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Jeff Beck at New York's Madison Square Garden in 2010
Photo: Evan Agostini/AP
British rock guitarist Jeff Beck is dead. According to his official Twitter account, he died after a sudden bacterial meningitis.
The musician died on Tuesday.
He was 78 years old.
In the summer, Beck released an album with Hollywood star Johnny Depp and then went on a tour.
Beck first rose to prominence as the successor to Eric Clapton as a member of the band Yardbirds - for which Jimmy Page recommended him.
There he made a name for himself as a musical perfectionist and shaped the unmistakable riffs of their best-known hits "Over Under Sideways Down" and "Shapes of Things".
He later formed the Jeff Beck Group and played with Rod Stewart.
He has also worked in many different formations with Mick Jagger, Roger Waters, Brian May, Paul Rodgers and Stevie Wonder, as well as with Tina Turner on her »Private Dancer« album.
The Brit is considered one of the best guitarists of all time.
In 2010, Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry told The New York Times: “Jeff Beck is the best guitarist in the world.
He's head, hands and feet above the rest of us, with the kind of talent that only comes along once in a generation or two.”
Numerous greats in the music world were now dismayed by his death.
"Jeff was such a lovely person and an outstanding, iconic, genius guitarist - there will never be another Jeff Beck," wrote Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi on Twitter.
Beck was one of the greats of late '60s rock guitarists that included Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix.
The musician has won eight Grammy Awards and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – once with the Yardbirds in 1992 and again as a solo artist in 2009. The Rolling Stone" magazine, he took fifth place.
aeh/AP/AFP/dpa
