Dunbar (d); Mickey Waller (d); Ken Scott (e)
Track listing: Shape Of Things; Let Me Love You, Morning Dew; You Shook Me; Ol’ Man River; Greensleeves; Rock My Plimsoul; Beck’s Bolero; Blues De Luxe; I Ain’t Superstitious
Running time: 40.26
Current CD: EMI 8737492 adds: I’ve Been Drinking (stereo mix); You Shook Me (Take 1); Rock My Plimsoul (stereo mix); (Beck’s) Bolero; Blues Deluxe (Take 1); Tallyman; Love Is Blue; Hi Ho Silver Lining
Further listening: Beckology, the 3-disc, 55-track set (1998) spanning Beck’s entire career, includes three unreleased tracks and a 64-page booklet encased in a guitar-shaped box.
Further reading: Truth!: Rod Stewart, Ron Wood And The Jeff Beck Group (Dave Thompson, 2006); www.jeffbeck.com
Download: iTunes
Jeff Beck always meant more in America than on his home turf, and Truth (released in the US as a Jeff Beck solo album) has a reputation in America as a seminal ’60s heavy rock album that laid the foundations for what would become heavy metal. The band gained notoriety through their clever reworking of blues, embellished with Beck’s visionary guitar. They sounded lighter and more fluid than any other British blues contenders, with a dramatic element other bands didn’t possess – Rod Stewart’s gritty and resolute singing, trading guitar and vocal lines – which would become the blueprint for hard rock bands in years to come.
But the band’s dynamics – both musically and politically – often seemed to be underpinned by the interplay of grace and attack. At the time, Stewart would complain that fans and even record company executives would come up to him, slap him on the back and say, ‘Great show, Jeff!’ – automatically assuming that the band was named after the singer. Beck remembers it a little differently. ‘No, we were getting on pretty well then. The fact was that they all began to see the method in my madness when they heard the playbacks, and that I was prepared to put my own money into getting really good players, like John Paul Jones. On Ol’ Man River we used John Paul, Nicky Hopkins and Moonie on tympani.’
Though Truth occupies an important place in the evolution of rock, Beck had a few reservations. ‘We had a great sound,’ he remembers, ‘but nobody had written any songs. Rod wrote folk songs then, which wouldn’t have worked out for us, so he suggested we do [The Yardbirds’] Shape Of Things.’ The band also did a version of the Willie Dixon seductive classic You Shook Me. Unknown to Beck at the time, former bandmate Jimmy Page’s new outfit Led Zeppelin would also record the song for their own debut album; but to Beck’s delight, theirs was released the next year.
‘I took that as a compliment, because that album was already second-hand. And we both did You Shook Me in a slightly different style. It was a flattering thing, but the flattery went out the window when they began to be known for it and we weren’t.’ While not the closest of friends, Beck did allow that Stewart was behind the album’s title: ‘Whenever Rod and I used to go onstage, he’d say, “Shall we tell them the truth tonight?” It was a great thing to say. It was his way of saying, “Are we going to pull out every bit of emotion we can?” When we were on speaking terms, we used to use that as a measuring stick, that we gave them the truth tonight. And so I said, “Why don’t we call the album that?” He went misty-eyed on me. There was a good vibe about the whole record.’
Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit And Greenhill
The Unwritten Works Of Geoffrey, Etc.
Showcase of the sophisticated scene in Ft Worth, Texas.
Record label: Uni
Produced: Joseph Burnett
Recorded: Sound City Studios, Fort Worth, Texas and United Audio Studio, Santa Ana, California
Released: September 1968
Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)
Personnel: David Bullock; Scott Fraser; John Carrick; Phil White; Eddie Lively; T-Bone Burnett; George J Fernandez (m, special effects)
Track listing: The Viper (What John Rance Had To Tell); Day Of Childhood; Upon Waking From The Nap; Live ’Til I Die; Street In Paris; As Pure As The Freshly Driven Snow; Tribute To Sundance; House Of Collection; Just Me And Her; One Lusty Gentlemen; Ready To Move
Running time: 28.12
Current CD: Code7 FOCD2007
Further listening: J Henry Burnett – The B-52 Band And The Fabulous Skylarks (1972); Space Opera (1973)
Download: Not currently legally available
Anyone picking up this nondescript 1968 Uni Records album expecting to glean any information about the performers within were confronted with period liner notes reading: ‘I predict Benjamin Whistler, Geoffrey Chaucer, Nathan Detroit and Phillip Greenhill will be the next big thing, and I’m sure after you dig this album you’ll agree they have what it takes to be just that.’
Anyone reading the songwriting credits, though, would note that producer Joseph Burnett – soon known as T-Bone – penned four of the album’s 11 tracks, and that the real names of the mysterious ‘next big thing’ were nowhere to be seen. In fact, WCD&G were not a band, but a loosely based, non-performing group of musicians ‘just learning to use the studio, really,’ says T-Bone Burnett today. With Houston’s John Carrick the only non-Ft Worth homeboy, Burnett, David Bullock, Scott Fraser, Phil White and Eddie Lively were just making it up as they went along.
‘We were hanging out recording stuff down in the basement of this radio station in Ft Worth. We did the Legendary Stardust Cowboy at that time, then we recorded a bunch of tunes – mostly staying up all night taking a lot of speed or something, staying up for five days at a time making music. And that group of tunes somehow ended up being a record. And I don’t know how that name came about.’
The music from those non-stop recording sessions is surprisingly coherent rock’n’roll that comes from all directions and provided this ‘group’ with the same sort of varied sound that made bands like Buffalo Springfield and Moby Grape so worthy. With notably different singing and writing styles, the lingering impression was of vast untapped talent waiting to come to further fruition on follow-up or solo albums yet unmade. Much of this crew would end up recording a memorable, Byrdsy classic for Epic as Space Opera in 1973, then disappear.
‘I was by far the least talented of all these people,’ says Burnett, ‘and – this just shows you that life is tricky – I think it’s funny that I’ve managed to stay doing it all these years.’
Jimi Hendrix Experience
Electric Ladyland
Mould-busting double disc set, notorious in the UK for its gratuitous naked-lady-lined gatefold.
Record label: Track
Produced: Jimi Hendrix and Chas Chandler
Recorded: Olympic, London; December 20, 1967–January 28, 1968; Record Plant, New York; April 18–August 27, 1968
Released: October 25, 1968
Chart peaks: 6 (UK) 1 (US)
Personnel: Jimi Hendrix (g, v); Noel Redding (b, v); Mitch Mitchell (d); Mike Finnigan (o); Freddie Smith (horn); Larry Faucette (congas); Buddy Miles (d); Stevie Winwood (o on Voodoo Chile); Jack Cassidy (b); Al Kooper (p)
Track listing: … And The Gods Made Love; Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland); Crosstown Traffic (S); Voodoo Chile; Little Miss Strange; Long Hot Summer Night; Come On (Let The Good