REVIEW: The Yardbirds, BBC Sessions (Warner Archives)
- Bill Holmes
Recent years have seen the radio vaults spring open, releasing many classic hours of The King Biscuit Flower Hour and John Peel sessions, among others, and the BBC Archives certainly have more to offer than the Beatles legion of appearances. Case in point is this collection, which captures the blues-rock influenced Yardbirds in their middle guitar period (read Jeff Beck, post-Clapton and pre-Page). The sound quality is amazingly clean considering the lack of foresight most studios had at the time, and the performances are stellar.
The only thing that sounds dated here is the radio chatter from the sometimes befuddled announcers, offering long-stale jargon like "that's really, really just TOO MUCH!" or some other effort to be clever. But although most tracks are introduced in such a manner, it's the fire within that's amazing. Jeff Beck simply torches Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business". As one would expect, blues covers dominate, and excellent versions of standards like "Train Kept A'Rollin", "Smokestack Lightning" and "Dust My Broom" are all two to three minute masterpieces. Naturally some of the band's most famous songs are here as well, including "Shapes Of Things" and the two Graham Gouldman numbers "For Your Love" and "Heart Full Of Soul". My personal favorite "Over Under Sideways Down" gets a major rave up as well.
Naturally live recordings show warts and all, and to say the band butchers "Hang On Sloopy" would be generous. But with twenty six cuts in all, those off moments are few and far between. The last six cuts, recorded in 1967 and 1968 feature Jimmy Page on guitar. Although still a couple of years before forming Led Zeppelin, listen to cuts like "Little Games" and "Think About It" and you can hear that this new direction was already flowing through his head and fingers. While Page's style was not as traditionally blues-rooted as Beck, it's remarkable in its own right especially when you consider what was passing for lead guitar work on commercial radio at the time.
Fans will be happy to gather these cuts under one roof, and those too young to remember the band firsthand have a worthwhile document that proves what the fuss was all about.
