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Little Games Sessions & More

The Yardbirds - Little Games Sessions & More Audio CD

A fair review of the The Yardbirds "Little Games Sessions & More" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Yardbirds reviews here, or go back to the The Yardbirds tabs.

Band: The Yardbirds
Title: Little Games Sessions & More
Rating:

Release Date: 1992-08-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Little Games [Stereo Mix] 2: Smile on Me 3: White Summer 4: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor [Vocal Version] 5: Glimpses [Version 1] 6: Drinking Muddy Water [Stereo Mix] 7: No Excess Baggage 8: Stealing Stealing 9: Only the Black Rose 10: Little Soldier Boy 11: Puzzles 12: I Remember the Night [*] 13: Ha! Ha! Said the Clown 14: Ten Little Indians [Vocal Version] 15: Goodnight Sweet Josephine [Version 1] 16: Think About It 17: Little Games [Mono Mix] 18: You Stole My Love [*] 19: White Summer [Acoustic Version][*] 20: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor [*][Instrumental] 21: L.S.D. [*] 22: Drinking Muddy Water [Mono Mix] 23: De Lane Lea Lee [*] 24: Glimpses [Version 2][*] 25: Never Mind 26: Ten Little Indians [*][Instrumental] 27: Goodnight Sweet Josephine [Version 2][*] 28: Henry's Coming Home (By Together) [*] 29: Love Mum and Dad (By Together) [*] 30: Together Now (By Together) 31: Shining Where the Sun Has Been [*] - Jim McCarty, Keith Relf 32: Great Shakes [*]

Yardbirds: rock, blues, folk & psychadelia...
It's really too bad that it only reached the n. ASIN: B000008MIQ

Little Games SEssions & more contains a mix of song styles by the Yardbirds, that show how talented & versatile the group was. 80 on charts, because it deserved more! Among the bluesy songs is "Stealin' Stealin", very humorously played in a jug band style with the kazoo and Relf's great harp playing, "Drinking Muddy Water" with interplay between Relf's harmonica & Page's guitar, and also "No excess baggage". The heavier songs include Think About it, already Led Zep, as well as some of the intrumental tracks on CD2 with great guitar work by Page. Among the Rock/Psychedelia tracks are Tinker, Taylor, with Page's bowing, Little Games, Ha-ha said the Clown, although the songs I like best are "Puzzles" and "Glimpses", this one an awesome psychadelic instrumental song.
I expected a Cd with a heavier style and found out to my great surprise that it has many acoustic songs, a style pursued by Relf & Mccarty. I recommend a real gem by Keith Relf "Only the Black Rose", nicely sung by him, and on the CD2 among the bonus tracks there are "Shining where the Sun has been", "Henry's coming home" and "Together Now", both enjoyable songs by the duo Relf-Mccarty. White Summer (2 versions) is also acoustic by Jimmy Page and became Led Zep's Mountain Side and Over the Hills and Far Away. .

Guess what you don't need ...
I did like the acoustic version of White Summer, but by this point in time, The Yardbirds are dead. All those extras that are packaged with this mediocre recording. .

Essential Release!
It was recorded after Jeff Beck and Paul Samwell-Smith had left the band to be replaced by Jimmy Page. "Little Games", originally released in 1967, was the last Yardbirds studio album. At this time the band's popularity was on the decline, and their time as chart-toppers seemed to be over. Even though their previous single-release "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" had both been adventurous and catchy it had only reached no. 30 in the charts. "Happenings . " had featured both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page and it is in my opinion one of their strongest.

Their next single release ( without Beck ) was the almost equally strong recording "Little Games". This song was more immediately catchy, but with a great guitar playing from Page, showing that they were still a band with ambitions to be more than a hit-singles band. I remember it being played regularly on Danish radio in the summer of 1967, and it's hard to understand how it could fare even worse in the charts than "Happenings".

Consequently the group was allowed only days in the studio to record an accompanying album. The album, also called "Little Games" was originally only released in the US, and though it contains many great songs, some of it may sound somewhat rushed.

The original version contained 10 songs ( later reissues up till 16 ). The songs vary quite a lot a style.

Fine blues rockers like "Smile on Me Baby" and "Drinking Muddy Water" are much in the same vein as the "Roger the Engineer" 1966 album.

More commercial songs had been part of the Yardbirds' repertoire since the departure of Eric Clapton, and I always enjoyed this side of the band too.

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier", Sailor", "No Excess Baggage" and "Little Soldier Boy" are all great examples of this.

"Little Soldier Boy" has often been criticized for been an under par recording. And I can agree that a little more time in the studio probably would not have harmed the song, but still it's one of my personal Yardbirds songs.

There are also a couple of instrumentals on the album. "White Summer" is very reminiscent of "Black Mountain Side" on the first Zeppelin album, and "Glipmses" is a relatively long experimental track featuring strange sounds and voices, and a choir much like the one they did on "Still I'm Sad"

Keith Relf's "Only the Black Rose" is an acoustic song, showing that Relf at this time probably already was seeking softer grounds.

"Puzzles", which was the B-side of the "Little Games" single, was oddly not included on the first versions of the album. It is a great up-beat band composition, featuring a terrific guitar solo from Page. The song was recorded during the "Little Games" sessions, so it ought to have been included in the first place

Of the other songs that were included on later versions of the album "Think About It" and "Goodnight Sweet Josephine" are great additions.

