THE YARDBIRDS - The Yardbirds Glimpses (1963-1968) 2011 5CD Boxset FLAC

THE YARDBIRDS - The Yardbirds Glimpses (1963-1968) 2011 5CD Boxset

Five years in the making an Official box set of rarities and unheard material. It also documents the bands transition from RnB stalwarts in the beginning into the Pop world and ultimately on to more experimental sounds and lastly to become a type of blueprint for what was to become Led Zeppelin. Features the most complete set of BBC recordings fully Re-Mastered. Includes material featuring all three of the Yardbirds legendary guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck & Jimmy Page. An in depth 30 page booklet features unpublished photographs as well as liner notes by respected British Music Journalist Mark Paytress as well as notes by compiler and author of Yardbirds book Rave Up Greg Russo.

*Some tracks are so rare that the sound is a bit rough, so please bear with the slight dropouts and other weird stuff that can't be fixed in the sake of preserving history*



The Yardbirds Glimpses (1963-1968) 2011 5CD Boxset



Disc One 1963-1964 (79:55)

01 - Honey In Your Hips (Jones Studios alternate take)

02 - Baby What's Wrong (Jones Studios)

03 - Eric Clapton (interview)

04 - I Wish You Would (Jones Studios)

05 - You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover (Jones Studios demo)

06 - Jim McCarty (interview)

07 - Louise (UK 19640405)

08 - Eric Clapton (interview)

09 - Someone To Love Me (Marquee, London 19640807)

10 - Too Much Monkey Business (Marquee, London 19640807)

11 - I Got Love If You Want It (Marquee, London 19640807)

12 - Smokestack Lightning (Marquee, London 19640807)

13 - Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (Marquee, London 19640807)

14 - Respectable (Marquee, London 19640807)

15 - The Sky Is Crying (Marquee, London 19640807)

16 - Eric Clapton (interview)

17 - I Wish You Would

18 - Chris Dreja (interview)

19 - I'm A Man

20 - Someone To Love Me (Re-edit Marquee, London 19640807)

21 - Boom Boom (Richmond 19640809)

22 - I'm A Man (Richmond 19640809)

23 - Little Queenie (Richmond 19640809)

24 - Too Much Monkey Business (Richmond 19640809)

25 - Respectable (Richmond 19640809)

26 - Carol (Richmond 19640809)

27 - Here 'Tis (Richmond 19640809)

28 - Jim McCarty (interview)



Disc Two 1965 (76:43)

01 - Evil Hearted You (with Keith Relf intro - BBC 650927)

02 - Keith Relf (interview)

03 - Heart Full of Soul (BBC 650601)

04 - Chris Dreja (interview)

05 - I Ain't Done Wrong (BBC 650703)

06 - Jim McCarty (interview)

07 - Smokestack Lightning (full version - BBC 651116)

08 - You're A Better Man Than I + interview (BBC 651116)

09 - The Train Kept A-Rollin' (BBC 651116)

10 - Jim McCarty (interview)

11 - I'm Not Talking (UK Radio 650316)

12 - Keith Relf (interview)

13 - I'm A Man (UK Radio 650409)

14 - Keith Relf (interview)

15 - Jeff's Boogie (UK Radio 650609)

16 - Keith Relf (interview)

17 - Steeled Blues (UK Radio 650601)

18 - Louise (UK Radio 650604)

19 - Keith Relf (interview)

20 - I Wish You Would (UK Radio 650806)

21 - Love Me Like I Love You (UK Radio 650809)

22 - The Stumble (UK Radio 650927)

23 - Paul Samwell-Smith (interview)

24 - You're A Better Man Than I (live)

25 - The Train Kept A-Rollin' (live)

26 - Chris Dreja (interview)

27 - I've Been Trying (UK Radio 650609)

28 - Shapes of Things + interview (US Radio)

29 - Paul Samwell-Smith (interview)

30 - For Your Love (live - long version)

31 - My Girl Sloopy (live - long version)

32 - I Wish You Would (live)

33 - I Wish You Would (live on Dutch TV - fragment)

34 - MacLeans (advert)



Disc Three 1965-1966 (76:56)

01 - Happenings Ten Years Time Ago

02 - Keith Relf (interview)

