Jeff Beck Beck-Ola CD

1969's BECK-OLA would prove to be the last Jeff Beck album featuring the vocal talents of Rod Stewart and future Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood (although Wood plays bass here). An all-time '60s heavy rock classic, BECK-OLA proves that this Beck lineup could have ruled the hard-rock roost had it remained together just a bit longer (the group split up right before a scheduled appearance at the Woodstock festival). Still, you can't go wrong with a pair of turbo-charged, radically reworked Elvis Presley covers ("All Shook Up" and "Jailhouse Rock") or the Led Zeppelin-worthy stomp of "Spanish Boots."

When it was originally released in June 1969, Beck-Ola, the Jeff Beck Group's second album, featured a famous sleeve note on its back cover: "Today, with all the hard competition in the music business, it's almost impossible to come up with anything totally original. So we haven't. However, this disc was made with the accent on heavy music. So sit back and listen and try and decide if you can find a small place in your heads for it." Beck was reacting to the success of peers and competitors like Cream and Led Zeppelin here, bands that had been all over the charts with a hard rock sound soon to be dubbed heavy metal, and indeed, his sound employs much the same brand of "heavy music" as theirs, with deliberate rhythms anchoring the beat, over which the guitar solos fiercely and the lead singer emotes. But he was also preparing listeners for the weakness of the material on an album that sounds somewhat thrown together. Two songs are rehauls of Elvis Presley standards ("All Shook Up" and "Jailhouse Rock") and one is an instrumental interlude contributed by pianist Nicky Hopkins, promoted from sideman to group member, with the rest being band-written songs that serve basically as platforms for Beck's improvisations. But that doesn't detract from the album's overall quality, due both to the guitar work and the distinctive vocals of Rod Stewart, and Beck-Ola easily could have been the album to establish the Jeff Beck Group as the equal of the other heavy bands of the day. Unfortunately, a series of misfortunes occurred. Beck canceled out of a scheduled appearance at Woodstock; he was in a car accident that sidelined him for over a year; and Stewart and bass player Ron Wood decamped to join Faces, breaking up the group. Nevertheless, Beck-Ola stands as a prime example of late-'60s British blues-rock and one of Beck's best records. [In June 2004 EMI released a digitally remastered edition of Beck-Ola featuring four previously unreleased bonus tracks: "Sweet Little Angel," "Throw Down a Line," and early versions of "All Shook Up" and "Jailhouse Rock."] ~ William Ruhlmann

Additional Tracks

Audio Mixers: Mickie Most; Peter Mew.

Audio Remasterer: Peter Mew.

Liner Note Author: Charles Shaar Murray.

Recording information: De Lane Lea (11/19/1968-04/19/1969); EMI Abbey Road Studios, London, England (11/19/1968-04/19/1969); Mirasound, New York, NY, Unites States (11/19/1968-04/19/1969); Trident Studios, London, England (11/19/1968-04/19/1969).

Photographer: Robert Knight .

Personnel: Jeff Beck (guitar); Rod Stewart (vocals); Nicky Hopkins (piano); Ron Wood (bass); Tony Newman (drums).

Personnel: Ron Wood (guitar, bass guitar); Nicky Hopkins (piano); Tony Newman (drums); Rod Stewart (vocals); Jeff Beck (guitar); Mickey Waller (drums).

Uncut (p.106) - 4 stars out of 5 - "BECK-OLA signified an ability to fuse guitar heroics with post-British blues boom vitality, plus a side order of West Coast whimsy..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.133) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[A] riffy '69 outing."