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THE YARDBIRDS
Yardbirds DEMON MUSIC GROUP 8/10
Five studio Yardbirds. The Jeff Beck lineup try to bottle lightning.
By John Robinson
The Yardbirds in 1966: Jim McCarty, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Chris Dreja and Keith Relf
VICTOR CRAWSHAW/MIRRORPIX/GETTY IMAGES)
IT was occasionally said in the distant past that getting on in your career wasn’t so much a question of what you knew as who you knew. It’s a small injustice of the 1960s that The Yardbirds, though having known a thing or two, are indeed still more famed for their storied personnel – their band at separate times included Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page – than for their own recorded output.
Despite the band’s graduates having sold millions of classic rock albums with music rooted in the British blues boom, the body of work on which these careers were built was only intermittently classic. During their brief career (1963-1968), the Yardbirds were predominantly known as a reliable live turn, early manager Giorgio Gomelsky privileging their bookings over their time in the studio. With its re-compilations of singles and US variants, their catalogue, following the not-misleadingly titled Five Live Yardbirds is like their era: headspinning and confusing, and not always in a good way.
The tension between studio and live was something the band brought to their first studio album. Yardbirds singles had shown a willingness to experiment (the Paul Samwell-Smith-produced “For Your Love” from 1965 was musically interesting to the point of alienating Eric Clapton;
SLEEVE NOTES
LP 1 – Yardbirds [Mono Version] Side One :
1. Lost Women
2. Over Under Sideways Down
3. The Nazz Are Blue
4. I Can’t Make Your Way
5. Rack My Mind 6. Farewell Side Two :
1. Hot House Of Omagararshid
2. Jeff’s Boogie 3. He’s Always There
4. Turn Into Earth 5. What DoYou Want 6. Ever Since The World Began LP
2 – Yardbirds [Stereo Version] Seven-inch single Happenings Ten Years Time Ago CD
1 – Yardbirds [Mono Version] CD
2 – Yardbirds [Stereo Version] CD
3 – 1966 Studio Recordings
1. Mr Zero – Keith Relf
2. Knowing – Keith Relf
3. Hot House Of Omagararshid / (Alternate Mono Mix)
4. He’s Always There (Alternate Stereo Mix)
5. Turn Into Earth (Early Mix)
6. Turn Into Earth (Vocal Track)
7. Turn Into Earth (Alternate Stereo Mix)
8. Ever Since The World Began (Vocal Track)
9. I Can’t Make Your Way (Alternate Stereo Mix)
10. Great Shakes Commercial (Version 1)
11. Great Shakes Commercial (Version 2)
12. Shapes In My Mind (Version 1) – Keith Relf
13. Shapes In My Mind (Version 2) – Keith Relf
14. Happenings Ten Years Time Ago
15. Psycho Daisies
16. Stroll On