Paul Reed Smith has added another name to the list of 'guitarists you didn't know played PRS guitars': Jeff Beck.
Over the course of his storied career, Beck played a number of different electric guitars from a variety of brands.
Not only was he fiercely loyal to a select number of Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters, the late virtuoso also had a number of legendary Gibson Les Pauls – the Oxblood and Yardburst among them – as well as some more oddball picks, such as a prototype Les Paul/Tele Ibanez hybrid signature.
One brand that is seldom (if ever) mentioned in the same breath as Beck, though, is PRS. That Beck would play something plucked from the PRS shelf might come as a surprise to some guitar fans, but that, as it turns out, is exactly what happened.
According to Paul Reed Smith, who features in the new issue of Guitar World, Beck had a PRS guitar that he “loved”, and although he made it clear to Smith that he’d never be seen playing it live, he did find it a valuable guitar for recording and playing at home.
When asked about the guitar icons he wished he could build a guitar for, Smith teased some obscure tidbits from some of the lesser-heard chapters of PRS history – including a surprising fan in the form of Beck.
“Jimmy Page, except I did make a guitar for him,” Smith responds to the question. “He used one of our guitars on the Outrider tour, and it was some of the best tremolo work I’d ever heard. I did make a guitar for Eddie Van Halen, but that’s a long story and he’s gone.
“People don’t know this, but Jeff Beck had a PRS at home and he loved it,” Smith adds. “He told me I’d never see him with it but he used it to record.”
Smith is coy on which exact PRS Beck played. Was it a custom Silver Sky? Beck was a Strat man, after all, so that seems like a potential contender. But on the flip side, Beck was never scared to experiment and try new things, so perhaps a Private Stock McCarty, or a Custom 24, was more to his liking. Who knows?
Whatever the case, the current whereabouts of the guitar are publicly unknown, but Smith goes on to say the company has been attempting to track the instrument down. That task was made harder by the fact that this mystery PRS wasn’t included in the record-breaking Jeff Beck auction event that took place earlier this year.
“We’ve been trying to get it back,” Smith reveals. “It wasn’t part of the auction this year, but I know he loved that guitar.”
Beck’s PRS was just one of many of the brand’s guitars that ended up with a surprising owner. As mentioned above, Smith was also asked to build a guitar for Eddie Van Halen, at the behest of Kramer.
As for whether we’ll ever see Beck’s own PRS, or if the company will ever be able to get its hands on it again, remains to be seen.
Read the full interview with Paul Reed Smith in the new issue of Guitar World, available via Magazines Direct, which features a run down of the Best of Guitar 2025.
