THE YARDBIRDS Little Games with extra tracks and booklet 1967-68 1CD FLAC

THE YARDBIRDS Little Games with extra tracks and booklet 1967-68 1CD FLAC
(includes 20 page JPG booklet)

Tracklist:
Original Album 1967
01 - Little Games
02 - Smile On Me
03 - White Summer
04 - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
05 - Glimpses
06 - Drinking Muddy Water
07 - No Excess Baggage
08 - Stealing Stealing
09 - Only The Black Rose
10 - Little Soldier Boy

Additional Studio Recordings 1967-1968
11 - Puzzles [1991 US Stereo Mix]
12 - I Remember The Night [1991 US Stereo Mix]
13 - Ha Ha Said The Clown
14 - Ten Little Indians [1991 US Stereo Mix]
15 - Goodnight Sweet Josephine [Unphased Version]
16 - Think About It
17 - Goodnight Sweet Josephine [Phased Version (US Single)]

BBC Sessions 1967-1968
18 - Most Likely You'll Go Your Own Way (And I'll Go Mine) [BBC Session]
19 - Liitle Games [BBC Session]
20 - Drinking Muddy Water [BBC Session]
21 - Think About It [BBC Session]
22 - Goodnight Sweet Josephine [BBC Session]
23 - My Baby [BBC Session]
24 - White Summer [BBC Session]
25 - Dazed And Confused [BBC Session]

Total Time = 76 minutes

BBC Review
This reissue goes some way in restoring an unnecessarily tarnished
reputation. Chris Jones 2003

If you were a young James Patrick Page, session man,the years 1966-67
were aperiod of incredible highs and unbelievable lows. You're
regarded as swinging London's top guitarist to call on when your
fave-rave pop combo couldn't cut it in the studio. But you're tired
of the endless jobbing and you welcome the chance to be the Yardbirds'
bass player, working next to friend and hero, Jeff Beck. Ah, but Beck
is disgruntled, bored and itchy to move on. One classic single
("Happenings Ten Years Time Ago") with both Beck and you on duelling
psych-guitars and, woosh! The band are a four-piece and suddenly you're
in the spotlight. By early 1967 you're back in the studio but, under
the dread hand of grim popmeister, Mickey Most, recording lightweight
pop nonsense for the forgettable (US only release) album Little Games.
End of story? Not quite...

This album's been rehashed many times already, particularly as it
contains some of the seeds of Page's later work with Led Zeppelin.
Yet this particular package finally does away with the shoddy production
of yesteryear and replaces it with sparkling clarity. This has its good
and bad points. Page's sonic trickery and inventiveness (bowed strings,
fuzz madness etc.) shine out in digital format, yet Keith Relf's
already somewhat weedy vocals aren't helped whatsoever. Whiney is about
the only thing to be said of his delivery. Yet beyond mere historic
interest there is still plenty to amuse here.

Page's guitar work was pretty well up to scratch by this stage. Endless
gigging Stateside had honed his psychedelic muse and the acoustic work on
''White Mountain'' (actually a copy of Davey Graham's ''She Moved Through
The Fair'') was never bettered (and often recapped) in his days with the
mighty Zep. Song writing, when allowed by the dictatorial Most, was much
improved from the earlier blues rave-ups of their last album (Roger The
Engineer). Relf's ''Only The Black Rose'' is particularly sweet, and, as
extra live tracks (including the original template of ''Dazed And
Confused'') and BBC sessions show, the band was as tight as they'd ever
been in their Beckian heyday.

So, not the disaster that legend has it. In fact, were it not for the
indifference met in the UK by late 1967, these Yardbirds may well have
flown on to better things. Their last B-side, ''Think About It'', features
playing every bit as explosive as anything that Page was yet to achieve.
Unfortunately it came too late to save the band. This reissue goes some
way in restoring an unnecessarily tarnished reputation.

mysterioso