03 - Psycho Daisies

04 - Stroll On (with soundtrack coda)

05 - Chris Dreja (interview)

06 - Great Shakes (advert)

07 - I Wish You Would (US Radio 1965)

08 - I'm A Man (US Radio 1965)

09 - The Train Kept A-Rollin' (live France 1966)

10 - Over Under Sideways Down (live France 1966)

11 - Shapes of Things (live France 1966)

12 - He's Always There (stereo-mono composite)

13 - Turn Into Earth (stereo-mono composite)

14 - I Can't Make Your Way (stereo-mono composite)

15 - I'm A Man (US Radio 1965)

16 - For Your Love (US Radio 1965)

17 - Heart Full of Soul (US Radio 1965)

18 - I Wish You Would (live Paris 1965)

19 - Jim McCarty (interview)

20 - Questa Volta (live San Remo 1966)

21 - Pafff... Bum (live San Remo 1966)

22 - Chris Dreja (interview)

23 - The Train Kept A-Rollin' (live Wembley 1966)

24 - Shapes of Things (live Wembley 1966)

25 - Jim McCarty (interview)

26 - Jimmy Page (interview)

27 - Jeff's Boogie (UK Radio 660506)

28 - You're A Better Man Than I (live England 1966)

29 - Keith Relf & Jeff Beck interview Ravi Shankar (660608)

30 - Shapes of Things (live Paris 1966)

31 - Jim McCarty (interview)

32 - Jim McCarty (interview)

33 - Chris Dreja (interview)

34 - I'm Not Talking (UK Radio 650604)

35 - Heart Full of Soul (UK Radio 650609)

36 - Spoonful (UK Radio 650409)

37 - Bottle Up And Go (UK Radio 650409)

38 - All The Pretty Little Horses (Hushabye - UK Radio 650409)

39 - Jeff Beck (interview)



Disc Four 1967-1968 (74:50)

01 - Shapes of Things (670315_Stadthalle Offenbach)

02 - Happenings Ten Years Time Ago (670315_Stadthalle Offenbach)

03 - Over Under Sideways Down (670315_Stadthalle Offenbach)

04 - I'm A Man (670315_Stadthalle Offenbach)

05 - Chris Dreja (interview)

06 - Shapes of Things (670407_Konserthuset Stockholm)

07 - Heart Full of Soul (670407_Konserthuset Stockholm)

08 - You're A Better Man Than I (670407_Konserthuset Stockholm)

09 - Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)(670407_Konserthuset Stockholm

10 - Over Under Sideways Down (670407_Konserthuset Stockholm)

11 - Little Games (670407_Konserthuset Stockholm)

12 - My Baby (670407_Konserthuset Stockholm)

13 - I'm A Man (670407_Konserthuset Stockholm)

14 - Chris Dreja (interview)

15 - The Train Kept A-Rollin' (670309_Bouton Rouge Paris)

16 - Dazed And Confused (670309_Bouton Rouge Paris)

17 - Goodnight Sweet Josephine (670309_Bouton Rouge Paris)

18 - Glimpses (sound effects)

19 - The In Sound (US Army Radio Programme 1967)

20 - Chris Dreja (interview)

21 - Think About It (rough mix)

22 - Jimmy Page (interview)

23 - Dazed And Confused (live in England 1968)



Disc Five BBC Radio One (77:53)

01 - I Ain't Got You (BBC 650322)

02 - For Your Love + Keith Relf interview (BBC 650322)

03 - I'm Not Talking (BBC 650322)

04 - I Wish You Would (BBC 650601)

05 - Too Much Monkey Business (BBC 650806)

06 - Love Me Like I Love You (650806)

07 - I'm A Man (BBC 650806)

08 - Still I'm Sad + Paul Samwell-Smith interview (650927)

09 - My Girl Sloopy (BBC 650927 - full version)

10 - Keith Relf interview (BBC 660228)

11 - Shapes of Things (BBC 660228)

12 - You're A Better Man Than I (BBC 660228)

13 - Dust My Broom (BBC 660228)

14 - Baby, Scratch My Back + Keith Relf interview (BBC 660506

15 - Over Under Sideways Down (BBC 660506)

16 - The Sun Is Shining (BBC 660506 - full version)

