New Rolling Stones, Yardbirds and Fleetwood Mac vinyl releases!

All available now from http://www.1960s.london

 

New Musical Express Poll Winners Concert

1. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (Russell, Burke, Wexler)
2. Pain In My Heart (Neville)
3. Around And Around (Berry)
4. The Last Time (Jagger, Richards)

All tracks recorded live at Wembley Empire Pool, London on 11^th April 1965 and broadcast on April 18^th as “The Big Beat ’65” (ABC and ITV).

 

Personnel

Mick Jagger – Vocals

Keith Richard – Guitar, vocals

Brian Jones – Guitar

Bill Wyman – Bass

Charlie Watts – Drums

 

“On 11^th April we played our first UK show in three weeks at the Empire Pool, Wembley. It was ‘The NME Poll Winners concert’ in front of a capacity audience of 10,000. Other acts included the Moody Blues, Georgie Fame, the Seekers, Donovan, Them, the Animals and the Beatles. We closed the first half and the Beatles closed the show.” Bill Wyman.

Everybody Needs Somebody To Love is performed at a slower pace than usual and forms a medley with Pain In My Heart . Around and Around features a pair of densely interwoven guitars whilst the start of The Last Time is greeted with female screams and benefits from distinctive Keith Richards backing vocals. At the concert the Stones picked up awards for Best New Group, Best British R’n’B Group and Mick Jagger won Best New Disc Or TV Singer.

Shane E Walk

 

Fleetwood Mac Live 1969 / Oslo and The Hague

Side One

1. One Sided Love (Danny Kirwan)
2. Stop Messin’ Around (Peter Green and C.G. Adams)
3. San Ho-Zay (Freddie King and Sonny Thompson)
4. Albatross (Peter Green)
5. Tallahassie Lassie (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay and Frederick Picariello)
6. Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins)

Side Two

7. Twist and Shout (Phil Medley and Bert Berns)
8. I’m Worried (Clarence Lewis, Elmore James and Morris Levy)
9. Like It This Way (Danny Kirwan)
10. The World Keep On Turning (Peter Green)
11. Rattlesnake Shake (Peter Green)

 

Recording Details

Tracks 1 – 7 recorded at Congresgebouw, The Hague on 28.02.69 for Dutch TV

Tracks 8 – 11 recorded at Njardhallet, Oslo on 3.11.69 for Norwegian TV

 

Personnel

Peter Green – guitar, vocals

Jeremy Spencer – guitar, maracas, vocals

John McVie – bass

Mick Fleetwood – drums

Danny Kirwan – guitar, vocals, lead vocals

 

The first part of this record is devoted to Fleetwood Mac in concert at The Hague on the evening of February 28^th 1969. By starting at the unusually early time of 7.15 the band were also able to fit in a second performance at midnight in Amsterdam, 66 km away. Opener One Sided Love is a cautiously paced Danny Kirwan original that was not recorded in the studio. Stop Messin’ Around is a cowrite between Peter Green and manager Clifford Davis, here using his C.G Adams pseudonym. Taken at a fast shuffle the song showcases some wildly exciting guitar interplay between Green and Kirwan. San Ho-Zay is a Freddie King instrumental from 1961 which never appeared on a Fleetwood Mac LP. Albatross is enthusiastically received: released as a single the previous November it reached Number Two in the Norwegian singles chart. The pounding cover of Freddy Cannon’s Tallahassie Lassie gives the Flamin’ Groovies 1972 version some serious competition. A raucous Blue Suede Shoes puts Jeremy Spencer in the spotlight: some very authentic backing vocals fail to completely mask some dodgy Spencer vocal improvisation. The broadcast ends with a snippet of Twist and Shout that sounds more like the Clash than the Beatles.

The final four songs on Side Two were recorded in front of an all-seated and somewhat sedate audience for Norwegian TV during November 1969. I’m Worried is an Elmore James number, otherwise unrecorded by the band. Like It This Way never featured on a Fleetwood Mac studio LP but here showcases the ability of Danny Kirwan and Peter Green to trade call-and-response guitar riffs in a way that would be copied (badly) by many other bands. When Kirwan breaks a string Green plays a solo electric version of The World Keep On Turning originally recorded on the bands self-titled debut LP. Rattlesnake Shake was the first single released from third album Then Play On but it did badly on both sides of the Atlantic, causing Oh Well to be released as a much more successful follow up. Rattlesnake Shake proved to be a very popular live number with a powerful riff, an undulating rhythm and risqué lyrics. Whilst this is a relatively compact version, the song could be open-ended as Mick Fleetwood explained. “It incorporated the freedom to go off on a tangent, to jam. We learned that as players. You hear that alive and well in the double-time structure that I put in at the end, which on stage could last half an hour. It was our way of being in The Grateful Dead”.

Of the eleven tracks featured here, seven were never released on a Fleetwood Mac studio LP. The breadth of material – both covers and originals – is truly remarkable. We are delighted to finally bring some of these more obscure tracks to public attention: they are every bit as enjoyable as the band’s better known siblings.

