Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck (born 24 June 1944) is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds (Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page are the other two). Beck also formed The Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice.

Much of Beck's recorded output has been instrumental, with a focus on innovative sound and his releases have spanned genres ranging from blues-rock, heavy metal, jazz fusion and most recently, an additional blend of guitar-rock and electronica. Although he recorded two hit albums (in 1975 and 1976) as a solo act, Beck has not established or maintained a broad following or the sustained commercial success of many of his collaborators and bandmates. Beck appears on albums by Mick Jagger, Kate Bush, Roger Waters, Stevie Wonder, Les Paul, Zucchero, Cyndi Lauper, Brian May and ZZ Top. In 1988, he made a cameo appearance in the movie Twins.
He was ranked 14th in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and the magazine has described him as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock". He was also ranked second greatest rock guitarist of all time in Digital Dream Door, a site that ranks movies and music. MSNBC has called him a "guitarist's guitarist". Beck has earned wide critical praise and received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: as a member of The Yardbirds (1992) and as a solo artist (2009).
Beck was born in 1944 to Arnold and Ethel Beck at 206 Demesne Road, Wallington, England. As a ten year old Beck sang in a church choir. As a teenager he learned to play a borrowed guitar and made several attempts to build his own instrument, first by gluing and bolting together cigar boxes for the body and an unsanded fence-post for the neck with model aircraft control-lines and frets simply painted on. When fabricating a neck for his next try he attempted to use measurements for a bass guitar.

Beck has cited Les Paul as the first electric guitar player who impressed him. Cliff Gallup, lead guitarist with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps was an early musical influence, followed by B.B. King and Steve Cropper.
Upon leaving school he attended Wimbledon College of Art, after which he was briefly employed as a painter and decorator, a groundsman on a golf course and a car paint-sprayer. Beck's sister introduced him to Jimmy Page when both were teenagers.
Beck began his career in the 1960s. He joined "The Rumbles" a Croydon band in 1963 for a short period as lead guitarist, playing Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly songs, displaying a talent for mimicking guitar styles. His first appearance on vinyl was as a session guitarist on a 1964 Parlophone single by The Fitz and Startz entitled 'I'm Not Running Away' c/w 'So Sweet'.
In March 1965 Beck was recruited by The Yardbirds to replace Eric Clapton on the recommendation of fellow session man Jimmy Page, who had been their initial choice. The Yardbirds recorded most of their Top 40 hit songs during Beck's time with the band, which was short (but significant), allowing him only one full album, Yardbirds which became known as Roger the Engineer, released in 1966. From September to November 1966 he shared lead guitar duties with Page, who initially joined as bass player in June of that year.

In February 1967, after recording the one-off "Beck's Bolero" (with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins and Keith Moon) and two solo hit singles in the UK, "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and "Tallyman", Beck formed The Jeff Beck Group, which featured Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano and, after a series of drummers, eventually Micky Waller.
The group produced two albums for Columbia Records (Epic in the US): Truth (August 1968) and Beck-Ola (July 1969). Truth, released five months before the first Led Zeppelin album, features "You Shook Me", a song written and first recorded by Willie Dixon that was also covered on the Led Zeppelin debut. It sold well (reaching number 15 on the Billboard charts). Beck-Ola, while well-received, saw drummer Micky Waller replaced by Tony Newman, and was less successful both commercially and critically. Resentment, coupled with touring incidents, led the group to dissolve in July 1969.
Nick Mason recalls in his autobiography that during 1967 Pink Floyd had wanted to recruit Beck to be their guitarist after the departure of Syd Barrett[9] but "None of us had the nerve to ask him".
After the break-up of his group Beck took part in the Music From Free Creek "super session" project, billed as "A.N. Other" and contributed lead guitar on four songs, including one co-written by him. Next he teamed up with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, the rhythm section of Vanilla Fudge in September 1969, when Bogert and Appice came to England to resolve contractual issues, but when Beck fractured his skull in a car accident near Maidstone in December the plan was postponed for two-and-a-half years, during which time Bogert and Appice formed Cactus. Beck later remarked on the 1960s period of his life: "Everyone thinks of the 1960s as something they really weren't. It was the frustration period of my life. The electronic equipment just wasn't up to the sounds I had in my head.

