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Like many rock musicians in the early 1960s, he began his career working as a session guitarist. In 1965, following a gig with the Tridents, Beck was recruited to join the Yardbirds (after Eric Clapton had left the group for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers). It was during his tenure with the Yardbirds that they recorded most of their hits.
Stories about Beck's volatile temper began to circulate early. His perfectionism, coupled with the faulty equipment often in use during the 1960s, led to many stories about his willingness to take out frustrations on his equipment, though not in the form of smashing a guitar. The 1966 movie Blow-up contains a scene where the Yardbirds perform "Stroll On", and Beck becomes so enraged by equipment problems that he smashes his guitar. This scene was staged for the movie, as it was a re-creation of an actual event that director Michelangelo Antonioni witnessed at a concert of The Who.
His time with The Yardbirds was short, allowing Beck only one full album, Roger the Engineer (1966); Beck left after 18 months, partly for health reasons. For a few months he shared the dual-lead guitar role with Jimmy Page.
While on the surface Beck seems to have departed the group because of his health, Jimmy Page, who had been invited into the band in 1966 by Beck himself, tells a different story:
“ It was on that Dick Clark tour — there were a few incidents. One time in the dressing room I walked in and Beck had his guitar up over his head, about to bring it down on Keith Relf’s head, but instead smashed it on the floor,” Jimmy Page recalled years later. “Relf looked at him with total astonishment and Beck said, ‘Why did you make me do that?’ Fucking hell. Everyone said, ‘My goodness gracious, what a funny chap.’ We went back to the hotel and Beck showed me his tonsils, said he wasn’t feeling well and was going to see a doctor. He left for L.A., where we were headed anyway. When we got there, though, we realized that whatever doctor he was claiming to see must’ve had his office in the Whiskey. He was actually seeing his girlfriend, Mary Hughes, and had just used the doctor bit as an excuse to cut out on us. ”
Jeff Beck Group
The following year, after recording the one-off song "Beck's Bolero" (with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins, and Keith Moon), Beck formed a new band called The Jeff Beck Group, which featured him on lead guitar, Rod Stewart on vocals, Ron Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano, and Micky Waller on drums.
The group produced two albums, Truth (August, 1968) and Beck-Ola (June, 1969). Both albums are highly acclaimed, and considered by many critics to have inspired the heavy metal genre.
Truth, released five months before the first Led Zeppelin album, features a cover of "You Shook Me", a song first recorded by Willie Dixon which was also covered on the Led Zeppelin debut. While it sold well (reaching #15 on the Billboard charts) and received great critical praise,[citation needed] Truth did not equal the impact of the release by Page's new band. Beck-Ola while well-received, was less successful both commercially and critically. Resentment, coupled with touring-related incidents, led the group to dissolve.
After the breakup, Beck decided to continue working with Stewart, and team up with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, the rhythm section of the Vanilla Fudge. This project was sidelined when Beck suffered head injuries in a car crash, and left the music scene for over a year. Rod Stewart left to team up with Ron Wood and the Small Faces; and Bogert and Appice formed Cactus instead.
When Beck regained his health, he reformed a band with entirely new members. The new ensemble -- Bob Tench on vocals and guitar, Max Middleton on piano and keyboards, Clive Chaman on bass and Cozy Powell on drums -- although still known as the "Jeff Beck Group" featured a substantially different sound from the first lineup.
For the album Rough and Ready (1971), Beck wrote or co-wrote six of the album's seven tracks (the exception written by pianist Middleton). The album included elements of Soul, Rhythm and Blues and Jazz, foreshadowing the direction Beck's music would take later in the decade.
The follow-up, Jeff Beck Group, (1972) was recorded in Memphis, at the studio used by Booker T. & the M.G.'s; their guitarist, Steve Cropper, produced the album. The album, unsurprisingly, displayed a strong Soul influence. Five of the nine tracks were covers of American artists; one ("I Got To Have A Song") was the first of Beck's four covers of compositions written by Stevie Wonder.
Shortly after this release, Cactus broke up, leaving Bogert and Appice available. Beck dissolved the band in order to achieve his ambition to work with them, forming Beck, Bogert & Appice.
Beck-Ola (Cosa Nostra) was the second full-length LP by Jeff Beck and his backing group. It was released in the U.S. on Epic and in the U.K. on EMI/Columbia.
Released four months before the group's disbanding, it famously boasted that it wasn't anything original, but is nonetheless a fine example of British blues-rock. Featuring five originals by various pairings of band members (with two radically reworked numbers originally done by Elvis Presley filling out the remainder), it continuing the second chapter of Beck's career as a musician (the first being the days before his solo career began).
The album features covers of Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up" and "Jailhouse Rock," a heavy blues rock tune called "Spanish Boots," a piano instrumental called "Girl from Mill Valley," "Plynth (Water down the Drain)","Hangman," and a sizzling power trio instrumental called "Rice Pudding" which concludes the album. There are covers of two Elvis Presley RCA classics on this album: "All Shook Up" and "Jailhouse Rock", from the classic 1957 rock and roll movie starring Elvis Presley.
The album ends abruptly with "Rice Pudding" breaking off in mid-stream. This was a unique novelty of this album. The cover features a painting by surrealist Belgian artist Rene Magritte, The Listening Room from 1952. La Cosa Nostra in the title was Italian for "Our Thing", referring to the term for the Mafia.
The Jeff Beck Group lineup on this album includes Beck on guitar, Rod Stewart on vocals, Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, Ron Wood on bass, and Tony Newman on drums (the previous album featured Mick Waller).
Nicky Hopkins, who had been a sideman on Truth was promoted to a full band member for the album.
It was rumoured that UK versions of the album included a song called "I've Been Drinking Again." However, this song was never released, and is in fact a recording of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," with Rod Stewart's vocal hastily overdubbed (the original vocal can still be heard faintly in spots). "I've Been Drinking Again" was finally released in 1990 on Rod's "Storyteller" boxed set.
Following the release of this album the Jeff Beck Group toured the United States.
The Jeff Beck Group nearly played Woodstock, but internal fights broke up the group. The band is listed on posters promoting the festival. When Jeff Beck next recorded, he had an entirely new group.
* Jeff Beck- guitars
* Ron Wood- bass
* Nicky Hopkins- piano and organ
* Tony Newman- drums
* Rod Stewart- vocals
01. "All Shook Up" (Otis Blackwell-Elvis Presley) – 4:53
02. "Spanish Boots" (Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart and Ron Wood) – 3:37
03. "Girl From Mill Valley" (Nicky Hopkins) – 3:49
04. "Jailhouse Rock" (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) – 3:14
05. "Plynth (Water Down the Drain)" (Nicky Hopkins, Rod Stewart and Ron Wood) – 3:09
06. "The Hangman's Knee" (Jeff Beck, Nicky Hopkins, Tony Newman, Rod Stewart and Ron Wood) – 4:49
07. "Rice Pudding" (Jeff Beck, Nicky Hopkins, Tony Newman and Ron Wood) – 7:22
08. "Sweet Little Angel [Bonus]"
09. "Throw Down a Linel [Bonus]"
10. "All Shook Up [early version] [Bonus]"
11. "Jailhouse Rock [early version] [Bonus]"
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