Various Artists - NME Poll Winners' Concert, Empire Pool, London, Britain, 5-1-1966

I've already posted the NME Poll Winners' Concerts from 1964 and 1965. Here's the only other one known to be exist in the public sphere, the 1966 one.

This is arguably one of the greatest concerts of all time, just in terms of sheer star power. The last three acts were the Who, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles, for crying out loud! That was probably the one and only time those three acts appeared on stage in a row like that.

Unfortunately though... we're missing most of the good stuff, including all of those three performances! So sorry. And worse, of the remaining concert, we are missing half of that too. This concert was at least two hours long. So, to broadcast it on TV, it was split it two, and the two parts were shown on TV a week apart. It's pretty clear to me that only the second part survives, because all of the first part is missing. 

Here are all the musical acts that played in the first part: the Overlanders, Small Faces, the Spencer Davis Group, Roy Orbison, the Walker Brothers, the Yardbirds, the Seekers, the Alan Price Set, the Shadows, and Cliff Richard. If you add all those acts together, plus the ones we do have below (Sounds Incorporated, the Fortunes, Herman's Hermits, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, the Yardbirds, Crispian St. Peters, Alan Price Set, and Dusty Springfield), plus the three acts finishing the second set (the Who, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles), it's hard to argue this was the greatest collection of rock music talent ever on one stage in the 1960s. It's such a shame we don't have all of it!

Of course, the greatest loss is not getting to hear the Beatles' set. This would turn out to be the very last concert the Beatles performed in Britain, excepting the unannounced performance on top of Abbey Roads Studios in 1969. We do know the songs they played though: "I Feel Fine," "If I Needed Someone," "Day Tripper," "Nowhere Man," and "I'm Down."

To further frustrate you, these NME concerts continued until 1971. I couldn't find many details about the concerts after 1966. However, we know a bit more about the 1967 and 1968 concerts, because setlist.fm gives a list of the performers for each of those years.  

Here's a list of the known performers for the 1967 concert (in alphabetical order): Alan Price Set, Cat Stevens, Cliff Richard, Cream, Dusty Springfield, Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band, Lulu, Small Faces, the Beach Boys, the Dubliners, the Move, the Spencer Davis Group, the Troggs. 

And here are the known performers for the 1968 concert (also in alphabetical order): Amen Corner, Cliff Richard, Don Partridge, Dusty Springfield, Love Affair, Lulu, Procol Harum, Scott Walker, Status Quo, the Association, the Herd, the Move, the Paper Dolls, and the Rolling Stones. 

Man, what incredible concerts those would be to hear! Unfortunately though, no known recordings of any of the concerts after 1966 exist. I strongly suspect they weren't broadcast on TV, but I don't know for sure. Let's hope that the remainder of the 1966 concert and all of the 1967 to 1971 concerts are sitting in some vault and will be released to the public one day. 

Now, let's get to why we don't have the recordings of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Apparently, there was a big argument backstage. The popular version is that both Mick Jagger of the Stones and John Lennon of the Beatles argued that they were the biggest band in the world, and thus demanded to go on last. However, it appears this wasn't true. In fact, most of the members of the Beatles and the Stones were friends with each other. 

I found what appears to be the more accurate story at The Paul McCartney Project website. It has an impressive webpage dedicated to this concert, with lots of photos and text. You can find that here:

https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/concert/1966-05-01/

That webpage includes an excerpt from a book that extensively quotes Maurice Kinn, who was the owner of NME at the time. Here's what Kinn claims happened: 

"Halfway through the Stones' set, the four Beatles arrived at the foot of the stairs to the stage, with their guitars in hand. I told them they were 25 minutes early, but Lennon insisted that they were going on. I said they couldn't and John shouted, 'Didn't you hear me the first time? We're going on now, or we're not going on at all.' In a rapidly convened huddle with Brian Epstein, I outlined my dilemma, that I had promised the Stones, in writing, that the Beatles should not follow them immediately onto the stage. I had arranged for the awards presentation to come between the two acts and explained to Brian that if the Beatles did not come on at the previously arranged time, I would be left with no option but to send MC Jimmy Savile on stage to explain to 10,000 NME readers that the Beatles were in the stadium but they weren’t going to play. I explained to him very clearly what would happen then. There would be a riot! Half of Wembley would be destroyed and Wembley and the NME would both sue Epstein. Brian conveyed this to the Beatles and John exploded! He gave me abuse like you've never heard before in all of your life. You could hear him all over the backstage area. He said, 'We'll never play for you again!' But he knew that he had no choice. Fifteen minutes later, the Beatles went on stage, collected their awards and played the show."