In 1970, when Beck had regained his health, he set about forming a band with drummer Cozy Powell. Beck, Powell and producer Mickie Most flew to the US and recorded several tracks at Motown Studios with Motown session men, but the results remained unreleased. By April 1971 Beck had completed the line-up of this new group with guitarist/vocalist Bobby Tench, keyboard player Max Middleton and bassist Clive Chaman. The new band performed as the "Jeff Beck Group" but had a substantially different sound from the first line-up. Rough and Ready (October 1971), the first album they recorded, on which Beck wrote or co-wrote six of the album's seven tracks (the exception being written by Middleton), included elements of soul, rhythm-and-blues and jazz, foreshadowing the direction Beck's music would take later in the decade.

A second album Jeff Beck Group (July 1972) was recorded at TMI studios in Memphis, Tennessee with the same personnel. Beck employed Steve Cropper as producer and the album displayed a strong soul influence, five of the nine tracks being covers of songs by American artists. One, "I Got To Have A Song", was the first of four Stevie Wonder compositions covered by Beck. Shortly after the release of the Jeff Beck Group album the band was dissolved and Beck's management put out the statement that: "The fusion of the musical styles of the various members has been successful within the terms of individual musicians, but they didn't feel it had led to the creation of a new musical style with the strength they had originally sought."
Beck then started collaborating with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, who became available following the demise of Cactus but continued touring as Jeff Beck Group in August 1972, to fulfil contractual obligations with his promoter, with a line-up including Bogert, Appice, Max Middleton and vocalist Kim Milford. After six appearances Milford was replaced by Bobby Tench, who was flown in from the UK for the Arie Crown Theatre Chicago performance and the rest of the tour, which concluded at the Paramount North West Theatre, Seattle. After the tour Tench and Middleton left the band and the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice appeared: Appice took on the role of vocalist with Bogert and Beck contributing occasionally. They were included on the bill for Rock at The Oval in September 1972, still as the "Jeff Beck Group", which marked the start of a tour schedule of UK, the Netherlands and Germany. Another US tour began in October 1972, starting at the Hollywood Sportatorium Florida and concluding on 11 November 1972 at The Warehouse, New Orleans. In April 1973 the album Beck, Bogert & Appice was released (on Epic Records). While critics acknowledged the band's instrumental prowess the album was not commercially well received except for its cover of Stevie Wonder's hit "Superstition".
On 3 July 1973 Beck joined David Bowie on-stage to perform "The Jean Genie"/"Love Me Do" and "Around and Around". The show was recorded and filmed but none of the released editions included Beck. During October 1973 Beck recorded tracks for Michael Fennelly's album Lane Changer and attended sessions with Hummingbird, a band derived from The Jeff Beck Group, but did not to contribute to their eponymous first album

Early in January 1974 the band played at the Rainbow Theatre, as part of a European tour. The concert was broadcast in full on the US show Rock Around the World in September of the same year. This last recorded work by the band previewed material intended for a second studio album, included on the bootleg At Last Rainbow. The tracks Blues Deluxe and BBA Boogie from this concert were later included on the Jeff Beck compilation Beckology (1991). Beck, Bogert & Appice dissolved in April 1974 before their second studio album (produced by Jimmy Miller) was finished. Their live album Beck, Bogert & Appice Live in Japan, recorded during their 1973 tour of Japan, was not released until February 1975 by Epic/Sony.
After a few months Beck entered Underhill Studio and met with the group Upp, whom he recruited as backing band for his appearance on the BBC TV programme Guitar Workshop in August 1974. Beck produced and played on their self-titled debut album and their second album This Way Upp, though his contributions to the second album went uncredited. In October Beck began to record instrumentals at AIR Studios with Max Middleton, bassist Phil Chen and drummer Richard Bailey, using George Martin as producer and arranger. Blow by Blow (March 1975) evolved from these sessions and showcased Beck's technical prowess in jazz-rock. The album reached number four in the charts and is Beck's most commercially-successful release. Beck, fastidious about overdubs and often dissatisfied with his solos, often returned to AIR Studios until he was satisfied. A couple of months after the sessions had finished Martin received a telephone call from Beck, who wanted to record a solo section again. Bemused, Martin replied: "I'm sorry, Jeff, but the record is in the shops!".

