Beck-Ola [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

Jeff Beck, The Jeff Beck Group | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 4, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00004U2G3
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #303,432 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. All Shook Up

2. Spanish Boots

3. Girl from Mill Valley

4. Jailhouse Rock

5. Plynth (Water Down the Drain)

6. The Hangman's Knee

7. Rice Pudding

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fine follow-up to "Truth", July 11, 2000

By A Customer

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

Though not as great as "Truth," this album offers some additional evidence for the Jeff Beck case. "Plynth" is a fantastic song which is also the only one to make it onto the "Best of Beck" compilation. Following on the blues format with a bit more experimentation this time, Beck provided the world with his last blues based effort before embarking on his myriad musical explorations. Keeping the same lineup as "Truth," this album shows Rod Stewart gaining in confidence. "Beck-Ola" and it's predecesor both have very Beck-like liner notes, and this one's is unapologetic. The emphasis is on heavy music and creative covers and this album excels at both. If you can find this coupled with "Truth" you would be wise to snatch it up and add it to your collection.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Among Beck's Best, January 1, 2001

By 

Steve Vrana (Aurora, NE) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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

A year after their debut "Truth," a revamped Jeff Beck Group (Tony Newman replaced Mickey Waller on drums and guest musician Nicky Hopkins is now a fulltime member) released their second and final album "Beck-Ola" in 1969.

This time out instead of reworking blues songs by the likes of Willie Dixon, there are only two covers--both of them from the Elvis Presley songbook. "All Shook Up" isn't terribly inspired, but their version of "Jailhouse Rock" can at least boil water.

Of the originals, Hopkins' "Girl from Mill Valley" is a pleasant enough instrumental featuring the famed session player's piano skills. The two highlights, though, are "Plynth" and the seven-minute-plus instrumental "Rice Pudding."

While this remastered CD boasts excellent sound, I wish they would have expanded the booklet. There is no band history, no photos and the only information on the songs is the running time and songwriters--and that's printed only on the disc.

Shortly after the album's release, Ron Wood and Rod Stewart would leave to join the Faces, and a car crash would keep Beck from recording again until 1971's "Rough and Ready." Of the relatively small handfull of albums Beck has released in the last 30-plus years, "Beck-Ola" is one of his best. RECOMMENDED

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Truth About Beck-Ola (or something like it), October 10, 2007

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 (Audio CD)

Not long ago I saw a promo sticker on Jeff Beck's "Truth" CD along the lines of "The Birth of Heavy Metal." Not quite, Mr. West Coast Under-Assistant Promotion Man. This album, fits that ridiculous tag line better than Truth, although there's really just a hint of it. "Truth" was heavily blues-based (duh, it had "Ain't Superstitious" among its songs), while this cuts a truer rock path. On some cuts, it plays Beck's monstrously powerful licks against a more straightforward rock groove. The bass and drums are more thunderous, and while Mr. Flash offers tasty blues-styled solos ("Spanish Boots"), he also mixes these with a more power-oriented stance (e.g., the later part of ... "Spanish Boots").

"Girl from Mill Valley" ("aye, that a lovely toon," Beck would have commented had this been on "Truth") features a heavily gospel keyboard, with some cheaply inspiration chord progressions (Why does Beck always bring out the rood boy in me? He's an inspiration, that's why). Nice for a movie soundtrack maybe, but it's really just one long crescendo with no apparent direction and very little guitar. Maybe it's a comment on Mill Valley, I don't know. "JAILHOUSE ROCK" is a welcome relief. The heavily miked Stewart slurs the words just this side of incomprehensibility (as he should), and Beck powers through with just a SICK precursor of shredding precursor,and dear Nicky Hopkins goes nuts on the piano. Think heavy distortion, rollicking over-the-top destructo-sensation, and you get part of the alcohol-soaked feeling of this producers' fun house.

Perhaps the only song that really fits the heavy metal scheme is "PLYNTH (Water Down the Drain)." A heavy and insistent beat drives the opening, but Jeff Beck seems incapable of turning in a simple or unlayered song. His solos' starts and stops are funky strokes that transcend the opening metal sense. Stewart's vocal and the rhythm section seem like early metal, but Beck resists. Overall, like, "Spanish Boots," a great song.

Can't say the same for the tedious, indulgent, "The Hangman's Knee," though. Stewart's voice has a fairly straightforward musical path (not many changes in volume or inflection), and he begins to sound--yes-- grating. There's just not that much interesting here, even Beck's slide sounds conventional. This one should have been left off.

The closer is "Rice Pudding," one of my favorite songs (for a while, at least) when I first heard it in 1969. It's also got a great power riff, but the experiments begin early. Interesting percussive and guitar effects, tempo shifts, and you can almost hear Beck teasing, building the sound. The bass is a little plodding at times, and the solos aren't as kick-ass as "Truth," but at 7:22 minutes Beck mostly does an excellent job of keeping our interest high. (There's more than a hint of his jazz fusion days to come. A little more than midway though, he slows things down, with two dubbed guitars intertwined, and Hopkins throws in some of those Stevie Winwood like "inspirational chords" that were overdone in "Girl From Mill Valley." This interlude, while necessary (it leads to the return of the main theme), is also too long. Beck brings it on home in the conclusion (though here his guitar is too submerged), although, once again, the BITE that's one of the hallmarks of "Truth" isn't quite there. TRUTH be told, this one isn't as good, but it has enough great moments that fans will want to play it...LOUD, of course.