The Yardbirds -- "Having a Rave Up"

The Yardbirds' second album, Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds, was issued in 1965. It was the band's first with new guitarist Jeff Beck replacing Eric Clapton. But for whatever reason, only half the album features Beck. The whole second side is made up of live cuts with Clapton that were recorded the previous year.

This compilation really doesn't make much sense, especially when one considers that the band recorded enough songs with Beck to fill the entire album. This re-imagined version fixes that.

SIDE A

1. You're a Better Man Than I
2. Evil Hearted You
3. I'm a Man
4. Still, I'm Sad
5. My Girl Sloopy
6. Heart Full of Soul

SIDE B

1. Shapes of Things
2. I Ain't Done Wrong
3. Steeled Blues
4. I'm Not Talking
5. New York City Blues
6. The Train Kept a Rollin'

Most of the first side is the same. However in adding the new songs, a little rearranging was necessary to keep the lengths of the sides fairly close. So "The Train Kept a Rollin'" was moved from the end of the second side, and "My Girl Sloopy" was inserted on the first side. Side B kicks off with the band's latest single at the time, "Shapes of Things," followed by four other new tunes before "The Train Kept a Rollin'."

In my opinion, this is a much better album than was released and likely would have been more highly regarded today than it has been in its true arrangement.

For the cover, I just made a few cosmetic changes to the original, including changing the songs listed. I also changed the album title to simply Having a Rave Up.

The Yardbirds' "Dazed and Confused"

Reduced to a quartet, The Yardbirds were a shell of their former selves by 1968. The hits had disappeared, their record company and producer were pushing them to do trite pop songs when the band was more of a blues-rock outfit, and the band's future just didn't appear to have a road to success.

After recording several new songs, half the band (singer Keth Relf and drummer Jim McCarty) quit, leaving only bassist Chris Dreja and guitarist Jimmy Page. Once Dreja decided to hang up his bass and pursue photography, Page would form the New Yardbirds, soon to be rechristened Led Zeppelin.

Using songs from The Yardbirds' last recording session and a recent single, I added a couple of tracks from the band's live set and a long experimental track leftover from the sessions of the group's previous album. The result is what could have been The Yardbirds' swan song.

SIDE A
1. Think About It
2. Taking a Hold of Me
3. Avron Knows
4. Spanish Blood
5. Dazed and Confused

SIDE B
1. Goodnight Sweet Josephine
2. Most Likely You'll Go Your Way, and I'll Go Mine
3. Knowing That I'm Losing You
4. My Baby
5. De Lane Lea Lee

I start the album with "Think About It" and its proto-Zeppelin guitar riff, and close out the first side with "Dazed and Confused." I used the phased version of "Goodnight Sweet Josephine" as it makes a lame song slightly more interesting, and chose it to open the second side since it was the most recent single. I think of "De Lane Lea Lee" as The Yardbirds' version of "Revolution 9." Most of these tracks are available on the compilation "Cumular Limit" and/or the recently released "Yardbirds '68." The Bob Dylan cover "Most Likely..." is from the band's BBC sessions.

It's interesting to think about what Zeppelin albums would have been like had this come out. "Dazed and Confused" probably wouldn't have been on the first album, and "Tangerine" (the remake of "Knowing That I'm Losing You") likely wouldn't have been on Led Zeppelin III.

I created the simple cover using a photo I found on the web and added the band logo and album title. And here's a YouTube Playlist of the album.