We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago……
Calling this the Jeff Beck Group is kinda misleading. At least if were expecting the band that featured Rod Stewart, Ron Wood, Mick Waller and Nicky Hopkins. This ain’t them.
The new band, which released the first of two LPs that this configuration would record, called ‘Rough & Ready consisted of Beck (coming back from a car crash), keyboard ace Max Middleton, drummer Cozy Powell and bassist Clive Chaman. It also features vocalist Bobby Tench, probably the weakest link here.
The vocal get buried in the mix which isn’t the worst thing to have happen for a guy who is a shadow of what Stewart delivered.
The album is an amalgam of the different styles the players bring to the table. Beck can play rock, blues & jazz…Powell too. Middleton brings the jazzy side which he would embrace later in the decade with a band called Hummingbird which also included Chaman and Tench.
Beck delivers his usual blend of chording and biting solo lines. He can also play bluesy and introspective…a trait that, in my mind, separates him from Clapton, Page and some other of his contemporaries.
I like this LP when the band stretches out. I like it less when Tench sings. I prefer the Beck of his mid 70’s LPs “Blow By Blow” and “Wired”. But this is a step on how he got there.
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