JEFF BECK & THE BIG TOWN PLAYBOYS: CRAZY LEGS

Although he found fame in The Yardbirds and made a name for himself in the 1970s as a jazz-fusion guitar god, JEFF BECK was the restless type and never stuck to any particular musical genre for more than a few albums. In the 80s he briefly went new wave before emerging as a blues rock legend again. After a bizarre ambient soundtrack collaboration with Jed Lieber titled "Frankie's House," BECK surprised the world again by releasing a cover album of rockabilly songs from the 1950s.

Credited as JEFF BECK & THE BIG TOWN PLAYBOYS, BECK collaborated with a six-piece British rock and roll revival group the BIG TOWN PLAYBOYS that has been together since the early 1980s. Somewhat of another odd duck in BECK's discography, this one titled CRAZY LEGS after a Gene Vincent and HIs Blue Caps single is an entire album dedicated to Gene Vincent and his early guitarist Cliff Gallup who was BECK's primary influence as a guitar player.

CRAZY LEGS features 18 tracks but considering no track even hits the 3-minute mark, the album is a standard classic album's worth of material at under 41 minutes. Gallup's tenure with Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps was short and only recorded 35 tracks with the group so the track list on CRAZY LEGS was plucked from a mere nine recording sessions in 1956 but for whatever reason BECK didn't cover Vincent's biggest hit of all the 1956 US top 10 hit "Be-Bop-A-Lula."

This is one of those unadulterated tributes where the band doesn't take any liberties to deviate from the originals not even a tiny bit making the album sound as if it were a legit recording mined from the 1950s. Likewise there are no clear indicators that this is a JEFF BECK album other than by name as BECK remains faithful to Gallup's stylistic approach. Overall this is too faithful to be of much interest for JEFF BECK fans but albums like this are usually released to make the fans aware of an artist and not with the intent to outdo their primary influencers.

As an album worth of rockabilly this is a decent album but not something i would choose to listen to a second time. While i do love early rock and roll and rockabilly i'd rather experience music from the actual era including an authentic Gene Vincent album rather than hear a cover band retread the past. I can understand why BECK would want to cast a light on Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps considering they never experienced the popularity of other artists of the era however i doubt even many BECK fans will lose any sleep if they sit this one out.