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Jeff Beck's debut release showed how good and credible heavy metal could be, at a time when media hacks threw the label on any band that played their guitars louder than The Beatles did. Estranged from The Yardbirds, he found himself at odds with the members (one of which included Jimmy Page, initially hired as bassist, promoted to guitarist), his tardiness and quest for perfectionism at odds with the laborious touring schedule the British band had to meet. Now, duly departed from the band, Beck had the time and influence to record an album as he and producer Mickie Most best saw fit, as sessions for 'The Jeff Beck Band' began in June 1967.
Armed with a group of bandits, each of their contribution more than eye candy for the prickly guitarist, each found a niche for themselves on the record. Drummer Micky Waller gave depth to the record when it needed it most, Ronnie Wood's bass playing had a finesse he never equalled on his preferred instrument, guitar, and Rod Stewart, sidelined to backing vocalist on Beck's debut single 'Hi Ho Silver Lining' now given the reign to sing to his heart's content. Sufficently far from his 'Sailing'and 'D'ya Think I'm Sexy' days, the twenty-two year old proved a blues singer par excellence; sufficiently so, he was the singer the remaining members of 'Small Faces' approached following Steve Marriott's departure.
But it was Beck whose name featured on the record and it is his playing that gives the album its necessary weight. An acoustic guitar contribution from Jimmy Page notwithstanding, the remaining guitars are Beck's, his gorgeous succulent playing on 'Greensleeves' a nice counterpoint to the psychedelics on ' Shape Of Things', again a shade to the loud dynamics heard on album closer ' I Ain't Superstitious'.
'Beck's Bolero' gave Beck his best loved song, though it was recorded long before the other tracks were recorded (1966, in fact), as a result future Led Zeppelin John Paul Jones and incumbent The Who drummer Keith Moon played rhythm to Beck's and Jimmy Page's soaring guitar parts. A fine Spanish part played by Page, it is Beck's slide playing that pointed the way to heavy metal records of the seventies. A fine performance of sound and substance, it was Page, however, who received the song-writing royalties, a bone of contention which still niggles Beck decades later. Jones also played a delicate organ solo on Muddy Waters cover 'You Shook Me', amalgamating Stewart's earnest vocals, though it was a similar organ arrangement he used on Led Zeppelin's version less than a year later, one that understandably irked Beck even more.
While later albums showed Beck´s capacity to over-indulge, here his playing restrains itself to a handful of overdubs, most of it recorded on an eight track, as a way of emulating the sound of a live performance. Where the album was recorded during the ´Summer of Love´, Beck´s playing owed less to Hendrix than it did to blues record, his slide playing on ´Shapes of Things´ and album closer ´I Ain´t Superstitious´an indictment of this, while ´Ol´ Man River´ had an intricacy to it nowhere heard on any version before or since. Boston´s Tom Scholz, seventies guitarist extraordinaire, claimed the album as his all time favourite, and the album would herald the riff frenetism of the nineteen seventies.
Sadly, the band never equalled ´Truth´. Stewart and Wood played on the album´s follow up ´Beck-Ola´(further evidence of who called the band´s shots!) before leaving to form the more widely celebrated Faces. Beck himself found his second ´Jeff Beck Group´ a disappointment and called time on that unit after a mere two albums. Despite flashes of brilliance here and there, it was his 1985 collaborations with Rod Stewart that re-opened his taste for hair -raising playing.
Eoghan Lyng has written a number of articles about hard rock and heavy metal bands. If you have a query about his work, check out his WordPress ´EoghanLyng´.
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