Guitar God Jeff Beck has passed at age 78.  Beck famously replaced Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds.  I'll leave to those more musically gifted to dissect his legacy.  

Yeah, bummer. Beck was truly an outstandingly talented guitarist. And also, as far as I know, at least partially the inspiration for the character of Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap fame.

This is a really tough one for me, there have been so many "guitar gods", but Jeff Beck was amongst the rarest of the rare.

Every rock guitar player knows the classic "big 4": Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck. That was Jeff's stature amongst musicians. The only difference was he never had the level of popular fame of the other 3, yet many would argue he might have been the purest player of them, and certainly the most versatile over the years. impulse , you are so correct about the Rod Stewart era, Rod was a fantastic rock singer early on, the Truth album from 1968 with both of them is one of the best somewhat hidden gems of the era (I so love that one).

Guitar players will always tend to point to his 70's "fusion" era though as a major artistic high point, Blow by Blow and Wired are considered essential listening. But he always rolled with the times, one of my personal favorites was Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop from 1989. I was heavy into the hair metal and thrash music of that day and age as a young guitar player that year, but his album floored many a player of all ages. Word of mouth was big on that one.

Sometimes you'll hear guitar players talking about this magical quality of someone having a "feel" with the instrument that transcends the notes...that was Jeff Beck at a stratospheric level. This is a huge loss to the music community, but what a gift his music will always continue to be.

RIP to one of the greatest of all time.

Edit: I am really in shock here though, while I knew he was getting older (78 years old), he always seemed very healthy and was still very actively both playing out last year and notably guest appeared on a couple of tracks on Ozzy's new album also last year. This is hitting me like when Eddie Van Halen passed away in 2020, which still doesn't seem real to me.

Shame to hear about Jeff Beck, he was a hell of a guitarist. I really like his Freakbeat and pop-psych playing in the Yardbirds, but after that I'm not terribly interested in his music, in all honesty. I won't go into why, as this isn't the venue for disparaging comments.

His work with the Yardbirds though...wow, great stuff -- especially during the few months when he and Jimmy Page were both in the band together. Beck's playing on such Yardbirds tracks as "Over Under Sideways Down", "The Nazz Are Blue", "Shapes of Things", and "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" was really envelope-pushing and, as a result, highly influential on many other 60s musicians. He was one of the greats of that late '60s, "Swinging London" psychedelic set. RIP, man.

Former WBA Heavyweight Champion Gerrie Coetzee has died at 67.  Coetzee, a South African, won the WBA Heavyweight title by upsetting Michael Dokes.  Due to Don King representing Coetzee a fight between he and Larry Holmes could not be arranged and Coetzee subsequently lost his title to Greg Page.  While Coetzee is now kind of an afterthought he did beat Dokes in an upset, defeated former unified champion Leon Spinks and was the number two ranked Heavyweight at least three times.  

I remember when he beat Leon Spinks, I think was an upset too, mostly because he wasn't known outside South Africa. It must have been shown on regular tv because I saw it at the time.