The Yardbirds

[destinytot]

That's the same guy that starred in Chef, right? That show was funny as hell...

[fasstrack]

and with maestro james burton on guitar!!!


cheers

Wow. Killin' band and performance. I hope the Stones listened and learned. They're SO annoying...

[fasstrack]

'I was abandoned on a doorstep by my foster parents'.

Gonna steal that one.

Reminds me of what the late Jim Hall supposedly told people to get out of jams:

'Have pity on me. I come from a broken home'...

[mrcee]

The Butterfield Blues Band was moving from blues into a more experimental direction at approximately the same time--'65-66. They had a couple of virtuoso guitarists--Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop--and were moving into an Eastern-influenced direction with their album East-West. While considered groundbreaking and highly influential, it didn't sell many copies.

The subsequent careers of the BBB members, while respectable, did not approach those of the Yardbirds alums.

Nevertheless, I find it interesting that virtually simultaneously there was a blues-based movement in England and the US that was absorbing influences from Indian music and other sources and moving into psychedelia.

As far as the other San Fran bands, there was obviously a lot of ferment going on, but in '65-66 they were still in the folk/jug band phase of their evolution, and as others have pointed out, at that time were not very good musicians (Jerry Garcia included). Bloomfield was far and away the best guitarist in that scene.

I saw the Butterfield band twice in early 66 at the Fillmore in SF. The second time was right after East West came out and Bloomfield took a tremendous solo on East West. In the middle of the solo someone came on stage and handed him a large flaming swab which he swallowed and then resumed his solo.

[fasstrack]

I saw the Butterfield band twice in early 66 at the Fillmore in SF. The second time was right after East West came out and Bloomfield took a tremendous solo on East West. In the middle of the solo someone came on stage and handed him a large flaming swab which he swallowed and then resumed his solo.

[John A.]

The Butterfield Blues Band was moving from blues into a more experimental direction at approximately the same time--'65-66. They had a couple of virtuoso guitarists--Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop--and were moving into an Eastern-influenced direction with their album East-West. While considered groundbreaking and highly influential, it didn't sell many copies.

The subsequent careers of the BBB members, while respectable, did not approach those of the Yardbirds alums.

At the risk of being flippant, Clapton, Page, and Beck had big careers; the rest of the Yardbirds, not so much (I'm not a big Renaissance fan ...). I'd quibble a bit about calling Elvin Bishop a virtuoso, too. Barely adequate with Butterfield, IMO. As to post BBB careers of its alumni, some of the post-Bloomfied BBB is great (Pigmeat Crabshaw, the Feiten stuff); IMO, the equal of the Bloomfield stuff. The first Electric Flag album has some great moments.

I'm a bit of a Bloomfield nut myself and still listen to him quite a bit. His _career_ was a mess (because he was an independenly wealthy mess who didn't need to make a living from music), but his music was shot through with brilliance (if not sustained brilliance) throughout, IMO. I actually like the rootsy stuff he was doing at the end a lot. One of the Takoma albums called Between the Hard Place and the Ground is one of my most treasured possessions. And there a couple of recently released live recordings that are off the hook.

Nevertheless, I find it interesting that virtually simultaneously there was a blues-based movement in England and the US that was absorbing influences from Indian music and other sources and moving into psychedelia.

As far as the other San Fran bands, there was obviously a lot of ferment going on, but in '65-66 they were still in the folk/jug band phase of their evolution, and as others have pointed out, at that time were not very good musicians (Jerry Garcia included). Bloomfield was far and away the best guitarist in that scene.

Yup.

John

[fasstrack]

[QUOTE=John A.;798598....I'd quibble a bit about calling Elvin Bishop a virtuoso, too. Barely adequate with Butterfield, IMO...John[/QUOTE]I saw the band live at the Fillmore w/Elvin, and would hardly call him 'barely adequate'. Fit right in, did a fine job----good singer and entertainer, too.

With all due respect, c'mon...

[John A.]

I saw the band live at the Fillmore w/Elvin, and would hardly call him 'barely adequate'. Fit right in, did a fine job----good singer and entertainer, too.

With all due respect, c'mon...

I should qualify that by saying that I'm talking about the first two records and that Butterfield, Bloomfield and Bishop himself all said much the same. He became a much better player later, and yes, a good singer too (I'm listening him live at Winterland in 73 on youtube now. Miles ahead of where he was in '65-6). All of these guys evolved a lot in a very short span.

