Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page

Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page
Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page
Live album by the Yardbirds
Released	September 1971
Recorded	30 March 1968
Venue	Anderson Theatre, New York City
Genre	Rock
Length	44:48
Label	Epic
The Yardbirds' Epic chronology

Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page is a live album by English rock group the Yardbirds. It was recorded at the Anderson Theatre in New York City on 30 March 1968. At the time, the Yardbirds had been performing as a quartet with Jimmy Page on lead guitar since October 1966.^[1]

The album includes several familiar Yardbird songs, but often extended with longer instrumental solos.^[2] "I'm Confused," based on Jake Holmes' "Dazed and Confused", is a highlight of the album.^[3] Using some different lyrics, Page re-recorded it with Led Zeppelin for their debut album later in 1968.

The group was dissatisfied with the recordings and objected to their release, but after Page became famous with Led Zeppelin, Epic Records issued the album in September 1971.^[4] Page took legal action and Epic was enjoined from further distribution of the album.^[4] Over the years, there were several more attempts to release the album.^[2] In 2017, Page discovered the concert tapes in his personal archive and remixed the recordings.^[5] An album with the Anderson concert and demo recordings from the same time, were released in November 2017 on Yardbirds '68.

Recording and releases

Although a live album, Epic Records overdubbed crowd noises from bullfights and other sound effects onto the original tracks against the band's wishes, in part because the live recordings were considered lacking in sound quality. This was a result of the general inexperience of the engineers in recording live rock music. For example, only a single microphone was deployed for the drums, hung above the kit. This resulted in the loss of much of the lower-range percussion in the recording.^[6]

The Yardbirds rejected the album as a candidate for release upon its original completion in mid-1968, but Epic released it in 1971 in response to Led Zeppelin's success in the marketplace.^[4] Page took legal action against the label for releasing Live Yardbirds without authorization and Epic quickly withdrew it.^[4] Epic parent CBS' Columbia Special Products (CSP) label reissued the album in 1976, but this was again legally challenged by Page, and the album again quickly withdrawn.^[2]

Authentic Epic and CSP copies of Live Yardbirds are thus quite rare, and the album has often been counterfeited (sometimes in black-and-white covers claimed to be promotional copies) as a result.^[2] The album's cover art was designed by James Grashow, a woodcut artist who had earlier created the artwork for Jethro Tull's 1969 album Stand Up.

Yardbirds '68

Although the master tapes for this concert were presumed to be destroyed or otherwise unavailable, they were located and remixed by Page. Together with several demo recordings from the same period, they were released in November 2017 as Yardbirds '68.^[7]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	^[3]

In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Bruce Eder gave the album four and a half out of five stars and notes the dominant role of Page's guitar playing.^[3] Although Eder feels "The performance also reveals just how far out in front of the psychedelic pack the Yardbirds were by the spring of 1968", he adds:

Ironically, this album isn't quite as strong as the contemporary Truth album by Jeff Beck, mostly because the Yardbirds were still juggling three sounds: the group's progressive pop/rock past, the psychedelia of 1968, and a harder, more advanced blues-based sound.^[3]

Track listing

Songwriters and track running times are taken from the original Epic LP.^[8] Other releases may have different listings.

Side one
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"The Train Kept A-Rollin'"	Tiny Bradshaw, Lois Mann, Howard Kay	3:10
2.	"You're a Better Man Than I^[9]"	Mike Hugg, Brian Hugg	6:50
3.	"I'm Confused"	Unlisted	6:47
4.	"My Baby"	Mort Shuman, Jerry Ragavoy	5:01

Side two
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Over Under Sideways Down"	Chris Dreja,^[10]Keith Relf, Paul Samwell-Smith, Jim McCarty, Jeff Beck	2:39
2.	"Drinking Muddy Water"	Relf, Jimmy Page, McCarty, Dreja^[10]	3:16
3.	"Shapes of Things"	Samwell-Smith, Relf, McCarty	2:48
4.	"White Summer"	Page	4:19
5.	"I'm a Man"	Ellas McDaniel a.k.a. Bo Diddley	11:59

Personnel

The Yardbirds

Keith Relf – harmonica, lead vocals
Jimmy Page – guitar
Chris Dreja – bass guitar
Jim McCarty – drums, backing vocals

Production

Don Meehan – engineer
Buddy Graham – engineer
Lenny Kaye – liner notes
James Grashow – cover artist

Notes

^ Clayson 2002, p. 182.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Russo 2016, p. 102.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Eder, Bruce. "Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page – Album Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Russo 2016, p. 99.
^ Alexander 2017.
^ George-Warren 2001, p. 1094.
^ Reed, Ryan (25 August 2017). "The Yardbirds Prep Jimmy Page-Produced Double-LP Compilation". RollingStone.com. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
^ Kaye 1971, Back cover.
^ "You're a Better Man than I" is a medley with "Heart Full of Soul", written by Graham Gouldman.
^ ^a ^b Chris Dreja's name is misspelled twice – "Drega" on "Over Under Sideways Down" and "Ereja" on "Drinking Muddy Water". He is listed incorrectly on several other Epic releases.

References

Alexander, Phil (2017). Yardbirds '68 (Album notes). The Yardbirds. JimmyPage.com. JPRLPCD3.
Clayson, Alan (2002). The Yardbirds. San Francisco: Backbeat Books. ISBN 0-87930-724-2.
George-Warren, Holly (2001). The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. Fireside. ISBN 0-7432-0120-5.
Kaye, Lenny (1971). Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page (Album notes). The Yardbirds. New York City: Epic Records. E 30615.
Russo, Greg (2016). Yardbirds: The Ultimate Rave-Up. Floral Park, New York: Crossfire Publications. ISBN 978-0-9791845-7-4.