The guitarist Jeff Beck had a band, a studio and a finished set of tapes, and the label hated what it heard. Epic Records, the American imprint set to release his work, listened to the recordings from Island Studios in London and complained about one thing above all: the singing. On October 25, 1971, the third Jeff Beck Group album, Rough and Ready, finally appeared with a different vocalist, a new producer credit and a sound with a stronger jazz, soul and rhythm-and-blues influence.
A new lineup at Island Studios
This was not the group that had made Beck-Ola. In April 1970, Beck reformed The Jeff Beck Group around keyboardist Max Middleton, drummer Cozy Powell, bassist Clive Chaman and singer Alex Ligertwood. Sessions began that same month at Island Studios, with producer Jimmy Miller, known for his work with Traffic and The Rolling Stones, involved in the project. The musicians concentrated on Beck's songs, especially a composition called Situation with lyrics by Ligertwood.
By May 1971 the tapes were ready enough for Epic to hear. The reaction was blunt: the vocals did not satisfy the label. Beck had already left RAK and signed with CBS, and Epic, a CBS subsidiary, was supposed to put out his records. Instead of fighting for the singer he had, Beck started looking for a new one.
Bobby Tench joins the group
The stranger was Bobby Tench. Late in May 1971 Beck heard Tench performing with the band Gass and invited him into the group. He had only a few weeks to come up with fresh lyrics and lay down his vocal parts. Early in July, the group went back to Island Studios to complete the record, with Beck now handling production on his own. Rough and Ready is the first of two albums by the second Jeff Beck Group, and it carries more Beck compositions than any other record he made.
The new lineup left its mark on the music. Max Middleton's keyboards appear on a Jeff Beck Group album for the first time, and the rhythm section of Cozy Powell and Clive Chaman gives the songs a looser, more soulful feel. The album's genre has been described as hard rock and jazz fusion. Beck's own writing dominates, and the record moves between groove-heavy tracks and instrumental passages that show a band learning what it could do together.
Chart positions and a US tour
The album reached the United States in February 1972, and the group followed it with a sixteen-day promotional tour. In the American chart, Rough and Ready climbed to number 46 on the Billboard 200. That was not a triumph, but it kept Beck's name in front of rock audiences at a moment when he was rebuilding his reputation after the first Jeff Beck Group had fallen apart. It reached number 35 in Canada on the RPM chart and number 56 in Japan on the Oricon chart.
Critics heard an album that was better performed than written. The Rolling Stone reviewer Stephen Davis called Rough and Ready an unexpected and good piece of work. Robert Christgau of the Village Voice was less kind, dismissing Tench's singing as pretentious and the songs as tiresome. The split reaction captured the record's strange position: a guitarist's album that gained a new singer only weeks before the sessions resumed. NME critic Roy Carr felt the playing on the record was stronger than the songs themselves. In the Pazz & Jop critics' poll, Rough and Ready placed 23rd among the best albums of 1971.
The split reaction captured the record's strange position: a guitarist's album that gained a new singer only weeks before the sessions resumed.
Rough and Ready endures as a turning point because Beck responded to the label's complaint by changing singers. He changed singers, took control of the production and delivered an album that carried the jazz and soul influence that marked the second Jeff Beck Group. The original Epic release carried catalogue number KE-30973, and the record has been reissued on CD several times since. The album has been reissued on CD several times, including editions in 1990, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
The first side of the original vinyl opens with Got the Feeling, then Situation, Short Business and Max's Tune. On early American pressings, Max's Tune appeared as Raynes Park Blues and was credited to Beck. The second side holds I've Been Used, New Ways / Train Train and Jody. The record that Epic once refused to endorse became the foundation of Beck's second great band.