# Deep Tracks - The Yardbirds - "Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds"



## Guest (Sep 17, 2018)

View attachment 107948


Please *choose up to nine selections* for this particular poll.

On all polls created if you click on the number of votes following the song title the username of all voters and their chosen selections will appear.

The tunes themselves will be found below the poll itself as links rather than as embedded videos due to bandwidth issues for those who wish to reacquaint themselves with a tune that may have receded a bit too far into the past to be remembered with the clarity that came when they were first released...

Next up is - The Yardbirds - "Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds"

"Having a Rave Up" with the Yardbirds, or simply "Having a Rave Up", is the second American album by English rock group the Yardbirds. It was released in November 1965, eight months after Jeff Beck replaced Eric Clapton on guitar. It includes songs with both guitarists and reflects the group's blues rock roots and their early experimentations with psychedelic and hard rock. The title refers to the driving "rave up" arrangement the band used in several of their songs.

The album contains some of the earliest live recordings with Clapton. Recorded in March 1964, they appeared on the band's British debut album, "Five Live Yardbirds", which was not issued in the United States.

The songs with Beck were recorded in the studio in the months after he joined the group in March 1965. These include several charting singles and introduced "The Train Kept A-Rollin'", one of the Yardbirds' most copied arrangements. Although most were not written by the group, the songs became a fixture of the group's concert repertoire and continued to be performed after Jimmy Page replaced Beck.

Singer and harmonica player Keith Relf, rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja, bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, drummer Jim McCarty, and lead guitarist Top Topham formed the Yardbirds near London in mid-1963.

The group were a part of the early British rhythm and blues scene that produced bands such as the Rolling Stones, whom they replaced as the resident act at the Crawdaddy Club. Songs by American blues and rhythm and blues artists such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Bo Diddley made up the repertoire of the early British R&B groups.

The Yardbirds' set lists included "I Wish You Would", "Smokestack Lightning", "Who Do You Love?", "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover", and "Too Much Monkey Business".

Eric Clapton replaced Topham in October 1963 and by early 1964, the Yardbirds had expanded their following on the home counties club circuit.

The group made several attempts at recording in the studio, but were unable to reproduce their live sound to their satisfaction. Manager Giorgio Gomelsky then arranged to have a March performance at London's Marquee Club recorded.

A key element of the Yardbirds' live shows was an extended instrumental section during some songs. Clapton recalled, "While most other bands were playing three-minute songs, we were taking three-minute numbers and stretching them out to five or six minutes, during which time the audience would go crazy". Dubbed a "rave up", this musical arrangement usually came during the middle instrumental section, in which the band shifted the beat into double-time and built the instrumental improvisation to a climax. The rave up has roots in jazz and became a signature part of the Yardbirds' sound.

Musicologist Michael Hicks describes it: 
"_Wherever it occurred, the rave-up made a small narrative curve that introduced a basic conflict (backbeat vs. off-beats), drove that conflict to a climax (by getting more and more raucous), then resolved it (by returning it to a 'normal' beat). Through this technique the Yardbirds created a rock mannerism; sometimes the rave-up seemed the whole point of the song_".

After their first two singles, "I Wish You Would" and "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl", had limited success, the Yardbirds were under pressure to deliver a hit record by their label, Columbia Records. Paul Samwell-Smith interested the group in recording "For Your Love", a new pop rock-oriented song written by Graham Gouldman. Clapton expressed displeasure over departing from the group's blues roots, and he left the Yardbirds two days before the song was released on 5 March 1965.

"For Your Love" became their first Top 10 hit in both the UK and the US. To replace Clapton, the group needed a lead guitarist who was experienced with blues and R&B, but also willing to explore more progressive and experimental material.

They approached Jimmy Page, but he was unwilling to give up his steady employment as one of London's most popular studio guitarists. Page recommended Jeff Beck, who was invited to an informal audition. Drummer McCarty recalled the tryout: "Not only could he play all the Eric stuff, but also a lot more ... There was the Les Paul thing, the rockabilly thing, the whole lot. His style was also kind of futuristic. We were impressed." Beck was asked to join and played his first gig with the Yardbirds the same day "For Your Love" was released.

