The Yardbirds are an English rock band, noted for starting the careers of three of rock's most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. A blues-based band whose sound evolved into experimental pop rock, they had a string of hits including “For Your Love”, “Over, Under, Sideways, Down” and “Heart Full Of Soul”. They were a crucial link between British R&B and psychedelia.
The Yardbirds were pioneers in almost every guitar innovation of the '60s: fuzz tone, feedback, distortion, improved amplification, and were one of the first to put an emphasis on complex lead guitar parts and experimentation. The term, "Yardbird" is used in the southern United States as slang for 'chicken' (as in poultry), and it is a slang expression for "prisoner".
The bulk of the band's conceptual ideas, as well as their songwriting, came from the quartet of singer Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, rhythm guitarist/bassist Chris Dreja, and bassist/producer Paul Samwell-Smith, all of whom co-wrote the Yardbird's original hits and constituted the core of the group.
Roger the Engineer (original title: Yardbirds, US, German, and French title: Over Under Sideways Down) is an album by The Yardbirds, released in 1966. It was produced by bassist Paul Samwell-Smith and Simon Napier-Bell. It was the only Yardbirds album with all originally-written material. Although the record was officially titled The Yardbirds, it has since been referred to, first colloquially, then semi-officially, as Roger the Engineer, a title stemming from the drawing on its front cover, a cartoon of the record's audio engineer Roger Cameron by band member Chris Dreja. Due to the influence of Jeff Beck's experimentation with guitar distortion, the album is considered a precursor to heavy metal.
The original American versions of this album (issued with a completely different album cover and entitled "Over Under Sideways Down") omitted the songs "The Nazz Are Blue" and "Rack My Mind" and are mixed differently to the British editions. Regardless, record collectors have sought out both the mono (LN 24210) and stereo (BN 26210) versions since several tracks are featured with slight differences in the mixes (see US album listing below). Epic's 1983 reissue (simply entitled The Yardbirds) featured the original UK album cover, the two missing tracks, duplication of the British mixing, and two additional tracks, the 1966 single "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" b/w "Psycho Daisies", both featuring Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 349 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
|