So it seems it's true there was an argument involving Lennon, but not Jagger. Jagger was performing on stage at the time and was probably totally oblivious about the conflict going on nearby. While I think Lennon is one of the greatest musicians of all time, he could be an asshole sometimes, and it looks like this was one of those times. Probably the Beatles were sick and tired of giving concerts by this time, and Lennon had lost all patience and just wanted to get this obligation over with.

Be that as it may, the Beatles didn't even allow the cameras to roll when they took the stage, due to the conflict mentioned above. I'm not sure how it came to be that the Who and the Rolling Stones also didn't allowing their performances to be broadcast either, but that's what happened. 

So anyway, while we can lament all the missing music, what we're left with is still pretty damn impressive. And we're lucky to have anything at all, since very few live recordings from 1966 survive. As for the sound quality, it's reasonably good, but not great. Consider this was probably recorded off a TV in 1966, so one has to lower one's standards a bit. I tried to improve it, but there wasn't much I could do, since I couldn't successfully separate the vocals from the instruments, or the instruments from each other. In the end, I just kept it the same. 

In case you're curious about who won the poll awards this year, there's a list at the NME website, which you can see here:

https://www.nme.com/nme-awards/awards-history/1966-606221

Also, note that I found a review for this concert from NME, thanks to the Paul McCartney Project website mentioned above. I included an image of it in the download file. It has comments about all the performances, including all the missing ones.

This album is one hour long. 

01 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
02 In the Hall of the Mountain King [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
03 Zorba's Dance [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
04 talk (Fortunes)
05 This Golden Ring (Fortunes)
06 You've Got Your Troubles (Fortunes)
07 talk (Herman's Hermits)
08 A Must to Avoid (Herman's Hermits)
09 You Won't Be Leaving (Herman's Hermits)
10 talk (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
11 You Make It Move (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
12 Hold Tight (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
13 talk (Yardbirds)
14 Train Kept A-Rollin' (Yardbirds)
15 Shapes of Things (Yardbirds)
16 talk (Crispian St. Peters)
17 Send Me Some Lovin' (Crispian St. Peters)
18 The Pied Piper (Crispian St. Peters)
19 talk (Alan Price Set)
20 Baby Workout (Alan Price Set)
21 I Put a Spell on You (Alan Price Set)
22 talk (Dusty Springfield)
23 In the Middle of Nowhere (Dusty Springfield)
24 You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (Dusty Springfield)
25 talk (Dusty Springfield)
26 Shake (Dusty Springfield)
27 talk (Beatles & emcee)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/L5VqhUHF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/GvbEFGJxuHwyVLp/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Sorry if it's misleading to have a photo of the Beatles but no actual Beatles music on the album. At least we do have the recording of the Beatles accepting their awards. This photo was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

The Yardbirds - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1966-1968

Here's the third and final volume of the Yardbirds at the BBC. However, I made one more album of all the additional versions of songs the band did more than once for the BBC. I can post that here as well if there's interest.

The first three songs here, from June 1966, feature Jeff Beck as lead guitarist. Shortly afterwards, Jimmy Page joined the band, and the band coexisted with two lead guitarists until about November 1966. Unfortunately, none of the performances here are from that period. Instead, from the fourth song to the end, it's just Page as lead guitarist. 

So this should be of interest for Led Zeppelin fans, since of course Page would be the lead guitarist in that band starting in late 1968. In fact, if you're a serious Zeppelin fan, you probably know that band was billed as the Yardbirds when they first started out.

Speaking of Led Zeppelin, if you listen to "Dazed and Confused" here, you'd be forgiven if you'd think this is Led Zeppelin already, but with a different lead vocalist. "White Summer" is a song that band would play in concert sometimes. And this version of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" has some parts that sounds like another Zep song.

