Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 141

Record label: Columbia

Produced: Mickie Most and Jeff Beck

Recorded: Abbey Road Studios, London; May 14–16 and May 25, 1968

Released: September 28, 1968

Chart peaks: None (UK) 15 (US)

Personnel: Jeff Beck (g, b); Rod Stewart (v); Ron Wood (b, g); Nicky Hopkins (k, p); Keith Moon (d); Aynsley 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.’