Joe Beck (July 29, 1945 – July 22, 2008) was an American jazz guitarist who was active for over 30 years.

Biography

Born in Philadelphia, Beck moved to Manhattan in his teens, playing six nights a week in a trio setting, which gave him an opportunity to meet various people working in the thriving New York music scene. By the time he was 18, Stan Getz had used him to record some jingles, and in 1967 he recorded with Miles Davis,. By 1968, at age 22 he was a member of the Gil Evans orchestra. Beck described his early success in an interview near the end of his life:

Beck played in a variety of jazz styles, including jazz fusion, post bop, mainstream jazz and soul jazz, but also respected rock stylists and cross-over players (he was good friends with Larry Coryell, and briefly flirted with rock music styles himself in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1970 he released Rock Encounter on Polydor Records. In 1975 he released an 'eponymous' album (Upon which he simply referred to himself as 'Beck') whilst recording the Esther Phillips album, What a Diff'rence a Day Makes, both on Kudu Records.Beck was subsequently reissued as Beck & Sanborn to cash in on the success of alto saxophonist Dave Sanborn. In 1978, he went for more of a rock sound by forming a band named "Leader". They performed in the Northeast and recorded demos at Sound Ideas Studios in NYC, but soon disbanded after the band's gear was stolen after a gig at Joyous Lake in Woodstock NY. In the 1980s Beck recorded several CDs for the DMP Digital Music Products label, including co-billed work with the noted flautist Ali Ryerson. In 2000, he released a collaboration with Jimmy Bruno, Polarity, and Coincidence in 2008 with John Abercrombie.

"Ode to Billie Joe" is a 1967 song written and recorded by Bobbie Gentry, a singer-songwriter from Chickasaw County, Mississippi. The single, released in late July, was a number-one hit in the United States, and became a big international seller. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 3 song for 1967 (the other two were #2 "The Letter" by the Box Tops and #1 "To Sir With Love" by Lulu). The song is ranked #412 on Rolling Stone's list of "the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The recording of "Ode to Billie Joe" generated eight Grammy nominations, resulting in three wins for Gentry and one win for arranger Jimmie Haskell.

Plot

The song is a first-person narrative that reveals a Southern Gothic tale in its verses by including the dialog of the narrator's family at dinnertime on the day that "Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge." Throughout the song, the suicide and other tragedies are contrasted against the banality of everyday routine and polite conversation.

Ode to Billy Joe is a 1976 film with a screenplay by Herman Raucher, inspired by the 1967 hit song by Bobbie Gentry, titled "Ode to Billie Joe" (note difference in spelling).

The film was directed and produced by Max Baer, Jr. (of The Beverly Hillbillies fame) and stars Robby Benson and Glynnis O'Connor. Made for $1.1 million, it grossed $27 million at the box office, plus earnings in excess of $2.65 million in the foreign market, $4.75 million from television, and $2.5 million from video.

Gentry's song recounts the day when Billie Joe McAllister committed suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge on Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi. When Gentry and Raucher got together to work on the screenplay, she explained that while the song was based on an actual event, she had no idea why the real person who inspired the character of Billie Joe had killed himself. Raucher thus had a free hand to pick one.

Plot

Set in 1953, the film explores the budding relationship between Billy Joe McAllister (Benson) and Bobbie Lee Hartley (O'Connor) (who corresponds to the unnamed narrator of the original song), despite resistance from Hartley's family, who contend she is too young to date. One night at a jamboree, McAllister gets drunk and seems nauseated and confused when entering a makeshift whorehouse behind the gathering.

Beck Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970), known by the stage name Beck, is an American singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his lo-fi, sonically experimental style, and he became well known for creating musical collages of a wide range of styles. His later recordings encompass folk, funk, soul, hip hop, alternative rock, country and psychedelia. He has released 12 studio albums, as well as several non-album singles and a book of sheet music.

Born in Los Angeles in 1970, Beck discovered hip hop and folk music in his teens and began to perform locally at coffeehouses and clubs. He moved to New York City in 1989 and became involved in the city's small but intense anti-folk movement. After returning to his hometown in the early 1990s, he cut his breakthrough single "Loser", which became a worldwide hit in 1994. His 1996 album Odelay produced hit singles, topped critic polls and won several awards. He released the stripped-down Mutations in 1998, and the funk-infused Midnite Vultures in 1999. The downcast, acoustic Sea Change (2002) showcased a more serious Beck, and 2005's Guero returned to sample-based production. The Information (2006) was inspired by electro-funk and hip hop, and Modern Guilt (2008), likewise, by 1960s music. In February 2014, Beck released the album Morning Phase. It won Album of the Year at the 57th Grammy Awards on February 8, 2015.

BECK (Japanese: ベック, Hepburn: Bekku) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Harold Sakuishi. It was originally serialized in Monthly Shōnen Magazine from 1999 to 2008, with the 103 chapters later published into 34 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha. It tells the story of a group of Japanese teenagers who form a rock band and their struggle to fame, focusing on 14-year-old Yukio "Koyuki" Tanaka, who until meeting guitar prodigy Ryusuke Minami was an average teen with a boring life.

It was adapted into a 26-episode anime television series, titled BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad, by Madhouse and aired on TV Tokyo from October 2004 to March 2005. A live-action film adaptation was released in 2010 and stars Takeru Satoh as Koyuki and Hiro Mizushima as Ryusuke. The series has also spawned three guidebooks, four soundtracks, a video game and a line of guitars.

The original manga was licensed for an English-language release in North America by Tokyopop. Volume 1 was published in July 2005, but the series was discontinued after the release of the 12th volume in June 2008. The anime was licensed for an English-language release by Funimation. The first DVD was released in 2007, and the last in January 2008.

Beck, later called Beck – Lockpojken, is a 1997 film about the Swedish police detective Martin Beck directed by Pelle Seth.

Cast

References

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