The Yardbirds
Epic BN 26177
1965
This was the Yardbirds' second American album and has no British equivalent being cobbled together from singles, unreleased tracks as well as four cuts from their British debut album "Five Live Yardbirds." It was probably puzzling to the original buyers. There are two versions of "I'm a Man" and side one sounds very different from side two, almost as if they were recorded by different bands, and in a sense they were since side two features an uncredited Eric Clapton on lead guitar and side one features Jeff Beck instead. The liner notes don't even mention that side two is a live recording from the previous year. Despite this shoddy packaging the record is fantastic, full of essential music. It opens with "You're a Better Man Than I" written by Mike Hugg of Manfred Mann. It has long been one of my favorite Yardbirds songs. It is a social protest song with a folk rock sound driven by a propulsive bass riff and jangly guitar lines until Jeff Beck's explosive fuzzed out guitar solo that goes from raga to psychedelic in a thrilling manner. His solo is a hard rock landmark and shows that Beck was the most creative rock guitarist of his era prior to the rise of Jimi Hendrix. "Evil Hearted You" was written by Graham Gouldman and displays his typical gift for a well-crafted catchy pop song. It was deservedly a hit single in England. The song is punctuated by loud slashing guitar chords that emphasize its gloomy nature until the surprisingly upbeat bridge section. Beck delivers a subdued but powerful solo. Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man" was essentially the Yardbirds' unofficial theme song. The song stayed in their repertoire for the entire history of the band and was released in versions by all three lead guitarists for the band. Beck delivers the studio version here, Clapton was on the live version from "Five Live Yardbirds" on side two of this album and Jimmy Page performed on the expanded version the band developed late in their career as heard on "Live Yardbirds." The Beck version is easily my favorite. The song is driven by the familiar Bo Diddley shuffling beat that gradually builds in force to the most amazing rave up the band ever did. Beck and Keith Relf on harmonica trade licks until Beck goes berserk. He races down his guitar neck and until he runs out of room and starts striking his strings percussively. It is tremendously exciting. I've listened to it hundreds of times and it still floors me. "Still I'm Sad" was written by the group's bassist Paul Samwell-Smith and drummer Jim McCarty. It was the flip side of the "Evil Hearted You" single in Britain and was a hit in its own right there. It is a complete change of direction from the rest of the album. It is slow and despondent with Relf's vocal supported by a quasi-Gregorian chant background vocal. I like it but I'm glad the rest of the album is different. "Heart Full of Soul" is another terrific Gouldman contribution and the band's second most successful American single after "For Your Love." It is a compelling song bolstered by raga-style fuzz guitar runs from Beck. Side one concludes with the band's searing workout on Tiny Bradshaw's "The Train Kept A-Rollin'.'" I mentioned in an earlier post on the "Blow-Up" soundtrack that I thought the version of this song the band performed in that film (under the title "Stroll On") was the greatest hard rock song the band ever did, but this version is equally impressive. It opens with Beck imitating a train whistle on his guitar and then explodes. The guitar riff that drives this song is relentless and overwhelming. Just when it seems like the song can't get any hotter Beck unleashes his second solo which is completely incendiary. This remains the most irresistible hard rock I've ever heard, an absolute masterpiece. Side one of this album is an incredible side of vinyl, the pinnacle of mid-1960s hard rock. There was nothing like this before in rock history and it established the foundation for decades of hard rock to come. Side two is old-fashioned in comparison. It was recorded only a year earlier but it feels more like a decade. I'm fond of "Five Live Yardbirds" but the band's approach to rhythm and blues, while exciting, was not all that far removed from the original songs. The style is similar, they just played faster. I think Epic largely made the right choices in the four songs they selected for this album although I would have substituted "Too Much Monkey Business" for "I'm a Man" since it already appeared on side one in a superior performance. Vocalist Keith Relf was not up to the challenge poised by Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning" but the band makes up for it with the energy of their performance. Relf's harmonica blowing is engaging and the song features two dynamic rave ups. This was my favorite track on "Five Live Yardbirds." Relf and the group can't match the vocal firepower of the Isley Brothers on "Respectable" but instrumentally it is ferocious with the band noisily attacking the song at a breathless tempo concluding with a manic rave up performed at phenomenal speed. The Clapton version of "I'm a Man" has a similar arrangement to Beck's studio version but is less highly charged. Relf's fine harmonica work dominates the first portion of the song as well as the first rave up. Clapton takes charge in the second rave up but does not have much of a solo and the call and response with Relf that helps drive the Beck version is largely lacking in this version. Side two finishes with another Bo Diddley song "Here 'Tis." This is another fast tempo song which features some of Clapton's finest guitar work with the Yardbirds as he lays down some blistering licks. There is an excellent studio version of this song with Jeff Beck that the band cut for the TV show "Ready Steady Go!" which I slightly prefer although it is not as energetic as this one. I'm generally hostile to American record companies monkeying around with a band's catalog and crafting phony albums out of it, but in this case I can't deny that I really love this album. I think it is easily the best of the four Epic albums (excluding comps and live records) and although you can get the best songs here on just about any Yardbirds comp, I think fans might still want to seek out this record which is not hard to find and generally less expensive than the other Epic albums. I feel it has historical significance and even has a bit of an aura to it. Recommended to Jeff Beck fans.