17 - Shapes of Things (BBC 660506)

18 - Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)(BBC 67031

19 - Little Games (BBC 670317)

20 - Drinking Muddy Water (BBC 670317)

21 - Think About It (BBC 680316)

22 - Jimmy Page interview + Goodnight Sweet Josephine (BBC 68

23 - My Baby (BBC 680316)

24 - White Summer (BBC 680305-06)

25 - Dazed And Confused (BBC 680305-06)

26 - Think About It (BBC 680305-06)



Review:

The Yardbirds' "Glimpses 1963-1968"

THE STASH DAUBER

(RANTS OF AN UNRECONSTRUCTED MUSIC GEEK)

Saturday, December 24, 2011



As I've written elsewhere on this blog, I've been a Yardbirds obsessive for decades, and owned their catalog in myriad forms over the years. Still, I was excited to hear that Carlton Sandercock's Easy Action Records was putting together a multi-disc Yardbirds compilation. His old label, New Millennium, had released two estimable Yardbirds collections: Where the Action Is (1997), a compilation of recordings made for British and Swedish radio, and Cumular Limit (2000), which brought to light a bunch of hitherto unheard live and studio tracks from the band's Jimmy Page era. (Full disclosure: I've written liner notes for two Easy Action releases.)



Five years in the making, Glimpses 1963-1968 is an impressive achievement and a must for Yardbirds completists. Sumptuously packaged, as is Easy Action's wont, it comes in a 7-inch box like the ones they used to use for 45 rpm vinyl albums back in antiquity (I particularly remember the Broadway cast of My Fair Lady that my sister used to like to spin when we were kids). Inside are five CDs, a vinyl 45, some replica gig flyers (one of which advertises a show where the Pretty Things were billed over the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds!) and a booklet containing lots of photos (uncaptioned) and two sets of liner notes, by compiler and Yardbirds: The Ultimate Rave Up author Greg Russo and Mojo scribe Mark Paytress. The emphasis is on live and broadcast recordings, including some that were taped off-air. Interview snippets with band members give the discs a nice audio verite feel, but don't detract from the listening experience.



Disc One covers the years 1963-64, when Eric Clapton was the Yardbirds' lead guitarist -- my least favorite period, but Keith Relf's favorite. Their early demos, which were released on vinyl 7-inches in the '70s, are pretty sedate-sounding, except for "You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover," which captures some of the raucous excitement that the band was capable of live.



The seven tracks that Castle released as Live Blueswailing in 2003 are here, with upgraded sound. Recorded at London's Marquee Club in August 1964 -- a month after the Five Live Yardbirds LP -- the performances and especially the recording quality compare favorably with that historic set, with the rhythm section clearly audible in noticeably improved fidelity. Relf's stage patter while Clapton tunes includes an amusing discourse on the Yardbirds' equipment woes. Easy Action has included a re-edit of the aborted "Someone To Love Me" -- a song the Yardbirds didn't record in the studio until Clapton was out of the band, and wound up recasting into "Lost Woman" -- from that date, that makes it sound complete.



Versions of "Louise" and "I Wish You Would" from a Peter, Paul & Mary (!) TV show in April '64 are on a comparable level, technically and performance-wise. Rawer sounding but even more revealing are seven tracks taken from the Yardbirds' energetic performance at the 1964 National Jazz & Blues Festival, with Mick O'Neill fronting the band in place of an ailing Relf, highlighted by an aggressively assured "Boom Boom." A storming "I'm A Man" from the Crawdaddy in Richmond, July '64, is similarly ragged-but-right sonically.



The Jeff Beck years are well represented by the second and third discs. Disc Two, covering 1965, has the gold: six tracks recorded for the BBC, and another nine from "lost" UK radio sessions. A version of "Smokestack Lightning" from 16 November has a tape splice in the middle which appends a home-recorded segment to the BBC's master tape, but it's worthwhile to hear how this piece had evolved since the Five Live Yardbirds version. Several musical devices heard here -- the bass line, the bolero riddim under the solos, the modified rave-up crescendo that concludes the instrumental jam -- would later reappear in "How Many More Times" on the first Led Zeppelin album, so Jimmy Page was clearly paying attention. The Yardbirds had a relatively small repertoire, so you get to hear multiple versions of many tunes; "You're A Better Man Than I" from the same 16 November session and "Train Kept A-Rollin'" from a different November broadcast are the ones to beat.