Beck put together a live band for a US tour, preceded by a small and unannounced gig at The Newlands Tavern in Peckham, London. He toured through April and May 1975, mostly supporting the Mahavishnu Orchestra, retaining Max Middleton on keyboards but with the new rhythm section of Wilbur Bascomb (bass) and noted session drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie. In a May 1975 show in Cleveland, Ohio (Music Hall), he became frustrated with an early version of a "talk box" he used on his arrangement of The Beatles "She's A Woman," and after breaking a string, tossed his legendary Yardbirds-era Stratocaster off the stage. He did the same with the talk box and finished the show playing a Les Paul and without the box. During this tour he performed at Yuya Uchida's "World Rock Festival," playing a total of eight songs with Purdie. In addition he performed a guitar and drum instrumental with Johnny Yoshinaga and, at the end of the festival, joined in a live jam with bassist Felix Pappalardi of Mountain and vocalist Akira "Joe" Yamanaka from the Flower Travellin' Band. Only his set with Purdie was recorded and released.
He returned to the studio and recorded Wired (1976), which paired the drummer and composer Narada Michael Walden and keyboardist Jan Hammer. The album used a jazz-rock fusion style which sounded similar to the work of his two collaborators. To promote the album, Beck joined forces with the Jan Hammer Group, playing a show supporting Alvin Lee at The Roundhouse in May 1976, before embarking on a seven-month long world tour. This resulted in the live album Jeff Beck with The Jan Hammer Group - Live (1977).
At this point, Beck was a tax exile and took up residency in the US, remaining there until his return to the UK in the autumn of 1977. In the spring of 1978, he began rehearsing with bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Gerry Brown towards a projected appearance at the Knebworth Festival, but this was cancelled after Brown dropped out. Beck toured Japan for three weeks in November 1978 with an ad-hoc group consisting of Clarke and newcomers Tony Hymas (keyboards) and Simon Phillips (drums) from Jack Bruce's band. Work then began on a new studio album at The Who's Ramport Studios in London and continued sporadically throughout 1979, resulting in There and Back in June 1980. It featured three tracks composed and recorded with Jan Hammer, while five were written with Hymas. Stanley Clarke was replaced by Mo Foster on bass, both on the album and the subsequent tours. Its release was followed by extensive touring in the USA, Japan and the UK.

In 1981 Beck made a series of historic live appearances with his Yardbirds predecessor Eric Clapton at the Amnesty International-sponsored benefit concerts dubbed The Secret Policeman's Other Ball shows. He appeared with Clapton on "Crossroads", "Further On Up The Road", and his own arrangement of Stevie Wonder's "Cause We've Ended As Lovers". Beck also featured prominently in an all-star band finale performance of "I Shall Be Released" with Clapton, Sting, Phil Collins, Donovan and Bob Geldof. Beck's contributions were seen and heard in the resulting album and film, both of which achieved worldwide success in 1982. Another benefit show, the ARMS Concert for Multiple Sclerosis featured a jam with Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. They performed "Tulsa Time" and "Layla". This is the only time all of the Yardbirds lead guitarists appeared on stage together.

In 1985 Beck released Flash, featurng a variety of vocalists, but most notably former bandmate Rod Stewart on a rendition of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready".
After a four year break, Jeff made a return to instrumental music with the album Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop (1989), the first album to feature Beck as a fingerstyle guitarist, leaving the plectrum playing style. It was only his 3rd album to be released in the 1980s. Much of Beck's sparse and sporadic recording schedule was due in part to a long battle with noise-induced tinnitus.


Geoffrey Arnold ("Jeff") Beck (nacido el 24 de junio de 1944 en Wallington, Gran Londres, Reino Unido) es un guitarrista inglés de rock/blues que ha tocado en varias bandas influyentes en las décadas de los 60s y los 70s.

Es uno de los tres notables guitarristas que tocaron en The Yardbirds, siendo Eric Clapton y Jimmy Page los otros dos. Durante 25 años ha mantenido una esporádica carrera en solitario. A pesar de no haber alcanzado nunca la proyección comercial de sus contemporáneos, Beck ha tenido un gran reconocimiento, especialmente en la comunidad de guitarristas. Nunca nadie le ha encasillado en un género, Beck ha experimentado con blues rock, heavy metal y jazz fusion y actualmente ha absorbido influencias del techno, creando una innovadora mezcla de música heavy metal y música electrónica.

Stacey Kent

Stacey Kent is a Grammy nominated Anglo-American jazz singer.
Kent attended Newark Academy in Livingston, New Jersey. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and moved to England after her graduation. While studying at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she met the tenor saxophonist Jim Tomlinson, whom she married on August 9, 1991.
In the early 1990s, Kent began her professional career singing regularly in a popular nightspot, Café Boheme in London's Soho. After two or three years, Kent began opening for established jazz acts across the road at the Ronnie Scott's nightclub in London.

