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  1. #1

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    OK I'm just throwing this out there--doing some binge listening to the Yardbirds, whom of course I know but haven't listened to so intently in a long time.

    Great band, 3 of the greatest rock guitarists of all time, very influential.

    Here's the question--is there another band that rocked so hard and experimented so much in the mid-60's?

    Yeah, I know, the Stones, Kinks, Byrds, Beatles--but none of them (except the Stones) started out so steeped in the blues, yet within a short time (2 years) were moving into full-blown psychedelia.

    Anyway, just throwing it out there. Any Yardbird fans here?

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  3. #2

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    love the yardbirds...beck on roger the engineer was eye opening...pagey era was equally interesting


    mayalls bluesbreakers only thing comparable...had ec (post yardbirds), the sensational peter green (my fave) and young mick taylor

    antonioni-



    cheers

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
    OK I'm just throwing this out there--doing some binge listening to the Yardbirds, whom of course I know but haven't listened to so intently in a long time.

    Great band, 3 of the greatest rock guitarists of all time, very influential.

    Here's the question--is there another band that rocked so hard and experimented so much in the mid-60's?

    Yeah, I know, the Stones, Kinks, Byrds, Beatles--but none of them (except the Stones) started out so steeped in the blues, yet within a short time (2 years) were moving into full-blown psychedelia.

    Anyway, just throwing it out there. Any Yardbird fans here?
    Check out the double LP they made w/Sonny Boy Williamson. Great stuff. I believe Clapton was in the band...

  5. #4

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    I wonder what they'd have sounded like if produced by Page.

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by fasstrack
    Check out the double LP they made w/Sonny Boy Williamson. Great stuff. I believe Clapton was in the band...
    Yes, he was. They got off to a bad start when Sonny Boy declared “these British want to play the blues so bad and they play the blues so bad!”

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    love the yardbirds...beck on roger the engineer was eye opening...pagey era was equally interesting


    mayalls bluesbreakers only thing comparable...had ec (post yardbirds), the sensational peter green (my fave) and young mick taylor

    antonioni-



    cheers
    So far ahead of its time in so many ways.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

  8. #7

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    becks use of feedback kept garage musicians working overtime...his solo on "over under sideways down" needs some careful attention (transcript) to get his abilities way back when..

  9. #8

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    I'm in learning mode here. This clip helps:

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    Yes, he was. They got off to a bad start when Sonny Boy declared “these British want to play the blues so bad and they play the blues so bad!”
    All except for Derek & Clive.

  11. #10

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    They were pretty raw in the beginning. The stuff with EC is OK, but not my favorite. I can see why the Brits dug it though.

    You can really see Beck developing as a player after he joins. The guys get more polished and more innovative in the studio as well, though by the time of Page they were moving away from their fan base.

    Unfortunately, psychedelic rock excites the druggies and the guys with horn rims that write esoteric rock mags, but it's never really been a huge seller.

    The evolution of guitar sounds, as well as bass and drums, with the Birds is impressive. Again, there weren't a lot of other groups out there this far out in '65-66. The Stones were not very experimental at all, at least sonically. The Beatles moved that direction a little after the Yardbirds--much as I love them, they were not instrumental virtuosos and were creative in the hermetic studio sense, not performance-wise.

    As far as the Bluesbreakers, to be honest I don't know enough of them to give a fair assessment, but they seem to stick strictly to blues-based rock. Of course they've had great guitarists!

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    Yes, he was. They got off to a bad start when Sonny Boy declared “these British want to play the blues so bad and they play the blues so bad!”
    Ha ha. Guess he was just 'fattenin' frogs for snakes'...

  13. #12

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    I always admired the Yardbirds. To me that was the beginning of all things Hard Rock. The rave ups, man, thats what called the hard driven instrumental parts of the songs!

    I dare to say the real Rock was a British thing. Or European. They got the feel just right. I cant thing of any American bands that rocked harder than British. At least in the 60s and 70s.

    Yardbirds- Led Zeppelin- Black Sabbath- Iron Maiden/NWOBHM, there was definitely a trend there.

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff

    As far as the Bluesbreakers, to be honest I don't know enough of them to give a fair assessment, but they seem to stick strictly to blues-based rock. Of course they've had great guitarists!

    peter green- the super-natural!




    cheers

  15. #14

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    For a long time I liked Jeff Beck's lyricism and sound, but also considered him a bullshitter. Lots of going up one string, which to me isn't musical. I felt Beck's Boogie was a trick bag, and a copy of Les Paul. I even put down his solo on Stevie Wonder's Lookin' For Another Pure Love on Talking Book b/c he did that for a passage. I thought Buzzy Feiten, my boyhood hero, should have gotten that solo instead.

    Well, I listened again and I was totally wrong. That's a beautiful solo he played. I think Jeff Beck and Santana are the 2 most melodic rock players. Their solos resonate and stay in your ears.

    The Yardbirds were cool. Good group...

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    peter green- the super-natural!




    cheers
    That was one LP I wore out as a youth. I love Peter Green. (So did B.B. King, who said he was 'the only white boy blues player who gives me chills'). Good singer, too.

    I recently got many of my old LPs back from a friend who was storing them for me. Alas, I think most of my blues collection is lost to the 4 winds---but I still have A hard Road!

  17. #16

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    Early Fleetwood Mac with Green, Spencer, Kirwan on guitars
    Stepped off the beaten track with things line "oh well" "green manalishi", "man of the world" as well as some definktive blus numbers like "need your love so bad" (for me one of Green's best ever solos - understated, restrained, measured and heartbreakingly beautiful)
    I even remember sitting with a Kasuga acoustic guitar trying to decipher by ear "oh well" from the radio

    A nod also to my transatlantic cousins for Terry Kath - early Chicago (Transit Authority in those days). Died tragically early. Listen to that blazing innovative solo on 25 or 6 to 4 - how many 60s rock guitarists were incorporating dorian mode or diminished runs in this relatively new medium?

