Beck died on Tuesday after “suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis”, his representatives said, with the news prompting tributes from industry peers.

Former Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page posted on social media that “The six stringed Warrior is no longer here for us to admire the spell he could weave around our mortal emotions.”

“Jeff could channel music from the ethereal. His technique unique. His imaginations apparently limitless. Jeff I will miss you along with your millions of fans,” Page said.

“Jeff was such a nice person and an outstanding iconic, genius guitar player – there will never be another Jeff Beck,” Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi said.

“I’m heartbroken, he looked in fine shape to me. Playing great he was in great shape. I’m shocked and bewildered…. He was a good friend and a great guitar player,” said Kinks guitarist Dave Davies.

“No one played guitar like Jeff. Please get ahold of the first two Jeff Beck Group albums and behold greatness,” said Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, while Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley said: “From The Yardbirds and The Jeff Beck Group on, he blazed a trail impossible to follow. Play on now and forever.”

Rod Stewart, who sang in Jeff Beck Group, said the guitarist “was on another planet”.

“He took me and Ronnie Wood to the USA in the late 60s in his band the Jeff Beck Group and we haven’t looked back since. He was one of the few guitarists that when playing live would actually listen to me sing and respond.”

“Jeff Beck is the best guitar player on the planet,” Aerosmith’s Joe Perry said in 2010. “He is head, hands and feet above all the rest of us, with the kind of talent that appears only once every generation or two.”

Beck first came to prominence as a member of the Yardbirds and then went out on his own in a solo career that incorporated hard rock, jazz, funky blues and even opera. He was known for his improvising, love of harmonics and the whammy bar on his preferred guitar, the Fender Stratocaster.

Beck was among the rock-guitarist pantheon from the late ’60s that included Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. Beck won eight Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – once with the Yardbirds in 1992 and again as a solo artist in 2009. He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.

Beck played guitar with vocalists as varied as Luciano Pavarotti, Macy Gray, Chrissie Hynde, Joss Stone, Imelda May, Cyndi Lauper, Wynonna Judd, Buddy Guy and Johnny Depp. He made two records with Rod Stewart – 1968’s Truth and 1969’s Beck-Ola – and one with a 64-piece orchestra, Emotion & Commotion.

Geoffrey Arnold Beck was born in Surrey, England, and attended Wimbledon Art College. His father was an accountant, and his mother worked in a chocolate factory. As a boy, he built his first instrument, using a cigar box, a picture frame for the neck and string from a radio-controlled toy plane.

He was in a few bands, including Nightshift and The Tridents, before joining the Yardbirds in 1965, replacing Clapton but only a year later giving way to Page. During his tenure, the band created the memorable singles Heart Full of Soul, I’m a Man and Shapes of Things.

Beck’s first hit single was 1967’s instrumental Beck’s Bolero, which featured future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, and future Who drummer Keith Moon. The Jeff Beck Group, with Stewart singing, was later booked to play the 1969 Woodstock music festival but their appearance was cancelled. Beck later said there was unrest in the band.

“I could see the end of the tunnel,” he told Rolling Stone in 2010.

Beck was friends with Hendrix and they performed together. Before Hendrix, most rock guitar players concentrated on a similar style and technical vocabulary. Hendrix blew that apart.

Beck teamed up with legendary producer George Martin – aka “the fifth Beatle” – to help him fashion the genre-melding, jazz-fusion classic Blow by Blow (1975) and Wired (1976). He teamed up with Seal on the Hendrix tribute Stone Free, created a jazz-fusion group led by synthesiser player Jan Hammer and honoured rockabilly guitarist Cliff Gallup with the album Crazy Legs. He put out Loud Hailer in 2016.

Beck’s guitar work can be heard on the soundtracks of such films as Stomp the Yard, Shallow Hal, Casino, Honeymoon in Vegas, Twins, Observe and Report and Little Big League.

Beck’s career never hit the commercial highs of Clapton. A perfectionist, he preferred to make critically well-received instrumental records and left the limelight for long stretches, enjoying his time restoring vintage cars. He and Clapton had a tense relationship early on but became friends in later life and toured together.

Why did the two wait some four decades to tour together?

“Because we were all trying to be big bananas,” Beck told Rolling Stone in 2010. “Except I didn’t have the luxury of the hit songs Eric’s got.”

Beck is survived by his wife, Sandra.

-AAP