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.
Pretty cool concept. Too bad the band became a shell of itself. I might suggest one change : I'd probably use Puzzles instead of Most Likely.....It was a studio cut they didn't use. Where did your version of Dazed come from? Was it from the Little Games Sessions cd ? Thanks !
ReplyDeleteSorry for the delayed response -- used the version of Dazed and Confused from Cumular Limit
DeleteI was enjoying the '68 set recently. I will have to see if I have all of these. Thanx
ReplyDeletehttps://i.imgur.com/cuAUS8M.jpg
ReplyDeleteAlternate album cover! I used your tracklist but taking off the songs that would become Led Zeppelin songs
Wow, that's some cover!
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