Jeff Beck - 1991 "Beckology" [3 CD Box]

Beckology by guitarist Jeff Beck was released in 1991 as a 3 CD career retrospective. Beckology covers the work of a guitarist widely acknowledged as one of the most influential and gifted exponents of the electric guitar, from early days with The Tridents through to his Guitar Shop album in 1989.

• Volume 1 includes previously unreleased tracks from The Tridents, earthy mono recordings of Yardbirds classics like "Steeled Blues" and "Heart Full of Soul", four tracks from a Yardbirds BBC session, and Jeff's first solo single sides.

• Volume 2 covers both incarnations of The Jeff Beck Group which each released two albums and finishes with Beck, Bogert and Appice tunes. Highlights here include the reworking of the Yardbirds' "Shapes of Things" with Rod Stewart on vocals, the driving "Plynth", the beautiful guitar work on "Definitely Maybe" and the reworking of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition".

• Volume 3 tracks through what the sleeve notes call the "instrumental era" of the 1970s with tracks from the jazzy Blow by Blow and the acclaimed George Martin produced Wired albums. There is a live performance of "Freeway Jam" from 1977 with Jan Hammer, with whom Jeff had been touring and collaborated with as most recently as 2004, before concluding at the 1980s with Flash tracks like "People Get Ready" and Guitar Shop tracks like "Big Block" and "Where Were You".

A 60-page booklet comes with the album, and includes a biography by Gene Santoro.

This triple-CD set -- obviously modeled after the four-CD Eric Clapton Crossroads box -- was the first attempt to survey Jeff Beck's entire career. In actual fact, that would be a hopeless task, given the amount of anonymous session work that the guitarist did circa 1964-1966, but Beckology still manages to touch a few unexpected bases, even as it strings together all of the obvious and most of the important sides in Beck's output. Disc one opens with the most alluring part of the entire set, three demo tracks left behind by Beck's 1963-1965 group, the Tridents; the first official releases by this band are of far more than academic interest, presenting a first-rate blues/R&B outfit supercharged by Beck's guitar and Ray Cook's drumming, doing killer Jimmy Reed and Bo Diddley material, and even showing off Beck's prowess as a singer. The next 15 tracks represent the core of the Yardbirds' output during Beck's tenure, which lasted from March of 1965 through the summer of 1966 -- anything here could justify a place on a Yardbirds best-of set; the makers have rounded this disc out with four live cuts by the band from the BBC archives, including Beck's extraordinary homage to Elmore James' guitar playing on "The Sun Is Shining" and the unheralded group original "Love Me Like I Love You", and finish the platter with Beck's first three solo single sides, two of which, "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and "Tally Man," comprise the guitarist's brief, achingly beautiful virtuoso digression into trippy psychedelic pop, before he broke through to the more fertile field of what came to be known as heavy metal. Disc two is all of that, made up of the core of his output with the Jeff Beck Group and Beck Bogert & Appice, the latter filled out with a pair of previously unissued tracks: a live version of "Blues Deluxe/BBA Boogie" and "Jizz Whizz." Disc three skips across Beck's instrumental sides off of Blow by Blow, Wired, and There and Back and his tour with the Jan Hammer Group from the later 1970s, and wraps up with ten songs from Flash and Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop, sandwiching some key odd singles and Beck's contributions to the soundtracks of the movies Twins and Porky's Revenge. There are flaws in this set, to be sure; originally conceived as a four-disc retrospective, it was reduced to three, over Beck's wishes that some proposed cuts be omitted and Sony Music's timidity over the sales prospect of the four-CD set. But it is a good package within those boundaries, with fairly thorough annotation accompanied by great photos and a Pete Frame family tree, and, above all, excellent tape research -- not only were the right masters (i.e., the mono masters) used on "Hot House of Omagarashid" and "Lost Woman," but this is also the only CD package to combine the Yardbirds' 1965 catalog material with their 1966 tracks (owned by separate parties who will not get together). The mastering of it all is so clean that it put most of the older versions of this material to shame at the time. 