Her first CD, Close Your Eyes, was released in 1997. She has released seven CDs as of 2010, and has been also featured on Tomlinson's albums, most recently The Lyric (2005), which won "Album of the Year" at the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards.
Kent's music has been championed by critic and jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, and she won the 2001 British Jazz Award and the 2002 BBC Jazz Award for Best Vocalist. She has also presented jazz programmes on BBC Radio 2 and 3.
At the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards, Tomlinson, upon receiving the award for "Album of the Year" for The Lyric, announced that Kent had signed with Blue Note records label.
Kent's album, The Boy Next Door achieved Gold album status in France in September, 2006. Breakfast On The Morning Tram (2007) achieved Platinum album status in France in November, 2007 and Gold album status in Germany in February, 2008 and was nominated for Best Vocal Jazz Album at the 2009 Grammy Awards.

Kent appeared in Ian McKellen's 1995 film version of Richard III, singing a jazz version of Christopher Marlowe's poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.
Booker Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro wrote the liner notes to Kent's 2003 album, In Love Again. Ishiguro has co-written four of the songs on the fall 2007 Blue Note album Breakfast on the Morning Tram. One of the songs written by Ishiguro, "The Ice Hotel," with music composed by Tomlinson won first prize in the International Songwriting Competition in April 2008.
On 31 March 2009 Kent received the National Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) - a government decoration - in recognition of her contribution to the arts, from French Culture Minister Christine Albanel.

Stacey's latest album, Raconte-Moi, released on March 22, 2010, (Blue Note/EMI) is an all-French album.



Stacey Kent (South Orange, Nueva Jersey, 27 de marzo de 1968) es una cantante angloamericana de jazz, nominada a un Grammy.

Kent estuvo matriculada en la Newark Academy de Livingston, en Nueva Jersey.2 Se graduó por el Sarah Lawrence College de Nueva York, y se trasladó a Inglaterra tras su graduación. Mientras estudiaba en la Guildhall School of Music and Drama de Londres, conoció al saxo tenor Jim Tomlinson, con quien se casó el 9 de agosto de 1991.
A comienzos de los noventa, empezó su carrera profesional cantando regularmente en un popular nightspot, el londinense Café Boheme del Soho.

El 31 de marzo de 2009 recibió, de manos de la Ministra de cultura francesa Christine Albanel, la Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, una condecoración del gobierno francés como reconocimiento a su contribución a las artes.

Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman (born March 30, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her singles "Fast Car", "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution", "Baby Can I Hold You", "Give Me One Reason" and "Telling Stories". She is a multi-platinum and four-time Grammy Award-winning artist.

Tracy Chapman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, where she was raised by her mother. Despite not having much money, her mother recognized Tracy's love of music and bought her a ukulele when Tracy was just three. Tracy Chapman began playing guitar and writing songs at the age of eight. She says that she may have been first inspired to play the guitar by the television show Hee Haw.
Chapman was raised Baptist and went to an Episcopal high school. She was accepted into the program "A Better Chance", which helps minority students attend private schools. She graduated from Wooster School in Connecticut and subsequently attended Tufts University. She graduated with a B.A. degree in anthropology and African studies.

In the mid-1990s Chapman dated author Alice Walker. Chapman maintains a strong separation between her personal and professional lives. “I have a public life that’s my work life and I have my personal life,” she said. “In some ways, the decision to keep the two things separate relates to the work I do."
Chapman often performs at and attends charity events such as Make Poverty History, amfAR and AIDS/LifeCycle, to support social causes. She currently lives in San Francisco. She says she enjoys going to the beach, going to the woods, a really good meal with friends, and fresh organic food.
During college, Chapman began busking in Harvard Square and playing guitar in Club Passim and within other coffeehouses in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[citation needed] Another Tufts student, Brian Koppelman, heard Chapman playing and brought her to the attention of his father, Charles Koppelman. Koppelman, who ran SBK Publishing, signed Chapman in 1986. After Chapman graduated from Tufts in 1987, he helped her to sign a contract with Elektra Records.

