Dear Nathaniel,
Hello again my love, I'm sorry I'm late tonight but I'm still not sleeping properly and it's just getting later and later so I need to fix that and maybe write to you before I go to bed in the morning, but I don't know. As long as I write to you when I can every day. It's getting really hard now, I thought it would start to get easier soon but it's just getting worse. I think it's going to get a lot more difficult before it starts to get easier, but at least I'll always have the memory of you to keep me strong.
I love you so much, and that love just increases every day I'm able to reflect on your time with us. I miss you my angel Nathaniel.
I thought it may as well be time to start a little theme going continuing the 60's exploration, since we did the Yardbirds yesterday and talked at length about their guitarists I decided to play some Jeff Beck tonight. This is his first album as part of the Jeff Beck group with two then mostly unknown musicians destined for great success. These were of course Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart, the former replaced Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones in the mid seventies and Rod Steward has been commercially successful for decades in various bands and his own solo career.
Success always seems to follow Jeff Beck, just not in the way he'd wanted I suppose. Although this album was a pretty big hit in the States reach 15th on the Billboard 200 Jeff Beck was never able to make a big enough splash to be remembered outside of fans of the era and great guitarists. Despite this Jeff Beck has always been incredibly influential, this album is considered yet another move towards hard rock and metal.
Beck doesn't bring anything new to the table in the form of songs, his innovation however was in the delivery of the guitar and Rod Stewart's fitting vocals. Listening to this album now you can see the definite link between more standard blues and the heavier rock albums that were released in the 70's. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones once again appear on this album as well, Jimmy Page playing guitar on Beck's Bolero and JPJ contributing a lot to the album as a whole. Another familiar face is brilliant Who drummer Keith Moon who drums on Beck's Bolero too.
This whole album as a whole is a great mishmash of material that Beck was obviously wanting to release to showcase his guitar playing. Beck wasn't exactly ready to write completely new material himself yet which is what I find quite intriguing about his short lived band. Of course the compositions of the new songs make them almost completely unique but there's still a feeling of caution. Either way it makes for an interesting experience, I love the huge guitars and vocal performance on Ol' Man River.
There are times when I feel at peace with everything that's happened, but those moments are so fleeting they do nothing but confuse me as to what I'm supposed to do. I sometimes find it hard to know what to say to you here and in general, it's just strange. Because I had always wanted to teach you and tell you everything like this so I suppose it's alright to just get lost in the music discourse. Either way I hope you understand why I write like I write my angel.
With Beck's Bolero you really do get the sense that hard rock has been born, even though this album was released in 1968 this song was recorded in May 1966 and at the time was probably the heaviest thing ever recorded. I can't wait to introduce you further to the heavier side of rock music. Probably after we get some more of a progressive rock fix I'm guessing, but for now we'll be sticking with the 60's.
I was thinking further exploring Eric Clapton's career after he left the Yardbirds tomorrow, and maybe the day after that as well as he contributed a lot to the overall 1960's guitar sound with his work with with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers and then with Cream and Blind Faith.
But that's all for today, as I bid you yet another late goodnight. I hope you sleep well my sweet angel Nathaniel. I love you, now and forever.
Love from Dad.
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