Joel was proud to follow in the footsteps of more traditional composers like Beethoven and Mozart, but even he had to give it up to Beck for branching out, telling Howard Stern, “My favourite guitarist died very recently, Jeff Beck. My favourite guitarist of all time. He was just a phenomenal natural musician. Kind of like Hendrix. He was a freak of nature. His technique was taboo, but he did his own thing and created his own chord structures. Brilliant.”
“He was a musician that I always loved. He was the best. Jeff Beck just passed away… I couldn’t let the night go by without doing something by Jeff,” Joel told the audience. “This is a recording he did with Rod Stewart, called ‘People Get Ready.'”
Joel and his band then launched into a rendition of the Curtis Mayfield-penned classic, which Beck and Stewart recorded for the guitarist’s 1985 LP Flash, and one of Beck’s greatest songs; Joel’s saxophonist Mark Rivera handled lead vocals for the performance.
Beck died Tuesday, Jan. 10, following a short bout with bacterial meningitis. Upon news of his death, Joel tweeted, “I just heard the sad news that the great virtuoso guitarist, Jeff Beck, has died. He was one of my heroes. I was fortunate to meet him recently and I’m very grateful now that I was able to tell him how much I admired his musical skill. This is the end of an era.”
Billy Joel and Rod Stewart will play together at Cleveland Browns Stadium on Friday, Sep 13.
The Piano Man will play his first-ever joint concert with Rod Stewart, and he’s also lined up two more 2024 co-headlining dates with ex-Police frontman Sting.
Both Joel and Stewart will be releasing new music this year. Joel recently announced that he was putting out a song titled “Turn the Lights Back On” on February 1. It’s his first new original tune in more than 16 years.
Visualizza questo post su Instagram
