NEW YORK: Briton Jeff Beck, the “genius” rock, blues and even jazz guitarist who made his mark on Eric Clapton’s Jimmy Page and The Yardbirds in the 1960s, died Tuesday at the age of 78 of meningitis.

“On behalf of his family, it is with deep sadness that we share the news of the death of Jeff Beck. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he passed away peacefully yesterday,” the site’s official statement read late Wednesday. a musician who has won eight Grammy awards for his skill and sense of innovation on the electric guitar.

The reactions of his comrades were quick.

Equally legendary Mick Jagger paid tribute in a video on Twitter to the “incredible man and one of the greatest guitarists in the world”.

“No one plays like Jeff”

“No one plays guitar like Jeff,” was immediately greeted, also on Twitter, by Gene Simmons of hard rock band Kiss.

His heavy metal pal, guitarist and founder of Black Sabbath Tony Iommi bows to “an extraordinary icon, a guitarist genius.”

“There will never be another Jeff Beck,” he said.

British heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne also spoke on Twitter of “an incredible honor to play with him on his 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 a suburb of London, Jeff Beck is considered one of the finest rock, hard rock, blues and even jazz guitarists, on a par with 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 made their mark with the album and songs “Shapes of Things” and “Over Under Sideways Down”.

Innovate with sound

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

Stewart also praised “Jeff Beck from another planet” on Wednesday night. “He took me and Ronnie Wood to the United 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 embarked on a very long solo career in which he enjoyed success in the mid-1970s with the album “Blow By Blow”.

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

According to the special press, Jeff Beck is not a fan of acoustic guitars and plays electric guitars from Fender and Gibson.

He was also noted for the distortion effect with his instruments, a sound that would also be experienced at the same time by The Who of guitarist Pete Townshend.