RIP Jeff Beck

[Brooklyn Bridge]

And I'd say more people had no clue he had anything to do with "Superstition" than knew about it.

Today I Learned.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

The story goes Beck was fiddling around with the drums and started playing the beat that eventually was the opening of Superstition
Stevie said: "Keep playing that."
Beck: "I'm not a drummer."
Stevie: "You are now."

 

[jr/shotglass]

Bacterial meningitis is a heck of a way to go. The mere mention of it chills me.

ESPN writer Ryan Hockensmith was an intern for us around 1999 when he came down with bacterial meningitis while covering a Penn State game at Illinois. He endured a car ride all the way home that sounded like the closest thing you get to heck on Earth, and he eventually had parts of both feet amputated.

 

[Huggy]

I loved his early albums but kind of lost track of his career as it meandered around between genres (and I clearly got some catching up to do with his discography). I saw him once, opening up for Stevie Ray Vaughan when he was touring behind his Guitar Shop album (w/Terry Bozzio on drums) at the Skydome in Toronto (horrific venue for live shows even in its SkyTent setup).

As great as his blues and rock stuff is, it was this latter-day version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" that showed me what he could really get out of a guitar.



RIP to one of the greats

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

His two late-'70s fusion albums, "Blow by Blow" "Wired," were incredible. RIP Jeff.

 

[Songbird]

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

That "Blow-Up" clip suggests how incendiary Beck could be -- of course the Yardbirds eventually gave him the boot because he was so hard to work with. I came across an anecdote from "Blow by Blow" producer George Martin; after the album was complete Beck came to him because he wanted to re-record a piece. Martin told him that the album was already on the store shelves.

 

[OscarMadison]

I have this on DVD and sometimes play it on loop when I've got my hands full with a project.