Milton Schlitz

 

The Yardbirds Live ‘65

1. I’m A Man (Ellas McDaniel)
2. Heart Full Of Soul (Graham Gouldman)
3. My Girl Sloopy (Bert Russell & Wes Farrell)
4. I’m Not Talking (Mose Allison)
5. I Ain’t Done Wrong (Keith Relf)
6. Train Kept A Rollin’ (Myron Bradshaw, Howie Kay & Lois Mann)
7. I’m A Man (Ellas McDaniel)
8. I’m A Man (Ellas McDaniel)
9. My Girl Sloopy (Bert Russell & Wes Farrell)
10. For Your Love (Graham Gouldman)
11. Evil Hearted You (Graham Gouldman)
12. I Wish You Would (William ‘Billy Boy’ Arnold)
13. Heart Full Of Soul (Graham Gouldman)
14. For Your Love (Graham Gouldman)
15. I’m A Man (Ellas McDaniel)

 

Personnel

Keith Relf – vocals, harmonica

Jeff Beck – lead guitar

Chris Dreja – rhythm guitar

Paul Samwell-Smith – bass

Jim McCarty – drums

 

Recording details

Tracks 1 – 7 recorded for Ready Steady Go UK TV

Tracks 8 – 10, 12-14 recorded for Shindig US TV

Track 11 recorded for German TV

Track 15 recorded for Shivaree US TV

 

The Beatles, Stones, Who and Kinks may have constituted the first division of UK pop groups in the mid-60’s but the Small Faces and especially the Yardbirds were ripe for promotion. By the time the Yardbirds recorded the tracks on this LP they were no longer simply “most blueswailing” but were also recording catchy pop songs such as For Your Love, prompting blues purist Eric Clapton to quit the band in disgust (Wonderful Tonight was still some way off). Clapton recommended as his replacement Jimmy Page who in turn recommended Jeff Beck, then lead guitarist in The Tridents. Although Beck would only play on one studio Yardbirds LP – the eponymous 1966 release aka Roger The Engineer  – his live appearances with the band are included on Live At The BBC Revisited and Live & Rare (both Repertoire). The performances on this LP have been carefully selected to complement the tracks on these compilations.

Beck joined a tight band that had been playing together since October 1963. Chris Dreja, Paul Samwell-Smith and Jim McCarty were an inventive and assured rhythm section, whilst  Keith Relf was a charismatic frontman and a fine harmonica player. Within this framework Beck shone. Freed from the straight blues and r’n’b covers that Clapton had demanded the Yardbirds were able to create a run of successful and innovative singles. For Your Love is here twice, both times from US programme Shindig. The first was recorded at the National Jazz and Blues Festival in Richmond, Surrey on August 6^th 1965 whilst the second was recorded in the Shindig studios and broadcast on September 23^rd 1965. Both are fine versions of Graham Gouldman’s thoughtful pop classic, although Brian Auger’s harpsichord is understandably missing.  Further hits from Gouldman followed with Heart Full Of Soul and Evil Hearted You.  Heart Full of Soul is here in two versions, from Ready Steady Go (broadcast on October 1^st 1965) and Shindig (September 23rd 1965). Evil Hearted You comes from German TV and features an exceptionally fluid Beck solo. Performances of The Vibrations My Girl Sloopy come from Ready Steady Go (July 30^th 1965) and Shindig, another track recorded at Richmond on August 8^th 1965.

Two further tracks recorded for Ready Steady go are more rarely performed – I’m Not Talking and I Ain’t Done Wrong. I’m Not Talking was  written by US jazz/blues artist Mose Allison, whose Young Man Blues would later be adopted and adapted by the Who. I Ain’t Done Wrong is easily it’s equal and comes from the pen of Keith Relf. I Wish You Would was the Yardbirds debut single released in May 1964 and still in their repertoire for their Shindig broadcast of September 23^rd. Train Kept A Rollin’ is another Ready Steady Go recording, written by Tiny Bradshaw but here in a version owing much to Johnny Burnette and the Rock & Roll Trio. Finally there’s I’m A Man of which we have four differing arrangements. In Bo Diddley’s original the lyric ” All you pretty women, stand in line, I can make love to you baby, in an hour’s time” carries a braggadocio that cannot be replicated convincingly by someone who is white, twenty-two and lives in Surrey. The Yardbirds compensate through instrumental improvisation, building up then slowing down the song to create a “rave up” first heard during their early performances as house-band for the legendary Crawdaddy club.   These four takes illustrate the different ways in which Relf could improvise and have the band stay with him.

We leave the Yardbirds as 1965 ends, our final version of I’m A Man being broadcast by Shivaree on New Year’s Day 1966. Beck would stay with the band until he was sacked in November of that year. Before he left he created more fabulous music such as the none-more-psyche Happenings Ten Years Time Ago (specimen lyric “Was it real?, Was it in my dreams?, I need to know what it all means…”). By now Jimmy Page  was on dual lead guitar, this line-up appearing in Antonioni’s 1967 movie Blowup performing Stroll On (actually Train Kept A Rollin’ with new lyrics).

After leaving the Yardbirds Beck would enjoy a successful solo career in a variety of different musical settings but never again would he play with the drive and economy shown here.  Writing about the band in NME Charles Shaar Murray praised “the sheer punk energy of the music and the yobbo joy that the band must have had in playing it.” These fifteen tracks positively resonate with energy and joy: as an introduction to The Yardbirds particular brand of dirtyassrockandroll they are hard to beat. 

Si Coe, Daisy and Marylou