John

[fasstrack]

I should qualify that by saying that I'm talking about the first two records and that Butterfield, Bloomfield and Bishop himself all said much the same. He became a much better player later, and yes, a good singer too (I'm listening him live at Winterland in 73 on youtube now. Miles ahead of where he was in '65-6). All of these guys evolved a lot in a very short span.

John

He probably was young when he got the gig. I remember liking his solo on Drifting and Drifting, very B.B.-influenced, unsurprisingly...

[Doctor Jeff]

All these guys matured quickly in the hothouse of mid- to late-60's rock scene--look and listen to Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia--none of them emerged fully-formed guitar gods. They all started out awkward but energetic til their breakout moments.

Listening to East-West this morning--wow, what a piece. Obviously influenced more by free-form and modal jazz than pop music. According to the Wiki entry, "the tune was inspired by an all-night LSD trip that East-West's primary songwriter Mike Bloomfield experienced in the fall of 1965, during which the late guitarist 'said he'd had a revelation into the workings of Indian music.'" Though it didn't sell many copies, this album and the live performances obviously set the template for the long, extended jam-based riffing that came out of San Francisco.

Meanwhile, the Yardbirds introduced distorted guitars, psychedelic imagery and longer forms with their live "raves" into the rock vocabulary. The Beatles followed a little later and got more credit for it, but the Birds did it first and arguably better from an instrumental vantage point.

From what I've read and heard in interviews, all these guys (and to be honest they were all young men) were listening to each other and everything they could get their hands on--old blues, Indian raga music, Coltrane--and trying to fit it into the rock context.

[Doctor Jeff]

My favorite story about influence and origins from that era is the one that David Van Ronk tells about Bob Dylan. (In the Scorcese Dylan documentary.) In Greenwich Village, he and Bobby were playing the coffeehouse scene in the early 60's, and Van Ronk was doing an updated version of the old song House of the Rising Sun. Well Dylan "stole" Van Ronk's version and recorded it. Eventually the Animals copied Dylan's "stolen" arrangement and had a huge hit with it.

Back in GV when Van Ronk performed HOTRS everyone asked him why he was copying from Dylan...

[unknownguitarplayer]

Check out the double LP they made w/Sonny Boy Williamson. Great stuff. I believe Clapton was in the band...

I don't have any idea of what the "real" facts are, but the way Randy Newman tells the story, Sonny Boy Williamson was a very early victim of identity theft and the guy who recorded with the Yardbirds was an impostor.

Randy Newman Honors Chicago Blues Great 'Sonny Boy' Williamson on New Song | Billboard

[John A.]

I don't have any idea of what the "real" facts are, but the way Randy Newman tells the story, Sonny Boy Williamson was a very early victim of identity theft and the guy who recorded with the Yardbirds was an impostor.

Randy Newman Honors Chicago Blues Great 'Sonny Boy' Williamson on New Song | Billboard

The facts are that there were two blues harmonica player/singers who called themselves Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Williamson, Sonny Boy Williamson I and Rice Miller, (AKA Aleck), Sonny Boy Williamson II. The story I've heard is that Miller got a gig on the radio in the early 40s sponsorsed by a flour company; the company decided to say he was SBW because at that point SBW was fairly well known and they thought it would sell more flour. I don't think anybody knows what Miller thought of that. When his recording career got going in the early 50s he called himself the "real and only" SBW. He was the older of the two, but Sonny Boy Williamson I had a successful career significantly earlier. Sonny Boy Williamson I died in 1948, and by the time the Yardbirds came along Miller's records in a more modern, electric Chicago blues style were better known.

John

[citizenk74]

The facts are that there were two blues harmonica player/singers who called themselves Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Williamson, Sonny Boy Williamson I and Rice Miller, (AKA Aleck), Sonny Boy Williamson II. The story I've heard is that Miller got a gig on the radio in the early 40s sponsorsed by a flour company; the company decided to say he was SBW because at that point SBW was fairly well known and they thought it would sell more flour. I don't think anybody knows what Miller thought of that. When his recording career got going in the early 50s he called himself the "real and only" SBW. He was the older of the two, but Sonny Boy Williamson I had a successful career significantly earlier. Sonny Boy Williamson I died in 1948, and by the time the Yardbirds came along Miller's records in a more modern, electric Chicago blues style were better known.

