How are the other rock stars still with us?!?!
A dark humor tribute to Jeff Beck
How does this article relate to health and fitness? With a lot of leeway. Maybe it’s just a shared reflection on life and death. I was going to be more specific in my title, but was then afraid of some self fulfilling prophecies.
Maybe this article is about health and the genetic cards we are dealt. I was a big Jeff Beck fan, and he seemingly did not live a total life of drugs and rock and roll, compared with the others. We all know about the pharmaceutical preservatives present in other rock star histories.
I first heard about Jeff Beck when I was 13. My father’s friend gave me a milk crate full of albums, and Blow by Blow was one of them. What a beautiful album. Not the kind of haunting, self absorbed music that was good for a moody teenager. For some reason I also had a book about Buddhism at the time. That combination was not good for a lost teenager trying to define who he was, however with the music, I was hooked.
I hadn’t heard this music for 30 years, and then rediscovered Jeff Beck in my 40’s. He came out with some incredible shows. One was a rockabilly tribute and rock and roll history of the guitar. He had some incredible original amplifiers and effects, re-enacting early tones of Elvis, Buddy Holly, Les Paul. He could cover every genre. The other famous concert at Ronnie Scott’s detailed his long history and mix of jazz, fusion and rock. I’ve always loved Jeff’s band as much as the guitar. The drums and bass grooves involve the best session players in the business.
More recently I found some YouTube videos going back to live performances of Blow by Blow. He was so in the moment, you could see the emotion in his stance and playing, feeling every note, playing the tube amp as much as the guitar. So beautiful, and a little depressing after his passing. But also a celebration of the fact that the music can live on forever. Music can be medicine.