BLOW BY BLOW

The blazing virtuosity and career missteps of the most galvanizing of British blues-rock guitarists.

Nobody played guitar quite like Jeff Beck (1944-2023), and fans say no rock guitarist has ever played better. After sharing a stage with him, his onetime rival Eric Clapton said, “I began to think of Jeff as probably being the finest guitar player I’d ever seen. … I still think that way. … There’s something cool and mean about Becky that beats everyone else.” Beck, Clapton, and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page will forever be linked as guitarists who achieved early acclaim in the mid-’60s with the Yardbirds, but Beck on his own never achieved their level of commercial success. He didn’t develop into much of a singer or songwriter, had trouble keeping his bands together, and had a reputation for being difficult and unreliable. He changed direction often, on impulse, zigzagging through hard rock, rockabilly, funk, fusion, and electronica, while doing guest-star sessions with a range of stars. This biography by music journalists Tolinski and Gill balances an appreciation for Beck’s talents with a recognition that he was often his own worst enemy. He did one thing well: He played guitar. But he had trouble communicating with bandmates, articulating what he wanted, and where he was aiming. He needed strong collaborators, material, management, producers; he often didn’t get them. After being fired by the Yardbirds, he formed the first iteration of the Jeff Beck Group, teaming with the then-little-known Rod Stewart and establishing a blueprint that heavy metal and Led Zeppelin in particular would follow. While Zeppelin soared, Beck’s group splintered, largely over finances and credit. From there, the options he bypassed as recounted in the biography are more fascinating than the ones he took—more creative collaboration with Stevie Wonder (who wrote “Superstition” for Beck), the possibility of joining the Rolling Stones or Elton John’s band, a session with Motown studio stalwarts that sent nowhere, a teaming with Sly Stone as producer, and so many others.

A well-researched and critically incisive biography of a guitar great.