Top 10: Jeff Beck Metal Moments

A week has passed since the shocking announcement of Jeff Beck’s passing and we’d be remiss to not pay tribute to this legend. Many young metalheads may question a list of this nature, especially considering Beck’s long-time association with jazz fusion. However, Beck’s metal credibility is undisputable. His raw, feedback-laden guitarwork with The Yardbirds established the band as forerunners of hard rock. This extremity would be taken to another level on early solo outings, many of which are explored on this list, and he’d guest on various hard and heavy releases up until his untimely passing. So without further ado, we’re proud to present our Top 10 Jeff Beck Metal Moments.

10. Jeff Beck Group – “Got the Feeling” (Rough and Ready, 1971)

In his book, Stick It!: My Life of Sex, Drums, and Rock ‘n’ Roll, Carmine Appice credits himself for getting Jeff Beck into jazz fusion: The genre that would becoming the driving force of his solo career from 1975’s Blow by Blow onwards. I’m not sure if I entirely buy that, simply because the third album from Jeff Beck Group, Rough and Ready, features A LOT of jazz rock leanings. It also features a brand new lineup separate from JBG’s first two albums, including R&B vocalist Bobby Tench and drummer extraordinaire Cozy Powell. Perhaps outside influences began to seep their way into Jeff’s heavy rock brew? It’s most certainly possible. Rough and Ready‘s opening track, “Got the Feeling”, coalesces the driving rock energy of JBG’s past efforts with a newfound sense of dynamism through jazzy flourishes. Perhaps one could label it as an early example of “jazz metal”.

9. ZZ Top – “Hey Mr. Millionaire” (XXX, 1998)

What do you get when you combine the steely English axe attack of Jeff Beck with the down-home southern fried Tejas boogie of ZZ Top? A rousing jam session for the ages. Beck and ZZ Top’s blues rock bond goes back decades and is well documented. In fact, the two were touring amphitheaters together as recent as last year! But it’s when these legends got onstage together that sparks really flew. Look no further than the ferocious “Hey Mr. Millionaire”. Beck and the Reverend Willy G (that’s Billy F. Gibbons for the uninitiated) trade riffs and licks like it’s nobody’s business, while the ever trusty rhythm section of Frank Beard and Dusty Hill (R.I.P.) lay down a beat somewhere between a boogie-woogie groove and a traditional metal battering. Do I dance? Headbang? Both? Both, it is!

8. Jeff Beck Group – “Glad All Over” (Jeff Beck Group, 1972)

If there’s one thing Jeff Beck had a knack for, it was taking old blues and rock n’ roll standards and making them his own. Case in point, his rousing rendition of Carl Perkins’ “Glad All Over”. On this rendition, Beck preserves the no frills gusto of the original composition while simultaneously elevating it with his flavorful soloing and an underlying sleazy atmosphere, the latter being extremely ahead of its time for 1972. “Make no doubt about it.”; Aerosmith, KISS, Mötley Crüe, and others were taking notes on this one, and every early JBG release for that matter. These were seriously groundbreaking albums, and while they don’t get the same recognition as say Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, they certainly deserve such.

7. Duff McKagan – “Swamp Song” (Believe in Me, 1993)

The friendship between Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan and Jeff Beck is an unlikely one. It all started in the early 90s when Beck was supposed to guest with GN’R on a date for their record breaking Use Your Illusion Tour. There is video of Beck rehearsing for that evening’s show. Unfortunately, the collaboration between the guitar god and the then reigning kings of hard rock was not to be, thanks to a nasty tinnitus episode Beck suffered before the show. However, this was not the end of the Beck-GN’R connection. Fast forward a year later and Beck guested on not one, but two songs for Duff McKagan’s solo debut, Believe in Me. Those songs are “(Fucked Up) Beyond Belief” and this here track, “Swamp Song”. What can best be described as a tripped out amalgamation of southern rock, doom metal, and punk, “Swamp Song” enthralls the listener with its hypnotic riffing and scorching solo, all courtesy of Mr. Beck.

6. Ozzy Osbourne – “Patient Number 9” (Patient Number 9, 2022)

Despite being nearly 60 years into his career, Jeff Beck showed no signs of slowing down in 2022. In fact, he remained active as ever, releasing a collaborative album with Johnny Depp, embarking on a nationwide tour, and uniting with the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne, for two songs on his Patient Number 9 album. It’s no coincidence the 7 and a half minute title track was released as the album’s first single. It really is the best of both worlds, combining the foreboding unease of Osbourne’s early 80s heyday with the harsh proto-psychedelia of Beck’s Yardbirds years. Just the idea of two certified rock icons uniting to create music in their sunset years is nothing short of incredible. Lucky for us, so is the end result.

