JEFF BECK'S GUITAR SHOP (WITH TERRY BOZZIO AND TONY HYMAS)

JEFF BECK started the 1980s with his last gasp of his jazz-fusion days, made a mid-80s dip into the world of new wave / pop rock and ended the decade with something entirely new! After the head scratching move to release "Flash" which pretty much alienated long time fans and utterly failed at landing the next album that would topple Elvis Costello's career, BECK sensibly wrote that off as a quirky experiment and moved on. Next stop? The blues, baby! Yeah ole JEFFY boy was coming full circle so to speak not only by revisiting the blues based hard rock that launched him to fame with The Yardbirds and also as a solo artist but also BECK wisely retreated back to the world of instrumental music. The result was the 1989 release JEFF BECK'S GUITAR SHOP which by the way has to be one of the coolest guitar oriented album covers EVER!

While "Flash" hosted an army of guest musicians cranking out the rockin' the synthpop gone wild, GUITAR SHOP whittles it all down to a mere trio. Of course, BECK is the star on the guitar and man does he tear it up on this album. Tony Hymas makes a reprise on keyboards along with bass pedals (no real bassist on board with this one) and new to the BECK universe is none other than Terry Bozzio of Frank Zappa, UK and Missing Persons fame. The nine tracks on GUITAR SHOP were primarily written by all three members with only a couple finding Bozzio stepping out of the office. This album seems to have been designed to remind fans that JEFF BECK is still the guitar god that graced the world with albums like "Blow By Blow" and "Wired." While the jazz-fusion was pretty much jettisoned, BECK delivers some fiery biting blues guitar performances with slinkin' slide antics and quirky masterful ways of making blues modern and fun again. It's actually not fair to say the jazz aspects had been totally thrown out. Interesting chord progressions that point to BECK's former self but admittedly were buried beneath the burgeoning heft of bluesy hard rock bravado.

The opening title track immediately screams "the genius is back" with a stealthy blues groove that allows BECK to rip out some freaky alternative blues licks that tell you that the mojo has returned after a lengthy absence. While the album is primarily instrumental on the title track and "Day In The House" drummer Terry Bozzio offers some hilarious spoken word contributions. This is an album where all three musicians are firing on all pistons with strong diverse composiitons and fiery in-sync performances that offer some of the best material in the BECK canon since "Wired." While gritty bluesy guitar licks provide the canvas upon which to paint, the colors of the palette are many and creative new life is breathed into every track on GUITAR SHOP. "Behind The Veil" showcase some reggae rhythms while "Where Were You" offers an airy molasses slow guitar sliding performance in full on the clouds dreamland mode.

And then some tracks like "Stand On It" just simply rock the house in a Stevie Ray Vaughan or Kenny Wayne Shepherd bluesy rockin' way albeit sans vocals. If the music itself wasn't cool enough, the engineering, production and mixing are top notch making this a truly Epic release (haha Epic was the record label). Really the entire album experience just screams "cool cats with tasty chops in the house!" Even some bizarre experimental funk moments seep in as heard on the intro of "Day In The House" which with Bozzio's frantic spoken word dialogue brings a bit of the Talking Heads to mind but no new wave imitating on this album as the album keeps the bluesy motifs at the core of the entire album's run making this one of the most consistently entertaining albums from BECK since his masterwork "Blow By Blow."

For jazz-fusionists who were stuck in the 70s, this probably won't scratch the itch but for those willing to move on to the new JEFF BECK paradigm, this one will make you feel like you've just heard a modern hard rock update of Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign," well at least the instrumental version of it! This album did marginally well and hit the top 50 on the Billboard charts but the icing on the cake was BECK's award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 1990 Grammy's. Personally this is my favorite JEFF BECK album after the essential 2-pack of "Blow By Blow" and "Wired."