The Jeff Beck Group - Throw Down a Line - Non-Album Tracks (1967-1969)

A few weeks back, I posted an album of the Jeff Beck Group playing at the BBC for the few years that Rod Stewart was the lead singer of the band. I'm particularly interested in that time, so here are all the quality stray tracks I could find from the same period.

The Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart are known for two classic albums, "Truth" in 1968 and "Beck-Ola" in 1969. Before that though, there were three singles in 1967: "Hi Ho Silver Lining," "Tallyman," and "Love Is Blue." They were all minor hits in Britain, especially "Hi Ho Silver Lining," which made the top twenty twice, once in 1967 and again in 1972. Beck actually sang lead vocals on "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and "Tallyman," which was an oddity for him, since he almost never did that for the rest of his long career. 

The singles were credited to "Jeff Beck" instead of "The Jeff Beck Group," because the band was still coalescing. But various band members were usually involved, especially with each succeeding single. Stewart even sang backing vocals on the first one, "Hi Ho Silver Lining," and lead vocals on the second B-side, "I've Been Drinking "Drinking Again)." 

There was an especially notable and different group of musicians who played on the instrumental "Beck's Bolero," though, which was actually recorded in 1966. In addition to Beck, there was Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones (future members of Led Zeppelin) and Keith Moon (a member of the Who), and the well-known session player Nicky Hopkins. I've included it here even though it was also on the album "Truth" because the album version is edited and remixed.

The sixth through eighth songs are ones the band rarely played in concert. Don't be deceived by the title "Oh Pretty Woman." This is not the classic Roy Orbison hit. (That has a comma in the name after the "Oh.") Instead, it's a blues song by Albert King. "Jeff's Boogie" was originally done by the Yardbirds when Beck was a member of that band. "(You Make me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" is the classic soul song made famous by Aretha Franklin, but this is an instrumental version that highlights Nicky Hopkins' keyboard skills. For all of these, I removed the audience response as best I could so they'd fit in with the studio tracks.

The song "Throw Down a Line" was considered for the A-side of a single in 1969, but was never released, maybe because the band was breaking up by then. It and "Sweet Little Angel" (a B. B. King song) only came out decades later as bonus tracks.

Speaking of bonus tracks, I have four of my own here. These are all different versions of songs on the "Truth" and "Beck-Ola" albums, and eventually appeared as bonus tracks to those albums. I've included them because they're often quite different. 

This album is 39 minutes long, not including the four bonus tracks.

01 Hi Ho Silver Lining (Jeff Beck Group)
02 Beck's Bolero [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck Group)
03 Tallyman (Jeff Beck Group)
04 Love Is Blue (Jeff Beck Group)
05 I've Been Drinking [Drinking Again] (Jeff Beck Group)
06 Oh Pretty Woman (Jeff Beck Group)
07 Jeff's Boogie [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck Group)
08 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck Group)
09 Throw Down a Line (Jeff Beck Group)
10 Sweet Little Angel (Jeff Beck Group)

All Shook Up [Early Version] (Jeff Beck Group)
Blues Deluxe [Gambler's Blues] [Early Version] (Jeff Beck Group)
Jailhouse Rock [Early Version] (Jeff Beck Group)
You Shook Me [Early Version] (Jeff Beck Group)

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The album cover art was a collaboration between PJ of his "Albums I Wish Existed" blog and myself. PJ made the original version using a black and white photo of Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck I'd suggested for him (due to a lack of good color photos from that time period). Then he colorized it using the Pixbim program. Later,  I made some improvements in Photoshop, mainly by fixing the colors of the clothes, which didn't look right. Also, the record company logo in the top left corner is the same as the one on at least some versions of the "Truth" album.