At Elektra, she released Tracy Chapman (1988). The album was critically acclaimed, and she began touring and building a fanbase. Soon after she performed it at the televised Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert in June 1988, Chapman's "Fast Car" began its rise on the US charts; it became a Number 6 pop hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending August 27, 1988. "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution", the follow-up, charted at Number 75 and was followed by "Baby Can I Hold You", which peaked at Number 48. The album sold well, going multi-platinum and winning three Grammy Awards, including an honor for Chapman as Best New Artist. Later in 1988, Chapman was a featured performer on the worldwide Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour. According to the VH1 website, "her album helped usher in the era of political correctness — along with 10,000 Maniacs and R.E.M., Chapman's liberal politics proved enormously influential on American college campuses in the late '80s".

Her follow-up album Crossroads (1989) was less commercially successful, but still achieved platinum status. By 1992's Matters of the Heart, Chapman was playing to a small and devoted audience. Her fourth album, New Beginning (1995) proved successful, selling over three million copies in the U.S. The album included the hit single "Give Me One Reason", which won the 1997 Grammy for Best Rock Song and became Chapman's most successful single to date, peaking at Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Her Telling Stories (2000) featured more of a rock sound than folk. Its hit single, "Telling Stories", received heavy airplay on European radio stations and on Adult Alternative and Hot AC stations in the United States. Chapman toured Europe and the US in 2003 in support of her sixth album, Let It Rain (2002).
To support her seventh studio album, Where You Live (2005), Chapman toured major US cities in October and throughout Europe over the remainder of the year. The "Where You Live" tour was extended into 2006; the 28-date European tour featured summer concerts in Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the UK, Russia and more. On June 5, 2006, she performed at the 5th Gala of Jazz in Lincoln Center, New York, and in a session at the 2007 TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference in Monterey, California.

Chapman was commissioned by the American Conservatory Theater to compose music for its production of Athol Fugard's Blood Knot, a play on apartheid in South Africa, staged in early 2008.
Atlantic Records released Chapman's eighth studio album, Our Bright Future (2008). Chapman made a 26-date solo tour of Europe. She returned to tour Europe and selected North American cities during the summer of 2009. She was backed by Joe Gore on guitars, Patrick Warren on keyboards, and Dawn Richardson on percussion.



Tracy Chapman (n. Cleveland, Ohio, 30 de marzo de 1964) es una cantante estadounidense ganadora de varios premios Grammy y conocida por el éxito de canciones como "Fast Car", "Talkin' Bout a Revolution", "Baby Can I Hold You" y "Give Me One Reason".

Nacida en Cleveland, Tracy Chapman comenzó a tocar la guitarra y a escribir canciones con tan sólo 11 años. Fue aceptada en la organización orientada a reclutar niños afrodescendientes con aptitudes para destacar en diferentes campos, por lo que entró a estudiar en la Wooster School y posteriormente en la Tufts University de Medford, Massachusetts.
Durante sus estudios universitarios, Chapman comenzó a tocar en la calle y en cafés de la ciudad de Cambridge en Massachusetts. Tras su graduación fichó por la compañía Elektra Records, lanzando el disco Tracy Chapman en 1988. El álbum fue muy bien acogido por la crítica, y ella comenzó una gira donde fue captando a un gran número de fans.

Tras su actuación en el concierto homenaje a los 70 años de Nelson Mandela, la canción Fast Car comenzó a subir en las listas americanas hasta alcanzar el Top 10. El álbum alcanzaría ventas elevadas llegando al disco de platino y Tracy lograría tres grammys en la edición de ese año.
Su siguiente álbum Crossroads lanzado en 1989 tuvo menos éxito comercial que su predecesor y para el siguiente Matters of the Heart Chapman preparó una gira en recintos de poca capacidad para recalcar el aire intimista del disco. Para sorpresa de la industria musical su cuarto álbum New Beginning, fue todo un éxito comercial que llegó a vender 3 millones de copias tan sólo en Estados Unidos. Este álbum incluía el hit Give Me One Reason que ganó el Grammy a la mejor canción de Rock del año y se convirtió en el single de mayor éxito de Chapman hasta la fecha.

El siguiente álbum fue Telling Stories editado en el año 2000, y que supuso un giro hacia el rock frente al sonido folk dominante en los discos precedentes. Del disco el single Telling Stories fue muy difundido en las radiodifusoras europeas. Su sexto disco fue Let It Rain lanzado en 2002. En septiembre de 2005 lanzó el disco Where You Live y en noviembre de 2008, Our Bright Future.