The album Jeff Beck wanted to erase from existence
All guitarists looking to expand the horizons of the instrument will be forever cursed to sound like Jeff Beck.
He never flaunted himself as one of the best guitarists or bandleaders in the world, but he knew that he could find the right noise that he wanted whenever he strapped on his guitar. Not everything may have been the most commercially-friendly song in the world, but Beck could tell when he had a classic on his hands and which records should have been left by the wayside.
Considering where he had come from, though, it makes sense why Beck needed to break out of his shell. The Yardbirds weren’t treating him well with their attempts to go pop, and even if it was a steady gig, it wasn’t long before Beck started following the lead of Eric Clapton and left the group to focus on his own music.
But if ‘Slowhand’ was working towards being a blues purist half the time, Beck wanted to go beyond the blues altogether. Truth at least had the makings of bluesy tunes and was helped along by Rod Stewart’s soulful croon, but as soon as he began working on albums like Blow By Blow and Wired something had changed. For the longest time, the guitar had been an excuse for people to solo, but Beck wanted to make the kind of melodies that made people react the same way that a singer would.
Somewhere in between both eras of his career came albums like Rough and Ready. At that point, Stewart was quickly becoming a massive star that needed to branch out on his own, and while Beck did have some great players along for the ride this time around, it was always going to be a little bit of a downgrade compared to what he was doing on his version of ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’.
If there’s one strength that this band has, though, it’s Cozy Powell. The sheer power that he had behind the drumkit would have been enough for any major metal band of the time, and while it does give a lot of songs the punch they need, having them transition into heavy territory so soon was always going to be a bit much, especially since Jimmy Page had started doing the same thing in Led Zeppelin.
While Beck was always insanely critical of his work, he remembered thinking that Rough and Ready never needed to happen, saying, “That was a mistake. I was just recovering from a car crash. It wasn’t severe, no brain damage or anything, and I wasn’t incapacitated for more than about three months, but going back into a room full of people playing loud noises was a horrible experience. And I never realised I was being coerced into playing songs that I wouldn’t be looking at normally. I just wish that album would go away. Awful.”
Then again, it did at least set the template for what he would be doing one album later. Max Middleton is already accounted for on keyboards, and since they were doing one of his tunes on the track ‘Max’s Tune’, the building blocks were being laid down for when he started wailing away on Blow By Blow a few albums down the road.
Rough and Ready is far from the worst record by any stretch, but judging by Beck’s track record, it’s a classic case of an album being released at the wrong time. Any band could build a career off of playing this kind of progressive blues, but Beck knew that if he wanted to explore other sonic avenues, he couldn’t have one sound holding him back.
