The Yardbirds (Official Thread)

Hanasían

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Discography


The greatest supergroup that never was... The Yardbirds had many radio hits of the 60's (Heart Full of Soul, For Your Love, Evil Hearted You, Shapes of Things, Over Under Sideways Down), and had three of the best guitarists play for them at one time... Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, & Jimmy Page. Lead vocalist Keith Relf had a distinctive voice and was a chick magnet at live shows, and could play a mean harmonica, but they never reached the level of greatness. That would have to wait for the Peter Grant era, for after he took over management of the band, they morphed into the great Led Zeppelin. I have a video of the song 'I'm Confused' which was done in their later live shows. The vocal arrangement is different than its later version on Led Zeppelin I called Dazed & Confused, but it had Jimmy using the bow on his guitar!

Some of the best jams of the day were the Yardbirds.... Smokestack Lightning, Train-Kept-a-rollin, Lost Woman. Many of these songs were later done by others (Aerosmith doing Train-Kept-a-rollin, James Gang doing Lost Woman) and were made famous by those bands, but still, the Yardbirds hold a special place in my musical library with their depth and different styles.

If you have not heard much of their stuff then I highly recommend giving them a listen. The CD 'Roger the Engineer' is a good one to get.​
 
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AboutAGirl

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Re: The Yardbirds

I love The Yardbirds, they are one of my favorites. (FYI the Yardbirds are the group that got me into Nirvana, seriously.)

They have tons of awesome material but one that I like to point out is the Live Blueswailing 1964 disc. They are jammin' and rockin', it's wonderful. The Yardbirds were the most energized, hardest rockin' group up in history at that point in time, as far as I'm concerned. Or at least they were the best of that category. As much as I love Jeff Beck's wonderful psychadelic stuff and Jimmy's great contributions (and even though the Jeff Beck Yardbirds songs are my favorites) I have to give props to the slick rockin' licks that Clapon laid down in those days. Good stuff.

Keith Relf was a true talent and asset to the music world, I think. His harmonica is incredible and his voice is up there in my all-time favorite category (distinct, unique, energetic, powerful, raw...). He also had a Heavy Metal band in 1975 called Armageddon, they were excellent and fairly innovative.

Oh and about Dazed And Confused - calling it "I'm Confused" just comes from a misprint on an album that supposed got released briefly but then pulled, the song has always been Dazed And Confused. It was originally written by Jake Holmes as an extremely cool "acid folk" song on his 1967 debut album "The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes". The Yardbirds w/ Jimmy started doing the song immediately and the bluesy style of the Zep version originated from the Yardbirds version and alhtough Jake sang slightly different lyrics from Jake Holmes verison, the song wouldn't get full revamping until it was played by Zep were Robert and/or Jimmy rewrote the lyrics to the song. Also I love that Keith did harmonica on the Yardbirds version, although I think Zep's version is way better.
 
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Zombeels

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Re: The Yardbirds

Roger the Engineer is one of the greatest albums of the 60's.
 

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AboutAGirl

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Re: The Yardbirds

I saw the current Yardbirds at blues fest recently and they kicked MAJOR BUTT! It totally rocked my socks off, they were amazing.
 
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FoxyPage

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Re: The Yardbirds

Bumped because The Yardbirds are AWESOME.






 

Foxhound

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Re: The Yardbirds

AboutAGirl said:
I saw the current Yardbirds at blues fest recently and they kicked MAJOR BUTT! It totally rocked my socks off, they were amazing.

I saw that version of the Yardbirds as well at a bluesfest in 2006 and they were fabulous! Chris Dreja on rhythm guitar and Jim McCarty on drums were the only two remaining original members but with the help of the "young" recruits they absolutely nailed all their hits.

One caveat with respect to most of their original material is that it was released in mono - and the fidelity of the recordings is very disappointing on a good stereo. Not so for their BBC Sessions CD though! They nailed their hits at the BBC studios and many/most of them sound better than the original recordings!

The+Yardbirds+-+BBC+Sessions+1965-1968.jpg

:hs:
 

CP/M User

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Re: The Yardbirds

Foxhound wrote:

One caveat with respect to most of their original material is that it was released in mono - and the fidelity of the recordings is very disappointing on a good stereo. Not so for their BBC Sessions CD though! They nailed their hits at the BBC studios and many/most of them sound better than the original recordings!

Yeah the BBC Sessions is a great album, I even enjoyed the alternative lyrics for Smockstack Lightning they did and the alternative version to Shapes of things is also interesting.

Another good album to have in terms of Sound Quality is a earlier version of Their Five Live Yardbirds album - called "Live Blueswailing July '64" which has a couple of other tracks on it.
 

wolfsblood

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Re: The Yardbirds

Actually the sound quality on the Yardbirds most recent remastered compilation double-CD set is outstanding. I still have the old Yardbirds compilation CDs released in 1991 (Smokestack Lightning and Blues Backtracks And Shapes Of Things) which have a lot of great stuff on them.
I highly recommend anyone interested in hearing the Jimmy Page era to seek out a copy of Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page. That's where you'll hear their version of Dazed And Confused. There was a CD from six or seven years ago called Cumular Limit that also had that song and other rarities from Page's stint.
 
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LG

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Re: The Yardbirds

I'll see if I can find a copy of the remastered CD you are talking about Wolf, not a big Yardbirds fan but you all have aroused my curiosity now.:D
 
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FoxyPage

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Re: The Yardbirds

The Yardbirds are one of the very few bands that can change a crapload of members and still rock.
 

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