Happy Birthday Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold Beck was born June 24, 1944 – somewhere in England. Jeff Beck is an incredible, unique and influential guitarist. He is an absolute guitar god and one of the greats of all time. Jeff has played with everyone and is universally admired and respected. The man is a legend, and seems like a fun guy to hang out with.

Beck has cited Les Paul as the first electric guitar player who impressed him.  Beck has said that he first heard an electric guitar when he was 6 years old and heard Paul playing “How High the Moon” on the radio. He asked his mother what it was. After she replied it was an electric guitar and was all tricks, he said, “That’s for me”. His mother then whacked him across the head with the phone book. 

Cat Gut

Jeff made his first guitar out of a dead cat that he found on the side of the road. “I stuck a stick in it and tightened the whiskers for strings. I used that guitar on the first Yardbirds album.”

Upon leaving school, Jeff attended Wimbledon College of Art, after which he was briefly employed as a sewer inspector, pig slop processor, crime scene cleaner, animal castrator and assistant tax collector. 

Rolling Stones

Jeff Beck was in the Yardbirds for 27 minutes on June 3 1965. Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page were also in the band, we think. No one is exactly sure who was in the band and when. The Rolling Stones asked Jeff Beck to join the band in 1969 and again in 1975. Beck realized that the Rolling Stones were a dysfunctional family and he wanted no part of it.

Jeff Beck loves classic cars and is quite handy with a wrench. He can take apart an engine and put it back together with his eyes closed. He actually owns the record for doing just that. In 1991, Jeff took apart a 1955 Chevy engine and put it back together perfectly in 8.1 seconds. All this while being blindfolded.

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