5. Beck, Bogert & Appice – “Livin’ Alone” (Beck, Bogert & Appice, 1973)

Fun fact: Jeff Beck was originally slated to be the guitarist for Cactus. This was not to be after a near-fatal car crash in 1969 put Beck temporarily out of commission. Fans did however get the next best thing in 1973, when upon the splintering of Jeff Beck Group and Cactus respectively, Beck united with Cactus’ rhythm section, Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice, to form, you guessed it, Beck, Bogert & Appice. Their sole studio album is an exciting collection of blues, jazz, and R&B based numbers with a 70s hard rock twist. And no track rocks harder on here than the jazz metal boogie of “Livin’ Alone”. It’s not the most sophisticated of songs, lyrically or musically speaking, but it does hit that raw nerve that acts like Raven and Vardis would as part of the NWOBHM roughly 8 years later.

4. Jeff Beck Group – “I Ain’t Superstitious” (Truth, 1968)

I don’t think it sinks in how awful Megadeth’s version of “I Ain’t Superstitious” is until you hear JBG’s version. Doing a juvenile, thrashed up version of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots” was one thing. The lyrics were actually funny, about on par for a gang of meth snorting headbangers, and the original version is objectively lame, especially when you consider The Beatles’ White Album came out the same year, but I digress. “I Ain’t Superstitious”, also released in 1968, is anything BUT lame. There’s an honesty to Stewart’s vocals that ring true to the blues tradition, but it’s Beck’s wah-drenched riffs, quirky guitar noises, and schizo soloing that round this masterpiece out. Move over Megadave!

3. Jeff Beck Group – “Shapes of Things” (Truth, 1968)

I’m sure someone out there on the interweb is getting ready to shame me in the comments for not including any Yardbirds songs on this list, and it would be shame well deserved. I almost included their counterculture anthem, “Shapes of Things”, but it’s Beck’s fuzzed-out, colossally heavy rendition which kicks off his solo debut, Truth, that takes the cake. Sorry, but you’d have to be deaf to say otherwise. The rhythm section is pummeling, young Rod Stewart (future “Sir”) sings his ass off, and in terms of extremity, Beck’s riffs and solos go toe to toe with anything Tony Iommi would be doing just a short while later. To tell the Truth (pun fully intended), it was hard for me to not include the entire album on this list. 55 years on and it’s still as compelling as ever.

2. Jeff Beck Group – “Spanish Boots” (Beck-Ola, 1969)

It wasn’t long after the release of Truth that tensions rose between Beck and the other members of his namesake group, specifically Rod Stewart. As Stewart once famously said, “I loved him. He hated me.” But like the professionals they were, the first incarnation of JBG kept it together for one last hurrah, and aren’t we grateful they did. Beck-Ola is as brilliant of an album as Truth, if not more so in certain aspects. It can really go either way, kind of like Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules, or Melissa and Don’t Break the Oath. Yet no song on Beck-Ola packs the punch of “Spanish Boots”. Arrangement-wise, there isn’t much difference between this song and the likes of Bang, Sir Lord Baltimore, or even Mk. II era Deep Purple. The riffing screams early metal, and the rest of the band fires on all cylinders as well. It’s kind of wild this song didn’t make #1, but alas, there is one Jeff Beck song heavier…

1. Jeff Beck Group – “Let Me Love You” (Truth, 1968)

It doesn’t get much more savage than the thunderous heavy blues of “Let Me Love You”. While Beck’s guitar tone is sludgy throughout the duration of Truth, it’s on here that he kicks it into overdrive, unleashing one skull shattering riff and pulverizing solo after the other. Stewart sings with so much venom that it’s hard to believe he’d be churning out disco sap a decade later. Meanwhile, Ronnie Wood and Micky Waller hold down the rhythm section in almost jazz-like fashion, especially during the teasing mellow bit. Of course, this doesn’t last long, and the band erupts into one more explosive chorus before closing out what is the most metal moment of Jeff Beck’s career: One which encompassed the history of rock n’ roll. May he rest in eternal power.