Ten of my favourite albums over the past . . . years (in no particular order). No 10 Blow By Blow by Jeff Beck

It would be dishonest of me to claim ‘I’m a Jeff Beck fan’ because I’ve only heard (checking his discography on Wikipedia) a lot less than half of his released recordings. And I’ve only ever bought four of his albums, and I really didn’t like one of them. Beck, Bogert & Appice were billed at the time as — it was all the rage for a while and most of us believed the bullshit — ‘a supergroup’. They released only two albums before disbanding.

I bought the first Beck, Bogert & Appice, and soon wished I hadn’t. It was curiously dull, and just now listening to the tracks on Spotify I can report that it’s still curiously dull. It seems I’m not the only one to think that because the band’s Wiki entry does claim the record baffled and disappointed fans because it didn’t capture the force and verve of their live performances. But, well, that was bugger all good to me.

All I knew was that the bloody record I had bought was curiously dull. It still is. Whether its follow-up, a live album, was any better I don’t know because on the strength of the debut album — their only studio album — I couldn’t be arsed to find out.

I first got to know Jeff Beck not with his work with The Yardbirds — I would be hard pushed to say what he did with that band and can’t even remember consciously listening to them — but from his singles Hi-ho Silver Lining and Beck’s Bolero.

Both were blasted out on Dundee University’s students’ union jukebox with monotonous regularity, along with Something In the Air by Thunderclap Newman, Say A Little Prayer by Aretha Franklin, In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry and several more. With such enforced repeated listening every last song on that jukebox except for Say A Little Prayer strayed very close to becoming bloody irritating, and Beck’s two tunes, which are really nothing special at all and verge on ‘novelty records’, were no exception.

Then at one point I heard Truth, the first album by The Jeff Group and liked it a lot and bought it. The line-up on that album and Beck-Ola, it’s follow-up, had Rod Stewart on vocals (never a bad thing) and Ronnie Wood on bass. It is still worth listening to, though Beck-Ola isn’t really that good, and so I didn’t bother with the final two albums.

Then came the band Beck, Bogert & Appice and their album of the same name, and why I bothered buying that, though I did, I really can’t think. More to the point after the disappointment of Beck-Ola and the ‘supergroup’ album, I can’t for the life of me think why I went on to buy Blow By Blow (today’s featured album) and it’s follow-up Wired (just as good). But I did, and I’m very glad I did.

To this day both stand out in my mind, and I can’t even — thank the Lord — trace a hint of kinship with the music on them and the close-on ( for me) dross of the ‘supergroup’ album. I mean it takes a certain gift to make Stevie Wonder’s song Superstition boring, but BB and A managed it.

Like all the other albums I’ve so far featured, Blow By Blow (and Wired, for that matter) doesn’t have one duff track. To ‘modern ears’, the funky clavinet (played by an uncredited Stevie Wonder) might date it a little, but hey-ho, any more complaints?

The track you can hear here, Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers, was written by Stevie Wonder and to my ears is beautiful. Beck had and has such total control over his guitar and playing that, like most such gifted players, he makes it sound easy. Easy? Try it.

Why I didn’t bother to check out any of his work after Wired I really don’t know, and I can’t even offer a plausible explanation. I did, though, once go to see Beck play live, but in the event I dind’t hear or see much of him at all. About 30 seconds, in fact.

It was early 1974 and the gig was in Edinburgh somewhere or other, in cinema or a former cinema* next to or behind which was a cemetery (which comes into the story). I was living in Dundee at the time, and I and my then girlfriend Shelagh hitched down to see Beck.

Before we went in we, as one does, had a couple of cans of McEwan’s extra strong lager each and a couple of spliffs (and, sssh, don’t tell my children who both think I’m a saint). Suitably high, we then went into the gig. Beck and his band were already playing and all I can remember his going up to the first floor balcony (presumably where our seats were) and then opening the door from the corridor to the balcony and being hit — quite literally (©P Bailey) — by a super, super-thick wall of sound. It was physical. Ever stuck your hand out of a car window travelling at more than 30mph and ‘feeling’ the ‘body’ of air? It was like that. It almost took an effort to push through it on to our seats.

Whether the booze and dope magnified the sensation I don’t know, but with a few short minutes (No! ©T Potter. A minute is a minute is a minute!) I felt very, very ill and ran outside to the cemetery where I spent next hour or so throwing up. No comment on Beck’s playing, of course.

*NB Courtesy of the net and how any number of nerds will record for posterity any amount of shite, I can report that the gig was by the ‘supergroup’, Beck, Bogert & Appice, and it was at the Caley Picture House, Lothian Rd., Edinburgh, on January 29, 1974 (a Tuesday, apparently and the Caley Picture House is now a Wetherspoons. Well, what isn’t these days?). The gig was recorded and released as a live two-CD set called The Last Live In Scotland 1974.

And if you listen very carefully to the first track, you can hear me puking violently in the next-door cemetery. Well!

And that is it, people. I hope you enjoyed my choices.