The Yardbirds' first LP, "Five Live Yardbirds," was recorded on this date in 1964 at the Marquee Club in London. The band started as an even blusier alternative to the Rolling Stones (who had vacated the Marquee ahead of the Yardbirds), and ended up as a footnote. I place the blame on a poor recorded legacy, not enough Top 40 hits, and then (later) an over-reliance on straying from blues/psychedelia in order to go "pop." Most people say that was an outgrowth of coming under the thumb of pop producer Mickie Most. It could also be that there weren't any consistently strong songwriters in the band, and the fact that singer Keith Relf (RIP) didn't have the swagger of his contemporaries. The Rolling Stones started in the exact same circumstances as The 'Birds, but manager Andrew Oldham pushed them to write songs, Mick Jagger DID have swagger, and the band also benefited from the wild audible pallet of Brian Jones.
Still, The Yardbirds deserved better, not just because of their succession of great guitarists (Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page) but also because they did make some very memorable music. The finest collection is Rhino's 2001 double-CD, Ultimate!
The band's discography is a mess thanks to years of slipshod reissues, plus wildly different US and UK releases (something that was common of many 1960s groups). Plus, there are tons of singles and a couple UK EPs that weren't collected on albums back then. The best stuff is on "Ultimate!," which also includes every A- and B-side from 1963-68. For the LPs, there's Five Live Yardbirds (1964, UK-only), For Your Love (1965, US-only), Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds (1965, US-only; side two is made up of tracks from "Five Live Yardbirds"), Yardbirds aka Roger the Engineer (1966, released in the US with two tracks removed as "Over Under Sideways Down"), "Little Games" (1967). There's also a US Greatest Hits album, which is quite good but inessential.
On "Ultimate!," about half the songs from these LPs are included...
Five Live Yardbirds: 4/10 tracks
For Your Love: 8/11
Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds: 8/10
Roger the Engineer: 10/12
Little Games: 6/10
The original studio LPs are tough to find -- US or UK -- in any condition. The UK pressings are at least decent (being done by EMI/Columbia), but the American ones (by Epic) are uniformly bad. Here's the songs from each LP that aren't on "Ultimate!"
FOR YOUR LOVE
"Putty (In Your Hands)"
"Sweet Music"
"My Girl Sloopy"
HAVING A RAVE UP
"Respectable" and "I'm a Man," which are actually both on "Five Live Yardbirds"
ROGER THE ENGINEER
"Farewell"
"Ever Since the World Began"
NOTE: When RTE became the US "Over Under Sideways Down," it lost two cuts: "The Nazz Are Blue" and "Rack My Mind." Additionally, this is a good space to mention the mono/stereo debate, alternate cuts and mixes, etc... I can't concern myself with that here, or this blog entry will need a blog site of its own. Most of the Yardbirds' material is best heard in mono, and that's usually what they went with on "Ultimate!" If you're using this guide to collect the original LPs, it seems that the mono RTE is the best way to hear these tunes both for fidelity AND because there are longer versions of some songs.
LITTLE GAMES
"Smile on Me"
"Glimpses"
"Stealing Stealing"
"Little Soldier Boy"
So as you can see, only nine tracks are missing from "Ultimate!" from the band's main studio releases. The compilation also includes "Stroll On" (an updated remake of "Train Kept A-Rollin'"), which is the only song they contributed to the soundtrack for "Blow-Up" (Herbie Hancock performed the rest of the soundtrack).
If "Ultimate!" isn't enough, and you must have all the best tracks, and you can't spend $$$ on original, marginal-sounding LPs, it might actually be worth getting the out-of-print CD reissues of this material...
"Five Live Yardbirds" has been issued (sometimes with bonus live cuts) by several labels. Some are quasi-legal imports, but the sound was never great to begin with. Pricey but finadble.
"For Your Love" and "Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds" both got excellent reissues with lots of bonus tracks (on Castle/Repertoire) around 2000. Also pricey, but findable.
"Roger the Engineer" has been reissued by Warner Archives -- in the preferable mono -- with two bonus cuts: the 45 "Psycho Daisies" and "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago." Findable and not pricey.
"Little Games" was issued with lots of bonus cuts as a two-CD set ("Little Games Sessions and More") by EMI in 1992, and again (one disk, fewer bonus tracks) in 1996. Findable and semi-pricey.
So, instead of buying "Ultimate!," there's the option of gathering those five reissue CDs, which include everything on "Ultimate!" except the 1966 Keith Relf solo single, "Knowing"/"Mr. Zero" and the a-side of its followup, "Shapes in My Mind." (The b-side, "Blue Sands," is MIA).
That's two options: a pricey 2-CD set, or five really pricey single CDs. Oh, you want more?
There are six widely released live albums, some of dubious origin, none sounding very good (except the BBC disk):
-Live Yardbirds! Featuring Jimmy Page (New York, 1968)
-London 1963 – The First Recordings! (live recordings/demo, 1963)
-Yardbirds ...On Air (BBC sessions)
-Sonny Boy Williamson and the Yardbirds (1963)
-Live! Blueswailing July '64
-Cumular Limit (2000)--reissue of NYC 1968? Includes four live songs from 1967 German TV
There's also another compilation that does some of what "Ultimate!" attempts, but concentrating only on the Giorgio Gomelsky years (1963-66): "Train Kept A-Rollin'–The Complete Giorgio Gomelsky Productions," released in 1993, and reissued in 2002 as "The Yardbirds Story"
Oh, wait, you wanted vinyl? Yikes... as mentioned above, it's pricey and tough to find and usually sounds bad. Your best bet may be to grab the US "Greatest Hits" or perhaps the 1977 Charly Records double-LP compilation, "Shapes of Things." That's also the title of a 1984 Charly Records 7-LP compilation! I'm guessing that's a little more comprehensive, though I don't know if either compilation goes beyond 1966 (meaning some great "Little Games"-era material is missing).
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