The Best Of Jeff Beck

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On the rest of the album the guitar he used is the mythical Oxblood (originally a heavily modified 1954 Gold Top, with the P-90s replaced by humbuckers) with which he can be seen on the cover. Led Boots” was an obvious nod to his friend Jimmy Page, but other than that, it was a tour de force with a strange drum tempo that only the best could try. Jeff Beck did a trilogy of these jazz fusion albums, and the second installment Wired is just as great as the predecessor, and could have been part of a fantastic double album, but on the other hand, Jeff gives us so much to listen to that too much at once would probably make us miss something we’d regret later, always a risk with double albums.

Beck also has the rare honor of being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice - first as a member of The Yardbirds in 1992, then as a solo artist in 2009. Since then, everyone from bluesman Freddie King to the Who and Led Zeppelin to Pearl Jam has played it. You're A Better Man Than I's solo, which is possibly the best guitar solo that rock music had ever known until that moment. Nick Mason confessed that Pink Floyd had initially wanted to ask Beck to replace Syd Barrett but were too afraid to ask him. Beck’s presence is initially almost inaudible on Kate Bush’s gorgeous tale of post-break up heartbreak (which also features Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker on Hammond) but it’s the subtle runs he spins underneath Bush’s vocal that help incrementally heighten the emotional intensity of You’re The One, eventually sending the song off with a searing solo as Bush wails in anguish.Rough and Ready' sports some of Beck's best tunes; "Got The Feeling", "I've Been Used" and "New Ways/Train Train" but it remains the unabashed rock record of its time; falling prey to those excesses and has eventfully been obscured by time. The album is a nice treat for casual rock fans, but a maddening product for Jeff Beck fans, particularly in that he halts his blossoming jazz fusion style to go back to rocking as hard as he could with the Vanilla Fudge/Cactus rhythm section. Director Michelangelo Antonioni originally wanted The Velvet Underground for Blow Up’s iconic club scene, but the cost of flying them over to London from New York proved prohibitive. Over the course of six decades, Jeff Beck has released 17 studio albums and half as many live recordings along with winning eight Grammys and being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Necessity proved to be the mother of invention, however, as the short-lived Beck/Page two-guitar Yardbird line-up exploded with more feral power and menace than Lou Reed and co could have ever mustered.

Unfortunately, the heaviness and modernised production begins to induce more fatigue into its listeners rather than awe, especially as this one clocks back up to a near hour in length. The great debut of the Jeff Beck Group, this album, which many rock historians regard as more important in developing the huge blues rock industry soon to follow than its primary comparison to Led Zeppelin. This album needs a fire extinguisher nearby, such is the energy and great sounds of good old fashioned real rock and roll and good times.

Other players might have been tempted to fill in the gaps here just because they could, but Beck’s approach was both restrained and magical, with not a note wasted. BTW, Stevie Wonder’s original recording of “Superstition” does not include Jeff Beck on guitar, in fact there’s no guitar at all on it!

It was vital that Jeff Beck remind audiences of the power-packed guitar playing of old, especially since, excluding the pop outing of 'Flash', audiences had not heard from the man in almost a decade. If, as usual, the death of a rock hero ignites a mad scramble to hear their music, there's certainly no shortage of Jeff Beck material to be consumed. Elsewhere, Jeff Beck taught us he was the best blues player, and was taking his noise making and other sounds to places only Hendrix was visiting. You Know What I Mean” opened up with a funky rhythm that exploded as keyboardist Max Middleton, bassist Phil Chenn and drummer Richard Bailey took flight, with searing guitar lines that were just as important because Jeff Beck made them memorable to the average listener, and jazz and rock music would never be quite the same. This much recorded chestnut has had several degrees of success depending on who covered it, but Jeff Beck does his version with such grace and a tear inducing arrangement that other than the original, other versions are rendered moot.Right now it’s my favorite Jeff Beck album, and pretty much has stayed there ever since it was released. Of the rest of the material, a version of the Beatles' She's A Woman stands out, on which Beck uses a Talk Box before Peter Frampton ‘made it his’, while on You Know What I Mean he shows that he has been listening carefully to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and on the Diamond Dust version he successfully enters progressive territory. But if Rod Stewart was so shy that his first gigs were spent hiding behind speakers, he showed no such intimidation in the studio.

A pivot Like the A side, the B side was a selection of titles from the band's debut album, Five Live Yardbirds, released in 1964 when the lead guitarist was still Clapton. His 1967 debut solo single, Hi Ho Silver Lining, made the UK Top 20, proof he could achieve success as a mainstream artist should he wish. Blow by Blow did not enter the Gaon Album Chart, but it peaked at number 30 on the component overseas album chart in 2010.Beck-Ola' may not have the focus of its predecessor, but that does not detract from its high-quality sound; a prime example of late-60's British blues. The song was written by Max Middleton, the keyboardist Beck worked with in the Jeff Beck Group as well as on his first two solo albums, Blow by Blow and Wired. On What God Wants, Beck delivers blistering mutant blues fireworks, chiming reveries and cosmos-touching solos that almost single-handedly elevated the three-part suite to the level of Floyd at their peak.