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."…
Originally issued as two seperate albums, Truth and Beck-Ola are brought together here on one CD. Truth is the debut album by Jeff Beck, released in 1968 in the United Kingdom on Columbia Records and in the United States on Epic Records. It introduced the talents of his backing band The Jeff Beck Group, specifically Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, to a larger audience, and peaked at number 15 on the Billboard 200. Beck-Ola is the second album by Jeff Beck, released in 1969 in the United Kingdom on Columbia Records and in the United States on Epic Records. It peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200, and at No. 39 on the British album chart. The album’s title puns on the name of the Rock-Ola jukebox company.
The Jeff Beck Group was an English rock band formed in London in January 1967 by former The Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck. Their innovative approach to heavy-sounding blues and rhythm and blues was a major influence on popular music.
"If the voice don't say it, the guitar will play it," raps Saffron on "Pork-U-Pine," the third track on Jeff Beck's minimally titled Jeff. And he does. Beck teams with producer Andy Wright, the man responsible for his more complete immersion into electronic backdrops on his last outing, You Had It Coming. This time the transition is complete. Beck used electronica first on Who Else!, moved a little more into the fire on You Had It Coming, and here merges his full-on Beck-Ola guitar heaviness with the sounds of contemporary spazz-out big beats and noise. Beck and Wright employ Apollo 440 on "Grease Monkey" and "Hot Rod Honeymoon," and use a number of vocalists, including the wondrously gifted Nancy Sorrell, on a host of tracks, as well as the London Session Orchestra on others…
"If the voice don't say it, the guitar will play it," raps Saffron on "Pork-U-Pine," the third track on Jeff Beck's minimally titled Jeff. And he does. Beck teams with producer Andy Wright, the man responsible for his more complete immersion into electronic backdrops on his last outing, You Had It Coming. This time the transition is complete. Beck used electronica first on Who Else!, moved a little more into the fire on You Had It Coming, and here merges his full-on Beck-Ola guitar heaviness with the sounds of contemporary spazz-out big beats and noise.
The Top 100 '60s Rock Albums represent the moment when popular music came of age. In the earliest part of the decade, bands were still regularly referencing earlier sounds and themes. By the middle, something powerful and distinct was happening, which is why the latter part of the '60s weighs so heavily on our list. A number of bands evolved alongside fast-emerging trends of blues rock, folk rock, psychedelia and hard rock, adding new complexities to the music even as the songs themselves became more topical. If there's a thread running through the Top 100 '60s Rock Albums and this period of intense change, it has to do with the forward-thinking artists who managed to echo and, in some cases, advance the zeitgeist. Along the way, legends were made.
Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from May Blitz featuring the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD players) an the latest remastering (subject to change). Part of a two-album May Blitz SHM-CD cardboard sleeve reissue series featuring albums "May Blitz" and "The 2nd Of May." Also features the cardboard sleeve and the serial-numbered card which replicate the UK first pressing LP artwork.