TRUTH

After his leaving the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck (easily the best of the three legendary guitarists to have played in the group) formed his own unit that appeared as a supergroup, with Smallfaces' Ron Wood on bass, Steampacket's Rod Stewart, Mayall's Aynsley Dunbar on drums and of course himself on guitar. Although the awesome Dunbar would depart soon, replaced by Micky Waller, the group achieved incredible success with a stupendous blues-rock album that is still a reference nowadays. NB: the original plan was for Beck to get together with Vanilla Fudge's bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, but although they talked of it many times and Beck's bad traffic accident, it wouldn't happen until 74.

What can be said about this most definitive power blues-rock album, that hasn't been said 1000 times before? Everyone knows this album was the very reason why Page created Zeppelin and even covered the Willie Dixon tune You Shook Me (prefer the present version). Although beck was a gifted musician, character-wise the man was difficult and probably driven by a solid ego, as can be seen with the good but overdone Beck's Bolero. . Elsewhere the old Yardbirds tune Shapes Of Things is excellent (one might even say that the Yardbirds under Beck's tenure were proto-progressive) and Greensleeves is simply delightful. Morning Dew and Blues Deluxe being my highlights of this album.

While this kind of album is easily recommendable to almost anybody that likes quality music; it really isn't addressed to those that look at the progressive side of music, even if the album was a bit of a groundbreaker back then.