Depp befriended and released an album with the English rock icon in the years before Beck died at 78 in January 2023
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Johnny Depp is keeping his late friend Jeff Beck in mind.
More than two years after Beck died at 78 in January 2023, Depp, 61, shared a video by Gina Deuters to Instagram on Sunday, Jan. 19 in which the actor toured a currently-running exhibition at the London-based auction house Christie’s before its sale starts on Wednesday, Jan. 22.
The video, set to a song Depp and Beck released together titled “Midnight Walker” from their 2022 album 18, showed Depp examining dozens of guitars and other instruments that belonged to Beck as well as moments the two friends and musicians shared together on stage and in the recording studio in recent years.
“Walking through the history of Jeff’s life. He was the world’s greatest, most influential guitarist who just happened to become my beloved friend,” Depp wrote in a caption to his post, which he signed as, “JD X.” The actor also noted in his caption that the free exhibition is taking place between now and Jan. 22.
Depp, a noted guitarist and musician outside of his massively popular acting career, first met Beck in 2016. The pair released their album 18 in July 2022, several months before Beck’s death. They toured together to promote the album as well, with Beck stating in a release at the time of the album’s announcement that he had not “had another creative partner like [Depp] for ages.”
Back in June 2024, Depp took part in a performance at the Gibson Garage in London to honor Beck on what would have been his 80th birthday with musicians Jimmy Page, Chris Robinson, Billy Gibbons, Graham Coxon and Sandra Beck, the late Beck’s wife. In the days following Beck’s death in January 2023, a source told PEOPLE that Depp was “totally devastated” by Beck’s death, adding that Depp “was by Jeff’s bedside” in his final days.
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“They had a really tight friendship, they were extremely close, and he got even closer over this past summer when they were touring together,” the source said at the time.
Christie’s website indicates that it will auction off “over 130 guitars, amps, pedals, cases and ‘tools-of-the-trade’ used by Beck during his more than 60 years playing music professionally as a member of the Yardbirds and his extensive solo career. The auction can be viewed in real-time on the company’s YouTube page on Jan. 22.
