American labels knew how to recycle product in the ‘60s, and since a few months had gone by since the last album, Epic decided to release a greatest hits set by the Yardbirds. It’s only half an hour long, as were a lot of albums back then, but it really does cover their hits to date. It includes two songs from the first album, four songs from Having A Rave-Up, and only “Over Under Sideways Down” from that album. New to LP in the states were the previous year’s stellar single “Shapes Of Things” and its B-side “New York City Blues” (which opens with the same riff Jimmy Page would cop for “You Shook Me”, adding insult to Jeff Beck’s injury, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves), plus “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago”, which means the album includes performances by all three of the band’s soon-to-be-legendary lead guitarists.
Three years later, once each of those lead guitarists had become household names in households that listened to FM radio, Epic issued a double album with the inspired title Featuring Performances By Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page. With 20 songs coming in at just under an hour, it repeated nothing from the hits album—which had covered pretty much all of the songs that qualified as actual hits—and scrambled deep tracks from all the American albums in no understandable sequence, seesawing from blues to experimental. Several paragraphs of liner notes bemoaned the band’s commercial failures, but didn’t bother to detail which albums begat which songs, nor which of the performances featured which guitarist, even though each had an instrumental all to themselves. The bizarre cover art was typical of the era, and the same designer would get to work on another related project ere long.
Both of these compilations would go out of print by the end of the ‘70s, and because the masters were owned by different managers depending on who produced what, licensing would continue to be wonky, and shoddy rehashes abounded overseas. Then, in 1986, the Rhino made good on their original brief to restore music to the masses with a hits collection with the hopeful title of Volume One. This set concentrated on the Giorgio Gomelsky era, with began with Clapton and covered the first two American albums, including two further tracks from Five Live Yardbirds. It did a fine job of presenting them as blues interpreters, but the contents predated some of Beck’s innovations.
While a second volume never materialized, Rhino did score a coup in the new century with Ultimate! This was another apt title, as it crammed two CDs full of just about everything, starting with their first demos, through four tracks from Five Live Yardbirds, most of the three American albums, and all key singles and B-sides, plus a rare Italian single and three fey Keith Relf solo sides. Attention to detail ensured liner notes and comprehensive discographical information, including recording dates, locations, and even engineers; who knew Eddy Offord, Roy Halee, and even Bones Howe taped this band?
This, too, is out of print, but luckily in the digital era it’s possible to stream most of the music. The original albums are out there, along with various grey-area live performances. And of course, the BBC. After scoring the rights to Roger The Engineer, Warner Archives followed another ‘90s catalog trend with the 1997 release of BBC Sessions for the first time in the US after a few years floating around elsewhere. This set presented 26 tracks from the Beck and Page eras, complete with interview snippets from the usual clipped-voiced deejays and a few tunes that never made it to wax. This too became scarce, until 2024 brought The Ultimate Live At The BBC—they sure like that adjective—box of four discs.
The Yardbirds The Yardbirds’ Greatest Hits (1967)—4
The Yardbirds Featuring Performances By Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page (1970)—3½
The Yardbirds Greatest Hits, Volume One (1964-1966) (1986)—3½
The Yardbirds Ultimate! (2001)—4
Current CD availability: none
ReplyDeleteI hit the jackpot when I found a German import of “Greatest Hits,” which I believe was out of print in the U.S.A. Besides the ten original tracks, this version added four more songs – the two A-sides which preceded “For Your Love” on Side 1; with “You're a Better Man Than I" and "Evil Hearted You" on Side 2. (The Eric Clapton boxed set, incidentally, included all the studio material he did with them, including the three demos from 1963. “Honey in Your Hips”, with lyrics by Relf, is especially silly).
Random thoughts:
There are reasons why the band wasn’t as successful as their peers. One reason, like the original Moody Blues, is that they weren’t prolific with releases or with songwriting. Another is they weren’t very well recorded, even by the standards of the time. The earliest stuff by The Beatles, The Stones and The Animals sounded much better. They improved somewhat as time went along. Even so, a comparison of “Roger the Engineer” with the first Jeff Beck and Led Zeppelin albums, which came out within 2½ years, further indicates that they just had the wrong producers.The biggest reason, however, was Keith Relf. He was just a mediocre singer. He wasn’t as authentic as singing “black” as Mick Jagger or Eric Burdon, had none of Burdon’s power nor the range of Lennon nor McCartney. He did have an energetic stage presence, but that couldn’t be seen on vinyl. He would finally develop into a better vocalist when he co-founded Renaissance, whose music was much more suited to his voice. Ironically, he would then be overshadowed by his sister.
I also find it ironic that Clapton rejected “For Your Love”, since “Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl” sounds pretty poppy to me, with those lyrics about going to hop and the soda shop. Yet, there’s something slightly lascivious about it too. “A Certain Girl” is a rather goofy novelty song. I suppose that Eric found them more acceptable because the songs were performed by African-Americans.
With only six American hits to speak of, the compilers made some perplexing, non-single choices to fill out the album. Good choices, but perplexing. “Smokestack Lightning” is the highlight of “Five Live..”. They got a very good groove going. Moody Blues drummer Graeme Edge: “We weren’t really sure what smokestack lightning was”. Neither, I suspect, were the Yardbirds.
“I’m Not Talking” was another great obscurity. It was quite a surprise when I heard The Bangles (!) cover it live in 1984, with Michael Steele singing lead vocals. On the other hand, “New York City Blues” is the tedious low point. Relf ripped off some blues classic and added incredibly lame high-schooler lyrics that didn’t convince anybody. “Motorpsycho Nitemare”, this ain’t.
Of their three Graham Gouldman songs, “Evil Hearted You” is the weakest. Mainly because of the lyrics. Who would address somebody that way? Beck’s guitar skittering through the track helps, as it does on “You’re a Better Man Than I”. They probably thought they had come up with their own “Turn, Turn, Turn” with this one. Not with the lyrics, however well intentioned (“Say the colour of his skin/is the colour of his soul?” Highly cringeable.).
With their last three A-sides with Beck, they crested and hit their absolute peak with their most brilliant song, “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago”. Their 1967 and 1968 material was uneven, but it did have its moments. However, A-sides like “Little Games”, “Ha! Ha! Said the Clown” (first done by Manfred Mann) and Nilsson’s “Ten Little Indians” (which played horribly back then, never mind now) were bound to doom them. A shame, but we do have their finest recordings, and they all went on to do great things, of course.