    Electric Flag also well worth a mention - Bloomfield sits on the same pedastel as Peter Green in my book of 60s great innovative blues guitarists
    Last edited by Ray175; 08-27-2017 at 03:41 AM.

  18. #17

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    I got to hear The Yardbirds live back around 1966 in Baltimore, MD when Jeff Beck was the lead guitarist. He was the first guitarist I had ever heard that was using feedback, doing pick slides, and playing with one hand while drinking a coke with the other.

    And his playing had such an edge to it - raw but very clean and downright exciting!

  19. #18

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    The interesting thing I get from binge listening to the Yardbirds is that they were an uneven band. A lot of their songs are just not very good--cute but not great songs. Kind of like Cream--I think a lot of groups of that time were more interested in a sound or a vibe than actually writing good songs that would stand the test of time.

    The rhythm section got better as time went on but didn't have the tightness of Ringo and Paul or Charlie and Bill, or the chops of Baker and Bruce. Keith Relf wasn't a bad singer, either, but I don't think he stands out among the other belters of his day--Eric Burdon, Mick Jagger, etc.

    That doesn't mean they weren't a great and very influential group. The innovative guitar work and their willingness to experiment was quite groundbreaking at the time. It was such a change from the Brill Building, 4-to-the-bar, AABA, clean minimally overdriven bridge pickup guitar sound that was prevalent at the time.

  20. #19

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    don't mix-up business and mis-management with musical talent... or youthful musical vision


    the 60's uk beat/r&b business scene wasn't based on talent..is any commercial music really ever???


    yardbirds were blues 'n jazz lovers...hence the name "yardbirds"....clapton quit over being "forced" to do overtly "pop" song-for your love...which IS a great pop song nevertheless!...but they were forced to do "commercial" things they wouldn't ordinarily ever want to do...young kids all


    the fact that they released such mind-blowing music is testament to the admiration and devotion to the music they loved...american blues, r&b, & jazz

    same with stones...when they played usa popular teen show -shindig-...brian jones and rest insisted that howlin wolf be on show...and he was!!!




    and with maestro james burton on guitar!!!


    cheers
    Last edited by neatomic; 08-27-2017 at 07:57 PM.

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
    OK I'm just throwing this out there--doing some binge listening to the Yardbirds, whom of course I know but haven't listened to so intently in a long time.

    Great band, 3 of the greatest rock guitarists of all time, very influential.

    Here's the question--is there another band that rocked so hard and experimented so much in the mid-60's?

    Yeah, I know, the Stones, Kinks, Byrds, Beatles--but none of them (except the Stones) started out so steeped in the blues, yet within a short time (2 years) were moving into full-blown psychedelia.

    Anyway, just throwing it out there. Any Yardbird fans here?
    I was going to say Fleetwood Mac, but they're really a later evolution of what the Yardbirds were up to. By the time they formed, bluesmen-evolving-into-psychedelia was a full-blown genre (Are You Experienced and Fresh Cream were both out already, e.g.), and they were part of that, as opposed to being part of its roots as a band (even if they all were as individuals in earlier bands). If the parameters are Yardbirds contemporaries, bluesy/r&r progenitors of psychedelia, here are some.

    Top of my list would be:
    The Blues Project
    Butterfield Blues Band
    Big Brother and the Holding Company
    Grateful Dead

    Some more tenuous (not sure about the timelines, not as purely bluesy) examples might be:
    Jefferson Airplane
    Zappa
    Quicksilver Messenger Service
    Paul Revere and the Raiders
    Young Rascals
    Lovin' Spoonful

    There are also soul/R&B acts that were headed toward experimentation by then, like Curtis Mayfield, and the Parliaments. And some of the Motown guys probably would have been if Gordy would've allowed it (e.g., Marvin Gaye)

    There are also several blues guys who were headed in a more experimental direction, but this is not really captured on recordings from the period. The most obvious example is Hendrix (who was pretty fully formed by ~65), but also Magic Sam, Buddy Guy, Earl Hooker. Buddy has said in interviews that these guys were all doing Hendrix before Hendrix.

    All that, plus who ever is on "Nuggets".

    John

  22. #21

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    British comic Lenny Henry (as bluesman Lowdown Finger Lickin' Dirty Hound Dog Smith) + Jeff Beck:

  23. #22

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  24. #23

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    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.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
    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 albums...
    I was a HUGE Butterfield fan as a teen, b/c I fancied myself a blues player. Not only was the band great, but they created a pathway for me to get into the black innovators of blues and blues guitar. They were jazz-influenced, too: East West had long vamps that swung in their own way.

    I don't know that the members didn't do well afterwards. Buzzy Feiten, very deservedly, became the hottest studio ticket on guitar. And Full Moon, with 3 ex-Butterfield guys, made a memorable album and probably had a small but devoted following. That ain't applesauce.

    I heard a funny story about how he got the gig:

    Butterfield was hot and holding auditions for guitar. A lot of name players showed up to try out. So this cocky 17-year-old from Long Island, Howard Feiten, waltzes in. He waited about an hour, then got restless. So he walked right up to Butterfield and said:

    'I'm tired of waiting. Let me play RIGHT NOW, or f you, I'm going home!'

    They looked at each other, shrugged, probably chuckled.

    'What the hell, let the kid play'.

    We all know the rest...
    Last edited by fasstrack; 08-29-2017 at 11:03 AM.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by destinytot
    British comic Lenny Henry (as bluesman Lowdown Finger Lickin' Dirty Hound Dog Smith) + Jeff Beck:
    That's the same guy that starred in Chef, right? That show was funny as hell...