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 collaborating.
A 60-page booklet comes with the album, and includes a biography by
Gene Santoro.
Allmusic gave an enthusiastically positive review of the set, asserting that the mastering quality is far superior to any previous release while applauding the selection of material: "to survey Jeff Beck's entire career […] 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."[1]