This is a CD spanning Jeff Beck's entire career. It starts with the Tridents and goes all the way through Jeff Beck's guitar shop.
As you probably know Jeff Beck was with the Yardbirds and later in the Jeff Beck Group along with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood.
He also was with Beck, Bogart and Appice and another formation of the Jeff Beck Group with a different cast.
With Blow By Blow in the early 70's he started his instrumental phase which he continues to this day.
Beck has always been known but never in the forefront.
You get all the classic Yardbirds hits like Heart Full of Soul, I'm a Man, Shapes of Things,Over Under Sideways Down and Happenings Ten Years Ago.
You also get his classics with Rod Stewart including Jailhouse Rock, Plynth (water down the drain) among others.
And his work with BB&A including Superstition, Black Cat Moan.
You also get his instrumental era including Cause We Ended As Lovers,Freeway Jam, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, Love is Green and the Pump from There and Back.
Also included is his duet with Rod Stewart, People Get Ready, a killer version of Sleep Walk, Big Block and Where Were You.
This is an Anthology that any Jeff Beck fan should not be without.

Track Listings:

Disc: 1
1. Trouble In Mind - The Tridents
2. Nursery Rhyme (Live) - The Tridents
3. Wandering Man Blues - The Tridents
4. Steeled Blues - The Yardbirds
5. Heart Full Of Soul - The Yardbirds
6. I'm Not Talking - The Yardbirds
7. I Ain't Done Wrong - The Yardbirds
8. The Train Kept A-Rollin' - The Yardbirds
9. I'm A Man - The Yardbirds
10. Shapes Of Things - The Yardbirds
11. Over Under Sideways Down - The Yardbirds
12. Happenings Ten Years Time Ago - The Yardbirds
13. Hot House Of Omagarashid - The Yardbirds
14. Lost Woman - The Yardbirds
15. Rock My Mind - The Yardbirds
16. The Nazz Are Blue - The Yardbirds
17. Psycho Daisies - The Yardbirds
18. Jeff's Boogie - The Yardbirds
19. Too Much Monkey Business (Live) - The Yardbirds
20. The Sun Is Shining (Live) - The Yardbirds
21. You're A Better Man Than I (Live) - The Yardbirds
22. Love Me Like I Love You (Live) - The Yardbirds
23. Hi Ho Silver Lining - Jeff Beck
24. Tally Man - Jeff Beck
25. Beck's Bolero - Jeff Beck

Disc: 2
1. Shapes Of Things - Jeff Beck Group
2. I Ain't Superstitious - Jeff Beck Group
3. Rock My Plimsoul - Jeff Beck Group
4. Jailhouse Rock - Jeff Beck Group
5. Plynth (Water Down The Drain) - Jeff Beck Group
6. Drinking Again - Jeff Beck Group
7. Definitely Maybe - Jeff Beck Group
8. New Ways Train Train - Jeff Beck Group
9. Going Down - Jeff Beck Group
10. I Can't Give Back The Love I Feel For You - Jeff Beck Group
11. Superstition - Beck, Bogert, Appice
12. Black Cat Moan (Live) - Beck, Bogert, Appice
13. Blues Deluxe/BBA Boogie (Live) - Beck, Bogert, Appice
14. Jizz Whiz - Beck, Bogert, Appice

Disc: 3
1. Cause We've Ended As Lovers - Jeff Beck
2. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat - Jeff Beck
3. Love Is Green - Jeff Beck
4. Diamond Dust - Jeff Beck
5. Freeway Jam (Live) - Jeff Beck
6. The Pump - Jeff Beck
7. People Get Ready - Jeff Beck & Rod Stewart
8. Escape - Jeff Beck
9. Gets Us All In The End - Jeff Beck
10. Back On The Street - Jeff Beck
11. Wild Thing - Jeff Beck
12. The Train Kept A-Rollin' - Jeff Beck
13. Sleep Walk - Jeff Beck
14. The Stumble - Jeff Beck
15. Big Block - Jeff Beck
16. Where Were You - Jeff Beck