Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Jeff Beck (1944- 2023)

[ed. Saw Jeff back in the 70s, right after his Blow by Blow album came out. He could coax music out of a guitar that no one else could. A true innovator. See also: here (NY Times); and here (Rolling Stone). Also, Crossroads, 2007. ]

[PS: Also thought it interesting, after perusing Jeff's history, to mention his early involvement with Screaming Lord Sutch. Per Wikipedia

(Sutch) was an English musician and perennial parliamentary candidate. He was the founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party and served as its leader from 1983 to 1999, during which time he stood in numerous parliamentary elections. He holds the record for contesting the most Parliamentary elections, standing in 39 elections from 1963 to 1997. As a singer, he variously worked with Keith Moon, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Charlie Watts, John Bonham and Nicky Hopkins, and is known for his recordings with Joe Meek including "Jack the Ripper" (1963). (...)

During the 1960s Screaming Lord Sutch was known for his horror-themed stage show, dressing as Jack the Ripper, pre-dating the shock rock antics of Arthur Brown and Alice Cooper. Accompanied by his band, the Savages, he started by coming out of a black coffin (once being trapped inside of it, an incident parodied in the film Slade in Flame). Other props included knives and daggers, skulls and "bodies". (...)

Sutch's album Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends was named in a 1998 BBC poll as the worst album of all time, a status it also held in Colin Larkin's book The Top 1000 Albums of All Time, despite the fact that Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Jeff Beck, Noel Redding and Nicky Hopkins performed on it and helped write it.]

History takes a stranger path than can be imagined sometimes...