Beck-Ola (Exp) [Extra tracks, Original recording remastered]

Jeff Beck | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 10, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 1969
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000I0QKDI
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #383 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #3 in Music > Classic Rock > British Invasion
  • #16 in Music > Rock > Blues Rock
  • #87 in Music > Classic Rock > Album-Oriented Rock (AOR)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ouch! My Ears!, March 29, 2007

By 

Bop Man (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beck-Ola (Exp) (Audio CD)

To better understand Jeff Beck's Music, you must better understand Jeff, first. Considered by many to be the best Rock guitarist of all time, he didn't always receive the recognition that he thought that he deserved. Having to step in as a replacement guitarist for Eric Clapton when he joined the Yardbirds may have fanned the flames in the beginning. And after pioneering in Distortion, Feedback, and Fuzz Tone, he dropped out and formed his own band, but before the TRUTH album was released, Jimi Hendrix came to town and stole some of Jeff's thunder, doing exactly the same things Jeff was doing on stage years earlier with the Yardbirds. If that wasn't bad enough, Jeff had a fit when he heard those early Led Zeppelin records. His good pal, Jimmy Page, stole alot of his ideas and drove them into the ground! (By the way, whatever happened to "Pagey"?) So Jeff really had an ATTITUDE by the time BECK-OLA was recorded. There's alot of Thunder and Lightning on this record! Perhaps those Zeppelin Lps helped steer Jeff in this direction after all, because it was a complete departure from the TRUTH album. BECK-OLA has a Live feel to it, and alot of noise, too. There was alot of tension within this group at the time, getting ready to explode, and it did. Too Bad.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 4 1/2 * Good, but not Great Follow-Up Still Worth Getting, February 28, 2008

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beck-Ola (Exp) (Audio CD)

Beck-Ola has a very different sound than "Truth," the Jeff Beck Group's classic first album. On "BEck-Ola" the musicians sound more self-assured, the playing more uniformly aggressive. OF course, you expect that from Jeff Beck, who has the angriest sounding guitar in all rock, but Ron Woods (bass), Nicki Hopkins (keyboards), and the new percussionist play less tentaively, all of them have a certain cocky flair. Wood and Hopkis take more extended, showy solos: Beck is not the only flash this time around.

THe album is also more prototypically hard rock (closer to metal, though neither Truth or this album are its progenitors, as some journalists/publicists would like you to believe). The sound of each soloist is more foregrounded, though not nearly to the same extenet as Led Zep. This is still blue-based interplay, but there's more bravado here, and the engineering favors the upfront sound of each soloist.

While Stewat isn't nearly as playful as he was on "Truth," he and his mates have a gloriously good time on the over-the-top "Jailhouse Rock," and his slurring butchery of some the words on "Spanish Boots" is especially delightful. To some extent, however, this highlights what's missing from the album, the sort of playful, making it look easier than it is, more spontaneous feeling of Truth. You can almost feel them pushing hard on this album, and while this plays well on most songs, there's a kind of forced feeling to "The Hangman's Knee" and (I hate to say it, because it was an early fave song of mine), the long power song, Rice Pudding.

Hangman's Knee has a jerky start and stop rhythm to it probably intended as a contrast to Beck's playing, but it seems to get in the way of itself, and it becomes fairly boring after awhile (of course, this is all relative to the superb playing that precedes it). The arrangement bogs down the players, and the background riff--en importnat element of later metal music--doesn't satisfy. COnversely, RIc Pudding, while using a similar power riff--and doing it more effectively--languishes in it's own length. Two minutes cut off of the song (especially, the slower, quieter piano sections) would have reduced the dynamic and tempo contrasts but made for a more tightly constucted, compelling number. THe song has some great Beck guitar though, and hints of his later jazz and rock experiments cme through.

The song that best shows the band's strengths is the superb "Plynth (Water Down the Drain)." It also has a basic rock riff, but its funky sound meshes better with Beck's riffs, solos, distortions, and the snarling guitar sound that he commands better than anyone else. It has the complexity of a Jeff Beck song (as opposed to, say, Zepp's more single-minded sound and lyrics), but it's very powerful as well. BY the way, "Girl fom Mill valley" showcases Hopkins in a pretty gospel-influenced instrumental, heavy on the sustain but very sweet and realtively light. One begins to imagine that Jeff Beck, who included "Greensleeves" on "Truth" (ummm, we won't touch on the treacly, unexplainable, "Love is Blue") has a soft, romantic side, or perhaps early exposure to church or music hall sounds. At any rate, it's a nice change of pace after the very energetic opening two numbers.

Broadly speaking, you have 5 gems out of seven, with Jeff Beck playing as only he can, and a more forceful group nacking him up. Rice Pudding is excellent, but perhaps overly long, and cut 6, Hangman's Knee redundant. I'd throw down the extra change might be necessary and get the 2004 version of "Beck-Ola" with the 4 additional tracks (ASIN: B000I0QKDI), two of which are new, and alternate versions of "All Shook Up" and Jailhouse Rock." Then, if you haven't already, you must get "Truth," both because it's one of the top rock albums ever made, and to make your own comparisons with "Beck-Ola."

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beck-Ola Redux, March 6, 2007

By 

J P Ryan (Waltham, Massachusetts United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beck-Ola (Exp) (Audio CD)

Look, I've reviewed this incendiary slab of raw power at least twice for amazon (the US edition from 2000 and the UK EMI from 2004 on which this version is based), and to keep it short and simple: Jeff Beck, Ron Wood, Rod Stewart, Nicky Hopkins, and Tony Newman's 1969 classic gets better with age, presages skronk, grunge, hard rock and "metal" (without the illusion of control), and injects funk into its punk: the Stooges' "Funhouse" meets Led Zep circa disc one of "Pyisical Graffiti"... The unparalleled, explosive, apocalyptic intensity of the former crossed with Zep's musicianship (but utterly lacking Page's innate sense of calculation, which is partly why the JBG aren't "classic rock" radio staples). 1968's "Truth" was of course the template for the Zep debut, but this is something altogether wilder, crazier, a go for broke recording that seems to end violently, suddenly (the tape splice at the end of 'Rice Pudding' famously appropriated by the Beatles on "Abbey Road"). Crank this loud enough, pedal to the floor (Beck's band fits the idea of the guitarist's passion for racing souped up cars) and you might imagine that splice is an inevitable power outtage.
Ok, more in the other "Beck-Ola" reviews, but here's the rub: I'd swear this is cut from a different master from that 2004 (UK) EMI edition, which features the very same bonus tracks. There's a smokey haze in here, a subtle air of containment that gets in the way - this Legacy edition smolders, but it lacks the fire of the EMI, that reaches right out and scorches you through your speakers.(The bonus cuts, all worthwhile, interestingly sound the same - hence my feeling that the UK and US 'original masters' are different. Other indications include the fact that the timings vary by a few seconds on at least a couple songs). The difference is right there on Beck's vicious SKWAAAOW emitted right before Wood's phat bass solo on "Spanish Boots" - he's in the room with you on the EMI.
This is wild, truly "alternative" stuff, the inevitable violent crash was right around the next hairpin turn: "Beck-Ola" was recorded in April '69, the JBG was in pieces by the end of July, Ron and Rod off to the Faces, Hopkins to the Stones and the Airplane, and Beck of course battered and bruised in a real car crash, caused, it is rumored, by a hallucination he experienced in which he BELIEVED Vanilla Fudge was revealed to be rock 'n' roll's great white hope and where his very own destiny lie.
Oh well, click on over and get those two UK Beck Group classics while they last!