These two very different recordings were the A and B side of the final Yardbirds single released in spring 1968.

"Goodnight Sweet Josephine" is a very catchy commercial tune written by hitmaker Tony Hazzard ( "Fox on the Run", "Listen to Me" etc, ), and had it been released a year or two earlier, I'm sure it could have made it to the top of the singles charts. I prefer the version on CD 2 which I actually took for the original version.

"Think About It" is another experimental track, clearly pointing in the direction of what was to come with "Led Zeppelin"

"Ten Little Indians" is another fine but unsuccesful single from late 1967.

CD 2 contains outtakes, alternate versions and 4 songs from Keith Relf and Jim McCarthy's "Together" project.

Most alternate versions are great and as strong as the original album versions.

Of the outtakes the instrumental "De Lane Lea Lee" could have easily been included on the original album, it's song in the same vein as "Glimpses"; most likely it was decided that two songs of that kind would be too much.

"Never Mind" and "You Stole My Love" could also have been great additions, but both obviously are lacking vocals.

"LSD" and the "Great Shakes" commercial are nice to have but nothing special.

The "Together" tracks seem totally out of place here. I would have preferred the 4 songs that were recorded with both Page and Beck.

The "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" / "Psycho Daisies" single, "Stroll On" and "Beck's Bolero" would have been logical choices.

Still I consider this an essential release for any fan of progressive 1960's music.

By the way, it deserves being noted that this 2 CD release contains a great 28 pages booklet with detailed band history, extensive discography, rare photos and notes to each track on the CD's.

The extinction of a species, the birth of an era

You cannot just bulk all of their work together in a lump sum and praise or berate as a whole, every incarnation of this band stood alone according to the guitarist of the day. First of all if you are reading this review then it is pressumed that you are either a Yardbirds fan of some degree or a fan of the mighty LZ and are looking for roots of Jimmy Page. An example is the EC material in comparison to the Beck era material or even the Page era material, all must be listened to as seperate bodies of work or entities, as their guitarists were and are.

This is the only available album of the Jimmy Page line up which at this time was a quartet of Page/Relf/McCarty/Dreja and is as much a real enjoyment as the other albums by this band, so many hints of the future direction of rock is apparent but not necessarily on first listen. That and the fact that this collection is amended with one or two missing classic tracks like 'LSD' or 'You stole my love', and a whole load of crap, from the commercial jingle, to the band "Together" songs,to the last singles this band ever recorded for release 'Good night sweet Josephine', 'Ha Ha said the clown', which are really light-hearted almost second rate Pop/schlock, to the one off cut of 'I remember the night', I still wonder why it was included.

Apart from the fact that Mickie Most was the producer, which is an unfortunate oversight, the fact that many of the singles included to flesh out the package are also an oversight, this band could still rock and rock HARD. Listen to 'Think about it', 'You stole my love', 'No excess baggage', or even 'Tinker, tailor, soldier. . . ,

Evidence of things to come can be heard in the song 'Tinker, tailor. . , when you hear the first recorded use of the violin bow during the middle break, or the interesting acoustic workout that is titled 'White Summer' which would reappear on the first LZ as 'Black Mountain Side'.

Its a shame that this album doesn't get better reviews or reactions from the music industry then or now, one interesting fact is that All Music Guide (wether in their book or on their web site) rate this album higher than the studio album with Eric Clapton. As an added aside if you are interseted in this time period than any reader MUST have the latest disc release about this period called "Cumular Limit" which has several songs from this time which were never released or fully developed as songs, a rare find indeed.

Take a While, think about it...a pre Zep glimpse
Producer Mickie Most knew nothing about rock n roll until he heard Jimmy Page blazing away on his Day-glo Telecaster with notes bent to the point of the neck falling apart (listen to "Smile on Me" again). This record got slammed when it was released. Most basically had his ace session man John Paul Jones pop in on this one, so we get a glimpse of interplay with he and Page on the title track as well as "Tinker Tailor". Unfortunately, some really good material was trashed here and no one ever did a good version of "Little Soldier Boy". Fortunately, some incendiary bits have been gathered including a snarling instrumental version of The Mockingbird's "You Stole My Love" and the phased version of "Goodnight Sweet Josephine" featuring a Zep-style solo from Page. We also get the bowed guitar technique that Page may have nicked from The Creation's Eddie Phillips. Where Phillips scraped away with the violin bow, Page puts delicacy into the mix and we get more of a eerie atmosphere throughout("Puzzles, "Tinker Tailor" "Glimpses"). Even when some dopey pop travesties rear their silly heads every now and then (Ha Ha said the what????), it's still interesting to hear that they're trying something so odd for them. They actually add to the power of the stronger tracks.
No evaluation of this extraordinary Yardbird-Pre-Zep collector's wet dream can be complete without dishing props to "Think About It". Ever wondered where the climatic rev-up after the bowed segment of Led Zeppelin's version of Jake Holmes'"Dazed and Confused" came from need look no further. . here is the Psolo of solos. . note for note in its original (albeit mono) glory. Page definetly earned his chops with this stuff and for any Yardbird fan, this comprhensive double decker easily serves up the most interesting Yardbird material just because of it's numerous glimpses to the future when a Zeppelin would rule the next era in rock n roll!.

You can see a complete list of all The Yardbirds discography, or go back to the The Yardbirds tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.