"On behalf of his family, it is with profound sadness that we share the news of the passing of Jeff Beck. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he passed away peacefully yesterday," a statement said Wednesday night on the site. official of the musician who has won eight Grammy awards for his virtuosity and his sense of innovation on the electric guitar.

The reactions of his peers were quick.

The equally legendary Mick Jagger paid tribute in a video on Twitter to "a wonderful man and one of the greatest guitarists in the world".

"No one played like Jeff"

"No one played guitar like Jeff," immediately greeted, also on Twitter, Gene Simmons of the hard rock band Kiss.

His heavy metal sidekick, guitarist and Black Sabbath founder Tony Iommi bowed to "an incredible icon, a genius guitarist."

"There will never be another Jeff Beck," he said.

British heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne also spoke on Twitter of "an incredible honor to have played with him on (his) very last album".

Musician Paul Young said he was equally "devastated by the sudden and tragic death of the legendary guitarist".

Born in June 1944 in the suburbs of London, Jeff Beck is considered one of the best rock, hard rock, blues and even jazz guitarists, the equal of Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.

Beck joined Page in the rock band The Yardbirds in 1965, just after the departure of the equally brilliant Clapton.

The duo carved out their legend with the albums and tracks "Shapes of Things" and "Over Under Sideways Down".

Innovate with sound

Capable of moving from one style to another (rock, hard rock, blues, jazz) and constantly innovating with the sound of his instruments and his amps, he founded at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s the group of hard rock The Jeff Beck Group with then-unknown British vocalist Rod Stewart and guitarist and bassist Ron Wood.

Stewart also hailed a "Jeff Beck from another planet" on Wednesday night.

"He took me and Ronnie Wood to the States in the late 1960s in his band The Jeff Beck Group and we haven't looked back since," he wrote on Twitter, along with a photo.

Jeff Beck then began a very long solo career where he enjoyed success in the mid-1970s with the album "Blow By Blow".

In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him fifth in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

According to the specialized press, Jeff Beck was not a fan of acoustic guitars and played electric guitars from Fender and Gibson.

He is also renowned for his distortion effects with his instrument, a sound which will also be experienced at the same time by guitarist Pete Townshend's The Who.

© 2023 AFP