Up against the wall, in other words…
And, on my first hearing, if the riff and the vocal attack didn't pin me to the wall, Beck's two-part solo certainly did.
There's no mucking around on the second track, a Buddy Guy & Junior Wells cover, either. Let Me Love You mightn't have the whammo riff to start off, but as soon as Stewart's finished the first line there's Beck back in full nail the listener to the wall mode.
The tempo drops on track three, Tim Rose's Morning Dew. There are skirling bagpipes as Stewart starts the request to walk me out in the morning dew, my honey but Beck's there lurking behind the vocal line, restrained but punctuating the vocal line with bursts of effects pedal enhanced notes, dropping back to the same melody line that started it off.
Willie Dixon's You Shook Me is up next, two and a bit minutes of straight-ahead twelve bar that ends with Beck's guitar having an attack of the up and unders (that's from the liner notes, by the way, and not the product of Hughesy's fevered imagination).
Over the years I've had a lot of fun with Side One's concluding Ol' Man River. Moody organ from Zep's John Paul Jones over a walking bass line and timpani from You Know Who leads into Stewart's fairly straight (still soulful, but pretty straight) rendition of the lyrics. Beck's guitar contributions are limited to single notes punctuating the vocal as the timpani rolls thunder somewhere over towards the horizon.
Over the years, as stated, keeping the cover carefully concealed, I'd slip the album into the player, select track five and ask some unsuspecting guest to guess the identity of the singer.