Music Reissues Weekly: The Yardbirds - The Ultimate Live at the BBC

“The last we had was a bit of a flop. I own up about it, it was quite bad.” Speaking to the BBC’s Brian Matthew on 4 April 1967, Yardbirds’ frontman Keith Relf is candid about the chart fate of his band’s last single, October 1966’s “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago.”

Hearing a major figure in British pop being so frank is made doubly surprising as “Happening Ten Years Time Ago” was an epoch-defining single, one of the earliest signals that psychedelia was looming. Despite having broken ground, Relf was speaking in terms of chart positions rather than innovation. Relatively, though, it had indeed been a flop.

This revealing admission is one amongst the many, many highlights of the four-CD set The Ultimate Live at the BBC, the lengthiest collection of Yardbirds’ BBC material issued to date. It begins with four tracks recorded for the Saturday Club show on 16 March 1965 (broadcast on 20 March). Away from the stage, this was the first time anyone heard the band with their new guitarist Jeff Beck, who had replaced Eric Clapton. The appearance of these tracks is important – they have never been issued before.

Beck played his first show with the band on 5 March. He had been with The Yardbirds less than two weeks when he was pitched into Saturday Club. The first time he was heard on record with his new band was the “Heart Full of Soul” single, issued 4 June. After this first session, Ultimate Live has two more from the period before “Heart Full of Soul” was in the shops.

On this initial session with Beck, the band tackle “For Your Love” (recorded for the single with Clapton in the band, and released on that critical 5 March). There is also “I’m Not Talking,” which came into the band after Beck joined, “Berry’s Boogie,” later partially reconfigured as “Beck’s Boogie,” and “My Girl Sloopy,” which also entered their repertoire after Clapton’s departure. Despite the major upheaval of accommodating a new guitarist and new material, the band are confident sounding and fluid.

Discs One to Three cover the period Beck was with the Yardbirds. Disc Four collects BBC material from after he had left, when the band was a four piece: Chris Dreja (bass), Jim McCarty (drums), Jimmy Page (guitar), Keith Relf (vocals). The only previously unheard recording by the final iteration of the band is a 6 March 1968 version of “Goodnight Sweet Josephine” which, despite Page’s untrammelled soloing trampling all over the song’s banality, isn’t a performance by which the band should be recalled.

The Yardbirds are most easily remembered as the band featuring Clapton, Beck and Page but – as consistently demonstrated by Ultimate Live – they were a unified entity, not a showcase for one member. Without the songs they chose, and without the space they gave each other, they would not have been The Yardbirds. The extraordinary 27 September 1965 Saturday Club version of “Still I’m Sad” underscores this. Written by McCarty and then-bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, its emphasis on vocals and atmosphere was unlike any other British pop record which had emerged to date. The BBC version shows they did not need a commercial recording studio to generate the architecture of “Still I’m Sad.” Further stressing the nature of the band, three of the interview segments heard are with Paul Samwell-Smith. They dig into how the band worked in the studio and his role as their producer. Ultimate Live firmly moves the spotlight away from the three-guitarist narrative.

The set has some quirks which potential buyers should bear in mind. The interview segments are each assigned their own track, so when the promotion declares “90 tracks, of which 28 are previously unreleased” these totals include interview segments. The last track on Disc Three is an offline recording of “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago,” from their 17 November 1966 television appearance on Top Of The Pops (they recorded their slot in 19 October 1966). Repeated listening does not convince that this is a different version to the single. It sounds as if they were miming along to the record. There are multiple photos of the Beck/Page/“Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” line-up of band, a configuration which is barely represented (i.e.: only by the ostensibly problematic Top Of The Pops “Happenings…”). Despite a whole disc of the four-piece Page-era version of the band, there are no photos of this line-up.

More than anything else, Ultimate Live at the BBC is thought provoking. Especially in relation to The Yardbirds’ path through 1965. After “For Your Love” was a hit, "Heart Full of Soul” and “Evil Hearted You” were the next singles into the charts – 1965 was a good year for The Yardbirds. Yet they didn’t capitalise on it by releasing an album to follow-up December 1964’s Clapton-era live set Five Live Yardbirds. Ultimate Live shows that they could – and should – have.

In 1965, their contemporaries were ahead of them. The Rolling Stones issued their second and third albums in 1965. There were two Pretty Things albums, their first and second. Manfred Mann’s and Downliners Sect’s second albums were out in 1965. Yet, despite the hit singles, no Yardbirds album.

Out of the UK however, Yardbirds albums were cobbled together in various markets from singles, EP tracks, random bits of Five Live Yardbirds and sub-par shelved material (“Putty in Your Hands” and “Sweet Music”). In 1965, there were two US albums (For Your Love, Having A Rave Up With The Yardbirds); one each in Sweden (The Yardbirds, pictured above left), Canada (Heart Full Of Soul, pictured above right), France (Our Own Sound, pictured below left) and Italy (For Your Love, Heart Full Of Soul & Others). None were real LPs yet, in those markets, commercial prudence brought Yardbirds albums into the shops. In the UK, their home, no Yardbirds album in 1965. A real album, that is, rather than a rag-bag.

This deficiency becomes more confounding after digesting Ultimate Live. In 1965, they did more recording sessions for the BBC than they booked to complete material for release on record. As is made clear here, they had enough material for an album in 1965. Judging by what was laid down for the BBC, had they recorded an album it would have mixed blues and soul material with the odd rock ’n’ roll cover. And if they had, it would have been blistering. Why didn’t they? Close-to 60 years on, the only answer springing to mind is that their management was not directing them towards focussing on an album. What a waste.

Perhaps their two US visits – 2–22 September 1965, and 10 December 1965–23 January 1966 – pushed an album off the agenda? Still, one could have been completed before September 1965. At least now, thanks to the survival of the BBC material, there is a broad hint of what a 1965 Yardbirds album might have been.

Overall, as this indicates, the volume of material they recorded for BBC radio is staggering. Disc One begins with that 16 March 1965 Saturday Club session. This wasn’t when the relationship with the BBC began. Before this, there were three sessions with the Clapton line-up which the band recorded in September, October and December 1964. These don’t survive. It’s the same with a fair amount of what followed the 16 March 1965 session, their first of the year. Altogether, it’s a total of 41 sessions for BBC radio (it wasn’t all music: a couple were solely interviews – nonetheless, it’s a lot). Not everything survives, and for various individual sessions odd tracks are lost – the booklet goes into this in satisfyingly great depth. The full story of The Yardbirds at the BBC is told for the first time. Although what’s heard on Ultimate Live cannot represent every broadcast it does include more BBC material than ever before, and with what’s previously been in better sound. Moreover – bearing in mind the BBC didn’t archive the tapes of much of what’s heard, so outside audio sources are used – there are also off-air recordings which have never been out before. While it’s always prudent to take care with declaring anything the last word, but unless more discoveries are made – highly unlikely at this remove – this must be the last word. The “ultimate.” Previous releases of BBC material are rendered redundant.

But care must be taken not to let the “ultimate” aspect overshadow what’s heard. It is about the stunning music. Similarly, The Ultimate Live at the BBC is not about singling-out one band member over another. It is about the totality of The Yardbirds. Also, above all, it provokes new ways to see this most significant of British bands.

• Next week: Albums one, two and three from Magazine – Real Life (1978), Secondhand Daylight (1979), The Correct Use Of Soap (1980)
  
• More reissue reviews on theartsdesk
• Kieron Tyler’s website

@MrKieronTyler