Truth (1968)

Some years ago, after I wrote about the first Led Zeppelin album, someone dropped by and left the following comment: "Gotta admit, I loved this album the first time I heard it - when it was called Truth, by the Jeff Beck Group." This was intriguing. I knew Beck and Jimmy Page both spent time in the Yardbirds but I hadn't realized there were such invidious distinctions to be made between them, with Beck as the genuine article (and/or first to it) and Page the talentless commercial copycat, or so I read the implication. Of course, most of Zepp's various plagiarism lawsuits speak for themselves. But it's not as if Beck and company are so much above that particular fray, with two songs here credited to Willie Dixon (same as Led Zeppelin) and three to "Jeffrey Rod" (that's Beck and Stewart, respectively), with "reworkings of previous blues songs" (it says in Wikipedia). I mostly missed Jeff Beck's early albums in their day and didn't really catch up with him until the mid-'70s and Blow by Blow and Wired, which are closer to jazz fusion. I liked them very much. It's interesting to circle back finally. Plainly I missed a lot. Truth is not only Beck's first solo album, but also a big break for Ron Wood and Rod Stewart (or Sir Roderick David Stewart, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, as he is known now). I've never known what to make of Rod Stewart. In general, his voice is so singular it calls too much attention to itself for me. It can be effective at evoking a certain melancholy with remarkable resonance, e.g., most famously, "Maggie May," but a little of that can go a long way (and radio gave us a lot of it).

Within parameters, he always sounds the same. On Truth he sounds like Rod Stewart, with all his future history which we now know, in front of a blues jam, which works as well as anything, kind of, although the most melancholy track here is an instrumental, the traditional "Greensleeves." If that commenter intended a one-on-one comparison it does raise interesting questions. Who is the better singer, Robert Plant or Rod Stewart? Who is the better songwriter / band leader / guitar player, Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page? Of course, these things are easily muddied. That's Jimmy Page himself, and John Paul Jones for that matter, on one of the best tracks here, "Beck's Bolero." Jones is on other tracks too, and not just playing bass. Yet, whatever the reason, I can't concede Truth as the superior album to Led Zeppelin—Led Zeppelin's whole mood is not only more coherent, but operating on higher levels generally (keywords: dazed and confused). Truth is a bit tentative and patched together, uncertain of its direction and confecting a few different ones: the production polish of instrumental novelties like "Beck's Bolero" and "Greensleeves" (which come to think of it look forward to Blow by Blow), the spaces for Rod Stewart to ham it up and preen (notably the show tune "Ol' Man River," which unfortunately never fails to remind me of a Stan Freberg sketch) (note that no show tune appears on Led Zeppelin), and finally, my favorite, the longer bluesy rock band workouts. They are the longest tracks here, "Blues Deluxe" (by Jeffrey Rod) and "I Ain't Superstitious" (by Willie Dixon). My answer to my first question above, by the way, is Robert Plant, flaws and all. I just always hear too much of the ridiculous in Sir Rodney and really like only one or two early albums and some of the disco singles. The second question is not as easy, but I lean toward Beck. Certainly he is more lyrical and wide-ranging than Page as a guitar player, and perfectly capable of matching the power. From "Greensleeves" to "Blues Deluxe," Truth is a hodgepodge. But an interesting one with some great moments.

Rod Stewart, "Gasoline Alley" (1970)

(listen)

This has long been a favorite for me by Rod Stewart, even for this period, which I have to admit, exhaustion notwithstanding, on the two albums Gasoline Alley and Every Picture Tells a Story it all pretty much comes in shades of excellence. We know that because people have been shouty about it for better than 40 years and also the radio bludgeoning. I don't have much to add except agreement. It may not amount to some of the outsize things people falling all over themselves have claimed for it (and him). And it may not sound as fresh as it once did—it definitely fits now with a lot of stuff recorded 1968-1972 as sounding exactly as if it were recorded 1968-1972. Maybe that's the exhaustion from the overexposure talking, but I don't think so. At the same time, it sounds positively ancient, built on an eerie vibration more apt to be found somewhere strange like a cemetery in the middle of the night. Much of that resides in the sound of Stewart's singing voice, the grain of it. But all hands know what they're doing here, and that goes for Stewart too. He's blessed with this voice, but he knows how to use it. The result is profoundly yet indeterminately authentic, conjuring impressions of Irish immigrants in the Midwest, field workers in the 19th-century South, mountain men in the Rockies in the 1840s, the Jesse James gang, so on and so forth. It's extraordinary—I seem to be falling all over myself. And I think the tension still works. Where once this confounded by sounding impossibly fresh and ancient, now the effect is achieved by sounding just a little dated (1968-1972) and impossibly ancient. This is a good trick to have in your bag.

Gasoline Alley (1970)

OK all right no getting around it we're going to have to caveat Rod Stewart to death here. First, on the general critical storm and his supposed fall from Olympian heights of the awthentic: I don't get it. I happen to like "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy" (and not just for the spelling of "do") more than knights of the realm Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh, et al. At the same time, Rod Stewart is closer to the end than the front of a very long line of standard-bearers I intend to get to one fine day, well behind Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Billy Eckstine, Ray Charles, James Brown, yeah yeah Sinatra, etc., etc., and as a matter of fact even behind Linda Ronstadt. (Ahead of Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Eddie Fisher, however.) Long story short: I haven't got to that yet and may never. And then the Faces -- or is it just "Faces" (and what is up with that?)? They remain among the enduring mysteries of the genre for me. The knights of the realm seem to rank most of their releases as indispensable/essential but to date practically all of it has escaped me, with or without Rod Stewart. Except for "Itchycoo Park" -- which for that matter the knights don't seem to like much either. And finally, as good as I find just about everything about the follow-up Every Picture Tells a Story, I have to say that it appears to have unfortunately lost its appeal to me permanently, particularly the flagship "Maggie May," thanks to the weapon of classic rock radio bludgeon. As with "Stairway to Heaven" and Led Zeppelin IV I may never hear any of it with pleasure again. My loss, I know. And so, all that said and my apologies for going on about it, this here is a really great album. Everything about it, everything, is just right.