Denver - Music - Listen Up - westword.com

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Jeff Beck, Truth (Epic). The tsunami that was Jeff Beck's Truth provided the sonic template for all heavy music to follow -- most obviously Led Zeppelin.

The ten original tracks and bonuses on this re-release illuminate not only Beck's incendiary talent, but also his visionary assemblage of a band of future mega-stars for its recording. -- Mark Bliesener Gladys Knight, Before Me (Verve Music Group). Gladys Knight's assured vocal command, in combination with the power of a fully horned jazz orchestra, validates the timelessness of great pop craftsmanship.

Gladys takes no risks here, though: Even her ad-libs sound rehearsed. This is the one to play when your boss comes over for dinner. -- Tom Taylor Sean Lennon, Friendly Fire (Capitol).

No-longer-so-young Sean isn't driven by the urge to best his father in the rock-star sweepstakes -- and that's a good thing. Fire, his first CD in eight years, may frustrate listeners expecting urgency. But this tuneful, ornate song cycle will reward those who are in no more of a hurry than he is.

-- Roberts Stanton Moore Trio, III (Telarc). Drummer Stanton Moore plumbs deep Bonham bottom end on this explosive collection of acid-jazz grenades. Think instrumental Led Zeppelin gone Hammond B-3 bonkers, courtesy of Robert Walter's virtuosic organ tapestries.

Will Bernard's raspy Jimmy Page-like slide guitar on "When the Levee Breaks" and the trio's hard-bop fury on "Chilock" and "Licorice" make the album worth III gold bars. Dwight Yoakam, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.

(Rhino). Expanded and remastered, Guitars includes a second disc that finds Yoakam deep in his Bakersfield roots, alongside the Babylonian Cowboys in a performance recorded at L.A.

's Roxy. No one squeezes honky-tonk juice out of June Carter's "Ring of Fire" and Hank Sr.'s "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It" quite as convincingly as Yoakam.