John

That's what I read, as well. IIRC, SBWI was found dead in a snowstorm, having been stabbed. I used to do a couple of SBWII's tunes in my blues sets. "Eyesight to the Blind" and "Nine Below Zero" were crowd pleasers. The only SBWII cd I have was given to me by a fan who liked my version of EttB but found RM's other stuff not to her taste. Her loss, my gain. Rice Miller, as "Sonny Boy Williamson" found greater success in Europe than in the US, as so many blues greats had. My first Blues LP was Howlin' Wolf: the London Sessions with Eric Clapton duplicating Hubert Sumlin's inimitable lines, to his and HS' mutual bafflement. The liner notes had a quote from one of the engineers saying that Wolf was "bone stupid" - a remark as inaccurate as it is offensive. Any man who could challenge Muddy Waters in his prime for the title of "King of Chicago Blues" was very far from "stupid". The phrase "glass houses" come to mind. Chester Burnett was notable for his business acumen and his personal integrity with his band mates - insisting, for instance, on their buying health insurance for their families as a condition of employment. His continuing heartbreak was his mother's refusal to accept any money from him because she accepted the canard about the blues being "the Devil's Music".

[John A.]

That's what I read, as well. IIRC, SBWI was found dead in a snowstorm, having been stabbed. I used to do a couple of SBWII's tunes in my blues sets. "Eyesight to the Blind" and "Nine Below Zero" were crowd pleasers. The only SBWII cd I have was given to me by a fan who liked my version of EttB but found RM's other stuff not to her taste. Her loss, my gain. Rice Miller, as "Sonny Boy Williamson" found greater success in Europe than in the US, as so many blues greats had. My first Blues LP was Howlin' Wolf: the London Sessions with Eric Clapton duplicating Hubert Sumlin's inimitable lines, to his and HS' mutual bafflement. The liner notes had a quote from one of the engineers saying that Wolf was "bone stupid" - a remark as inaccurate as it is offensive. Any man who could challenge Muddy Waters in his prime for the title of "King of Chicago Blues" was very far from "stupid". The phrase "glass houses" come to mind. Chester Burnett was notable for his business acumen and his personal integrity with his band mates - insisting, for instance, on their buying health insurance for their families as a condition of employment. His continuing heartbreak was his mother's refusal to accept any money from him because she accepted the canard about the blues being "the Devil's Music".

I still do "Help Me". I used to Eyesight to the Blind occasionally, but it has been quite a while.

I guess I have to dig out my copy of the London Sessions and re-read the liner notes, because I don't remember those quotes. I always assumed the stuff that sounds like Sumlin on it IS Sumlin and that the credits (which had Sumlin on rhythm and Clapton on Lead on all tracks) were wrong. Anyway, I think the best solo on that album is Stevie Winwood's organ solo on Who's Been Talking.

I don't recall exactly what was the first blues record I got into. My father had fairly eclectic tastes in music, including some blues and blues-rock records -- e.g., Fathers and Sons (Muddy with Butterfield, Bloomfield, Sam Lay and Duck Dunn), Get Your Ya Yas Out, Blues Project at the Cafe Au Go Go, Goodbye Cream, and Blind Faith, Ledbelly and Josh White. So it was in the air without my being aware of blues being a distinct genre at first. IIRC, Cream is probably what caught my ear first and that led me to other things. When I was about 16, I took a few lessons from Danny Kalb (the lead guitar player in the Blues Project), and he gave me a basic collection of licks and turnarounds, fills, and finger picking patterns, and got me to sing while playing. In my high school there was a whole slew of kids getting into blues harp, but for some reason not too many guitar players (or rather, because it was 1978, the guitar players were mostly playing Ramones songs ...), and I wound up being the go-to accompanist when we cut class to jam ... uh, I mean did independent research off campus. There were also several used/cut-out record stores in my neighborhood where you could find this stuff for a dollar or two, so I got deep into it and all the different bules and blues rock styles kind of hit me at once.

