy, appearing on notable sessions for artists including Jon Bon Jovi, Buddy Guy, Roger Waters, Paul Rodgers, Kate Bush, Seal, John McLaughlin, and Brian May plus an epic instrumental cover of the Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’ for the Sir George Martin tribute album. He also recorded music for several soundtracks, including his own take on Vietnamese music for the score for Frankie’s House, and indulged in a note-perfect rockabilly tribute to his early inspirations, Gene Vincent guitarists Cliff Gallup and Johnny Meeks, on Crazy Legs. A 1995 co-headlining tour with Carlos Santana found him reunited with Hymas and Bozzio once again with the addition of Pino Palladino on bass.
But it wasn’t until 1999 that he released his next proper solo album, Who Else! Beck found new inspiration from the punk-like energy of electronic acts like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers, which resulted in a trio of albums released within a surprisingly short time span, also including You Had It Coming (2000) and Jeff (2003). In addition to the electro-inspired frenzy, blues-rock and fusion-style instrumentals, Beck’s evolving vocal-inspired techniques featured heavily as well. ‘Angel (Footsteps)’ where Beck expertly navigates the micro notes well beyond the fretboard with a slide is a standout track from Who Else! which reveals how Beck was completely unintimidated by the usual perceived limitations of the instrument.
After that brief but inspired burst of output, Beck was relatively quiet again, focusing mainly on touring and releasing occasional live albums over the next few years, including a celebrated week-long residency at London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s in 2007, and being inducted (for the second time) into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2010 he released Emotion and Commotion, an album title which perfectly describes his unique approach to the guitar in three succinct words. Providing a balance of songs featuring five different female vocalists and five instrumental tracks, Emotion and Commotion may represent the peak of Beck’s command of the guitar, particularly the sheer emotional heights reached with his impeccable performances of the timeless ballad ‘Over the Rainbow’ and Puccini’s opera aria ‘Nessun Dorma’.
In 2010 Beck also paid a touching tribute to his recently deceased mentor and good friend Les Paul, performing a pair of dates at New York’s Iridium nightclub to celebrate what would have been Paul’s 95th birthday, collaborating with the singer Imelda May and her band along with numerous guests. These performances were recorded and packaged as the Rock ’n’ Roll Party (Honoring Les Paul) album and video. This was an even more ambitious undertaking than his Crazy Legs album, featuring Beck’s uncanny chameleon-like ability to replicate the sounds and styles of numerous guitarists who inspired him, including Les Paul, Cliff Gallup, Scotty Moore, Eddie Cochran, and several others, using an array of different guitars rather than relying solely on his trusted white Stratocaster, ‘Anoushka’. Most impressive and surprising of all was his dead-perfect replication of Barney Kessel’s jazz chord melody playing on his interpretation of Julie London’s ‘Cry Me a River’.
The final chapter of Jeff Beck’s recording career was aptly bookended by emotion and commotion, though not necessarily in that order. In 2016 he released the album Loud Hailer – a band-style collaboration between Beck with guitarist Carmen Vandenberg and singer Rosie Bones. Although Beck was nearly 40 to 50 years older than his female counterparts, the pairing ignited a youthful, noisy aggression in his playing. Around the same time, Beck first met actor/musician Johnny Depp, with whom he formed a deep friendship, and which eventually led to the duo recording Beck’s final album, 18, released in 2022. Beck joked that playing with Depp made them both feel 18 again, inspiring the album’s title. Beck also made a guest appearance on two tracks on Ozzy Osbourne’s Patient Number 9.
However, the final recordings released by Beck display his more mature, emotional side: a cover of ‘Moon River’ where he trades soulful lines with his longtime friend Eric Clapton, and his very last studio recording, ‘Going Home (Theme From Local Hero)’, where he performed as part of Mark Knopfler’s Guitar Heroes supergroup along with Clapton, Peter Frampton, David Gilmour, Buddy Guy, Brian May, John McLaughlin, Slash, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend, and about 50 other notable guitarists.
Jeff Beck had planned to continue touring during 2023 after playing his final show in Reno on November 12, 2022, but fate had other plans. Suddenly and unexpectedly he was stricken with bacterial meningitis and passed away on 10 January 2023, at the age of 78. Even up until the very end, Beck’s playing remained as vital, precise, and energetic as ever, and he never once stopped innovating, exploring, and pushing the boundaries. He left behind numerous gems for all lovers of guitar music to appreciate for decades to come, both in his decades of work on his own music and his numerous guest appearances with artists both famous and obscure. Jeff Beck along with his peers Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page may have formed the triumvirate of British blues-rock guitar legends, but even Clapton and Page admit that Beck was the most talented and visionary of them all. There will never be another guitarist like him.
