IN JULY 29, 1968, Jeff Beck, along with a kick-around vocalist, a future Rolling Stone and a drummer with a lot of bash released Truth. The album was a miracle of fury and berserk beauty, a testament to the jaw-dropping chops of a 24-year-old guitarist who, over the course of 10 tracks and around 40 minutes, ran the gamut from electric blues and modified R&B to psychedelically influenced rock, classical and even a little heavy-metal instrumentalism. With Truth, released just months before Led Zeppelin’s debut — and with songs and personnel in common — the core band of Beck, singer Rod Stewart, bassist Ronnie Wood and drummer Mickey Waller made an album that would become every guitar player’s bible and every hard rock band’s Holy Grail.
But Beck would laugh at such grandiose observations. For the guitarist, the moment had come for