John

[fasstrack]

The facts are that there were two blues harmonica player/singers who called themselves Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Williamson, Sonny Boy Williamson I and Rice Miller, (AKA Aleck), Sonny Boy Williamson II. The story I've heard is that Miller got a gig on the radio in the early 40s sponsorsed by a flour company; the company decided to say he was SBW because at that point SBW was fairly well known and they thought it would sell more flour. I don't think anybody knows what Miller thought of that. When his recording career got going in the early 50s he called himself the "real and only" SBW. He was the older of the two, but Sonny Boy Williamson I had a successful career significantly earlier. Sonny Boy Williamson I died in 1948, and by the time the Yardbirds came along Miller's records in a more modern, electric Chicago blues style were better known.

John

You are correct, sir. It was King Biscuit. I think the story about 'identity theft' is fiddle-faddle. I HAD that LP. It's Sonny Boy...

[fasstrack]

My favorite story about influence and origins from that era is the one that David Van Ronk tells about Bob Dylan. (In the Scorcese Dylan documentary.) In Greenwich Village, he and Bobby were playing the coffeehouse scene in the early 60's, and Van Ronk was doing an updated version of the old song House of the Rising Sun. Well Dylan "stole" Van Ronk's version and recorded it. Eventually the Animals copied Dylan's "stolen" arrangement and had a huge hit with it.

Back in GV when Van Ronk performed HOTRS everyone asked him why he was copying from Dylan...

Here's another I like, told to me by the late Eddie Diehl:

The Folklore Center on 6th Ave. and W. 3rd in the Village was a hangout for folkies. (Eddie had a repair concession). One day Joni Mitchell wandered in, and a conversation ensued. A casual and unmemorable reference to drinking was made. She left after a while.

After 20 minutes or so, a wide-eyed Joni, deep in thought came back and asked

'Do you think I DRINK too much?'...

[neatomic]

there were definitely two sonny boy williamsons

goes to show you what commercial radio sponsors thought of the talent


like replacing darrens in bewitched

back then on radio, shows were all sponsor driven...palmolive presents or lucky strike hour...they replaced the lead players ie actors and musicians without a second thought...

cheers

[fasstrack]

...like replacing darrens in bewitched...cheers

Ha ha. Or Lionel in The Jeffersons...

[Stuart Elliott]

Lots of borrowed identities in the blues community. The two Sonny Boys as already famously noted. But the story doesn't end there. Albert King's real name was Albert Nelson, but he claimed to be B.B.'s half brother and used BB's nickname "Blues Boy" early in his career.

Earl King of New Orleans whose "Come On" was covered by Jim Hendrix was born Earl Silas Johnson IV. When Guitar Slim was injured in an automobile accident as his "The Things You Used to Do" was atop the r&b charts, the label sent King/Johnson out on tour as "Guitar Slim."

Many early blues artists recorded under different names for different labels. Blind Wille McTell ("Statesboro Blues") and John Lee Hooker are two examples.

[destinytot]

I don't have any idea of what the "real" facts are, but the way Randy Newman tells the story, Sonny Boy Williamson was a very early victim of identity theft and the guy who recorded with the Yardbirds was an impostor.

Randy Newman Honors Chicago Blues Great 'Sonny Boy' Williamson on New Song | Billboard

I have a friend who's passionate about Sonny Boy Williamson's records with The Yardbirds (from which he says he learned to play the harmonica).

I told him about this story and the song (he doesn't speak English), and he just shrugged. He knew all about there having been both Sonny Boy Williamson I and II, though.

But he showed me some vinyl albums (all Charly label), and I now intend to do my best to get past my prejudices* and give them a sympathetic hearing.

*EDIT Eric Burdon's accent (when singing) irritates me - and I've just realised that I'd been confusing The Yardbirds with The Animals.

[neatomic]

my fave yardbirds were post clapton..he really hit his stride in his next band...mayalls bluesbreakers..the beano album...thats the one that made him a legend

the great yardbirds lp with jeff beck is called- roger the engineer..yardbirds were pretty nice solid rhythm n blues band...but beck was the rainbow icing on the cake...he just plays all over them..all his outlandish tricks already intact....this was a mindblowing lp for a lot of players...myself included

next great yardbirds album was little games..this time with jimmy page...he upped the production and played some great and adventurous stuff..pagey was always into alt tunings and layering guitars..very smart...this is the band that eventually morphed into led zepp (for better or worse!!..haha)

here's lead off track

yer yardbirds primer..hah

cheers

[P.J.]

Love Beck Yardbirds. His playing was so much fun back then. (Still is, for that matter.)