Chris Gill, Associate Editor Guitar World magazine, co-author of Eruption - Conversations with Eddie Van Halen, guitar history/contributor to Jeff Beck’s Beck 01: Hot Rods and Rock & RollThis guitar, one of two examples sent by Fender to Jeff Beck, is one of a limited edition of Master-Built replicas of Jeff Beck’s original unique Fender Esquire, which he used for his main body of work with the Yardbirds leading up to their eponymous album (also known as
Roger the Engineer) released in 1966, which featured his first ‘59 Les Paul (see lot 3). Soon after joining The Yardbirds, Beck acquired a ‘54 Esquire from John Maus, the guitarist in the American band The Walker Brothers, whom Beck met while playing on a package tour with The Kinks in 1965. Walker had contoured the top and back in the style of a Fender Stratocaster, leaving the bare wood exposed, and Beck removed the original white pickguard, replacing it with the black one from his ’59 Telecaster (later given to Jimmy Page), which apparently created quite a buzz amongst guitarists in London.
In an interview with Fender filmed to coincide with the release of the Reissue Esquire, Beck reflected on the original guitar: ‘
At the time we’re talking about it was, I think, the transitory period where Fender started using a rosewood fingerboard and I didn’t want that - I wanted a maple neck and the only one I ever saw or got close to was John Walker’s from the Walker Brothers. And just like as luck would have it we went on tour with them - Yardbirds & Walker Brothers in ’65 and I bought it. And he wanted £75, which is a lot of money - it was only about £10 quid cheaper than the one that was for sale in the shop brand new. But he wouldn’t shift on it so I dug out the 75 quid and gave it to him, so that’s how it started and I’ve never regretted it.
‘Shapes of Things’ it was on, ‘Over Under Sideways Down’ it was on it; ‘I’m the Man’. I didn’t have any other guitar. We’re talking, uh, April, February, March, I joined The Yardbirds and we were just on the road constantly and I didn’t even have my own guitar. I think I used Eric’s red Tele which I think belonged to The Yardbirds. I think they leased it to us, oh they were bastards.’
Following his departure from The Yardbirds, the Esquire was put to one side, and other guitars took the limelight during his time with the first and second line-ups of the Jeff Beck Group and subsequently Beck, Bogert & Appice, including at least three Fender Strats, a second 1959 Sunburst Les Paul, with a ‘zebra’ PAF pickup in the neck, which in July 1969 was stolen following a riotous concert in upstate New York, and his third Les Paul – the Oxblood, which had been purchased in 1972. In around September 1973, the young American guitar restorer and pickup wiz Seymour W. Duncan, who was working for Fender at their repair shop in London, created a guitar for Jeff Beck, whom he had admired since he was a child and for whom he had been devastated following the theft of his ’59 Les Paul. Duncan recounted that ‘
As a kid in New Jersey, I grew up a major fan of Jeff's and the Yardbirds. I used to stare at the 'Rave Up' album cover and wonder what it would be like to see Jeff's Esquire or, better yet, to hold it.’ Duncan took his new creation to the nearby studio where Beck, Bogert & Appice were rehearsing, and presented it to Jeff, which he loved for its feel and the punchy Gibson pickups, and was immediately put to use. In exchange for the new guitar – nicknamed ‘The Tele-Gib’ (see lot 8) for its combined features of a Fender Telecaster and a Gibson, Seymour acquired Beck’s old Yardbirds Esquire.
‘The fact that the same guitar [I had admired as a teenager]
was given to me by Jeff years later is one of the highlights of my life. I worked with the Fender Custom Shop to spec out all the details of the original. And it's amazing how faithful their replica is.’ Fender released details at the time specifying that the ‘Jeff Beck Esquire guitar features an extremely light two-piece offset ash body with the now-famous body contours. The neck is similar to the 10⁄56 neck shape and has nicely rolled edges, as well as the wear pattern identical to the original. Most of the parts on the Tribute Series Esquire are recreations of the original parts found on the original, including brass saddles, which Jeff replaced the usual steel saddles with. Legendary pickup guru, Abigail Ybarra, carefully recreated Jeff's pickups from the original's specifications. Additionally, the control wiring is authentic for those wishing to achieve the classic wah wah and volume swells that Jeff made so famous. Additional features include a black pickguard (with the same chipped edges), a 1056 serial number, the Master Builder's signature and serial number decal on the back of the headstock, and a vintage style, cosmetically-aged guitar strap.’
When Fender sent him a prototype of the Reissue, Beck was taken aback: ‘
I thought you were having a laugh. I thought it was the original one. ... It's spooky. Until I opened the lid, it didn't really hit me. I thought, “Oh, this is my original guitar back!”’ This prototype was sent back to Fender following Beck’s approval, and they sent two of the production models to Beck following its release – one built by John Cruz (subsequently given to Beck’s close friend Johnny Depp) and this one, built by Greg Fessler.