Beck's playing at this early stage in his career is brilliant -- fiery and risk-taking -- in contrast with Clapton's during his Yardbirds tenure, when his style was still developing. Beck particularly shines on the June takes of "Jeff's Boogie" and "Steeled Blues." "Love Me Like I Love You" from 9 August wipes the floor with the version released on BBC Sessions, and Freddie King's "The Stumble" is welcome because it's never been heard on disc before. "I've Been Trying" is a Curtis Mayfield number that gets an inspired reading from Relf & Co., in marked contrast to other recorded forays they made into vocal R&B (cf. "Sweet Music").



You can hear how much the Yardbirds' popularity had grown in a year by the teenage girls' screams that practically obliterate their 1965 National Blues & Jazz Festival performance, which was broadcast in the U.S. on Shindig and is viewable on Youtube. They wore striped short-sleeve shirts like the Beach Boys, and played "My Girl Sloopy," their version of the McCoys' "Hang On Sloopy." So much for blues purism.



Disc Three covers 1965-66, and it's a mixed bag, starting off with the complete released output of the dual-lead Beck-Page lineup: "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago," its B-side "Psycho Daisies" (with Page on bass), and "Stroll On" ("Train Kept A-Rollin'" with new words) from the Blow-Up soundtrack. Three Youtube-viewable tracks from the Music Hall de France also feature Page on bass.



There are three alternate versions of tracks from the Roger the Engineer album. "He's Always There" and "Turn Into Earth" are hybrids of the mono and stereo mixes to provide the most complete versions possible. To these feedback-scorched ears, the lead guitar on the latter seems fainter than on my stereo vinyl version, but the alternate "I Can't Make Your Way" remedies the muddiness of the original track. I wish Easy Action had included "Lost Woman" and especially "Hot House of Omagarashid" (for Beck's _insane_ guitar solo), but the liner notes inform us that it wasn't possible to remaster those tracks because they used phasing.



The live performances of the two songs the Yardbirds performed at the 1966 "Festival of Italian Songs" in San Remo are superior to the studio versions, since they include some recognizable Yardbird gambits (Beck introduces "Questa Volta" with a stolen Buddy Guy riff!), but they're still kind of embarrassing. Two songs from the 1966 NME Poll Winners concert will be familiar to Youtube viewers, who'll have to imagine Beck sliding across the stage to turn on the fuzz box with his hand before the solo on "Shapes of Things." Another unreleased UK radio broadcast from 9 April 1965 yielded previously unheard versions of "Spoonful," "Bottle Up and Go," and a solo Relf take on the folk song "All the Pretty Little Horses (Hushabye)."



Disc Four documents the 1967-68 Jimmy Page era. The four tracks from March 1967 (the German Beat Beat Beat TV show) previously appeared on the now-unavailable Cumular Limit. One wishes the post-Little Games studio tracks from that set could have made it onto Glimpses; as is, we only get the sound of Relf talking through a wah-wah pedal that closed the Little Games track "Glimpses." Between the eight tracks recorded in Stockholm in April 1967 (which made up the second disc of New Millennium's Where the Action Is) and three from France the previous month, you get most of the set -- minus the overdubbed bullfight cheers -- that the Yardbirds played during their 1968 Anderson Theater performance which Epic released and quickly withdrew in 1971.



Disc Five contains a remastered version of the BBC sessions as previously released by New Millennium, Warner, and Repertoire, with four tracks that appear on Disc Two supplanted by three from March '68 and an interview with Relf.



At 55 bucks American, Glimpses is certainly a considered purchase, but one worth making if you're into Yardbirds obscurities -- if for no other reason than the knowledge that Easy Action always pays its artists (unlike, say, Castle). While Easy Action's website warns prospective buyers off Glimpses if they're expecting high end audiophile sound, do any Yardbirds fans really care about that? Even if you already own BBC Sessions and Live Blueswailing, there's enough top-notch material on Glimpses that's otherwise unavailable on disc to make it a worthwhile investment. For a comprehensive survey of the Yardbirds' entire live trajectory, this is the place to go.