Shortly thereafter, the Yardbirds began recording a successful string of forward-looking singles with Beck's pioneering hard rock and psychedelic guitar work.

In his autobiography, Clapton identifies Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning" as the Yardbirds' most popular live number. They usually played it every night and performances of the song could last up to 30 minutes. On the 5:35 album version, Clapton trades guitar licks with Relf's harmonica lines.

Howlin' Wolf reportedly referred to the group's "Smokestack Lightning" as "the definitive version of his song".

The Yardbirds based their version of "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" on the 1956 rockabilly arrangement by Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio. However, their recording adds a brief rave up section, new guitar parts, and a harmonica solo. Beck biographer Annette Carson notes, "the Yardbirds' recording plucked the old Rock & Roll Trio number from obscurity and turned it into a classic among classics".

The recordings with Beck for "Having a Rave Up" took place at various studios between April and September 1965. Three were recorded during the Yardbirds' first American tour - "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" and "You're a Better Man than I" were recorded 12 September 1965 by Sam Phillips at his Phillips Recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, and "I'm a Man" (studio version) at the Chess Studios in Chicago by Ron Malo 19 September 1965. Further refinements to the three songs were recorded at the Columbia Recording Studio in New York City by Roy Halee 21 and 22 September 1965.

Another three songs with Beck were recorded by Roger Cameron at Advision Studios in London - "Heart Full of Soul" 20 April 1965, "Still I'm Sad" 17 August 1965 (also at Olympic Studios by Keith Grant 27 July 1965), and "Evil Hearted You" 23 August 1965.

The four remaining live songs with Clapton were recorded in March 1964 at the Marquee Club in London - "Smokestack Lightning", "Respectable", "I'm a Man", and "Here 'Tis". These were taken from the UK debut album Five Live Yardbirds.

When Beck left the group in October 1966, Page became the sole guitarist. Although several new songs were added, set lists still included their earlier material.

A 1968 live performance in New York City (released in 1971 as "Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page") features the core songs, plus the Page solo piece "White Summer" and an early version of "Dazed and Confused". Page carried over these songs to Led Zeppelin and "Smokestack Lightning" became a medley, which developed into "How Many More Times".

Dreja sums up the lasting appeal: "We all feel, I think, that the period Jeff spent with the band was the most creative. His scope of inventiveness was probably the widest of the three guitarists we played with-and none of them were exactly slouches."

In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album at number 355 on its list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The accompanying review noted, "_Freed from Eric Clapton's blues purism and spurred by Jeff Beck's reckless exhibitionism, the Yardbirds launched a noisy rock & roll avant-garde. This is the bridge between beat groups and psychedelia._"

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Having_a_Rave_Up_with_The_Yardbirds

Your commentary on any and every aspect of the album and especially any memories reawakened as a result of the poll is welcomed.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2018)

"*You're A Better Man Than I*" -






"*Evil Hearted You*" -






"*I'm a Man*" -






"*Still I'm Sad*" -






"*Heart Full of Soul*" -






"*The Train Kept A-Rollin'*" -






"*Smokestack Lightning*" -






"*Respectable*" -






"*I'm a Man*" -






"*Here 'Tis*" -






"*Shapes of Things*" -






"*New York City Blues*" -






"*Here 'Tis" (a.k.a. "For RSG", instrumental track)* -






"*Stroll On*" -










 - (Video clip from film "Blow Up" - featuring segment on "how to properly care for your guitar" by Jeff Beck)


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2018)

This is why Eric Clapton left The Yardbirds -






This is a video clip with Jeff Beck -






and this is a clip that you're probably not familiar with -






This is a clip of "For Your Love" performed by Humble Pie (Steve Marriott, Peter Frampton, Greg Ridley, & Jerry Shirley). The pace of the tune and the bleary blood-shot half-opened eyes suggests that they may have been "sampling the product"... either that or they decided to get up really early so that they could get some band practice in before going to school and they're just tired...


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