By the way, "Train Kept A-Rollin'" and "Jeff's Boogie" are songs that were featured on earlier volumes in this series. I've included them here both because those earlier versions were separated in time by a year or more, and also because the soloing is significantly different from version to version.

The sound quality is generally excellent. The one exception is "Rack My Mind." It's the only song here that is officially unreleased. But I've included it because it's a very rare song for the band to have played live, and I think the sound quality just barely makes the cut.

Six of the songs were hindered by the usual BBC problem of DJs talking over the music. (They're the ones with "[Edit]" in their names.) But I used the X-Minus audio editing software to wipe out the talking while keeping the underlying music.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 The Sun Is Shining (Yardbirds)
02 Jeff's Boogie [Instrumental] (Yardbirds)
03 Rack My Mind [Live] (Yardbirds)
04 Drinking Muddy Water [Edit] (Yardbirds)
05 Little Games (Yardbirds)
06 Most Likely You Go Your Way [And I'll Go Mine] (Yardbirds)
07 Goodnight Sweet Josephine [Edit] (Yardbirds)
08 My Baby [Edit] (Yardbirds)
09 Think about It [Edit] (Yardbirds)
10 White Summer [Instrumental] [Edit] (Yardbirds)
11 Dazed and Confused [Edit] (Yardbirds)
12 Train Kept A-Rollin' (Yardbirds)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701164/TYARDBRDS1966-1968_BBSssonsVolum3_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is from 1967. You may recognize Jimmy Page - he's the one with the brown tie and the blue striped shirt.

The Yardbirds - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1965-1966

Yesterday, I posted Volume 1 in this series of three albums of the Yardbirds at the BBC. I sorted out all three albums at the same time, and I'm keen on posting them, so here's Volume 2 already.

This album represents the peak of the band's popularity. As a result, they were able to have many BBC sessions. As I explained for Volume 1, when I had the choice of different versions of the same song, I went with the one with the best sound quality (assuming the band's performances would always be solid). So that's what you'll find here. But I've gathered the other versions and will post those later.

Although there are no songs repeated on this album, the first two songs also appeared on Volume 1 in this series. That's because the versions of Volume 1 featured Eric Clapton on lead guitar. These versions feature Jeff Beck instead, and I figure that's a big enough difference to include them here and not on the repeats album that will come later.

You may note that six of the songs have "[Edit]" in their names. Those are the cases where BBC DJs talked over parts of the music. Using the X-Minus audio editing program, I was able to wipe their talking while keeping the underlying music.

All the versions here have been officially released. But I was able to use the work of Yardbirds fan DocDandy to select the official releases that sounded the best for each song.

Generally speaking, the band liked to frequently promote their best known songs, like "I'm a Man" and "Shapes of Things." But there also are some rare songs here where the only recorded version known is the BBC one, such as "The Stumble," "Dust My Blues," and "Baby Scratch My Back."

The previous volume in this series has one song that doesn't sound as good as the others, and the next volume has one like that too. But all the songs in this volume sound great.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 I Wish You Would [Edit] (Yardbirds)
02 Louise (Yardbirds)
03 I'm a Man [Edit] (Yardbirds)
04 The Stumble [Instrumental] (Yardbirds)
05 Evil Hearted You (Yardbirds)
06 Still I'm Sad (Yardbirds)
07 Hang On Sloopy [Edit] (Yardbirds)
08 Smokestack Lightning (Yardbirds)
09 You're a Better Man than I (Yardbirds)
10 Train Kept A-Rollin' [Edit] (Yardbirds)
11 Dust My Blues (Yardbirds)
12 Shapes of Things [Edit] (Yardbirds)
13 Over, Under, Sideways, Down (Yardbirds)
14 Baby Scratch My Back [Edit] (Yardbirds)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701163/TYARDBRDS1965-1966_BBSssonsVolum2_atse.zip.html

The album cover photo was taken in early 1966, while Jeff Beck was in the band, but before Jimmy Page joined. (The two lead guitarists were in the band together for a few months.) Also, Beck is the one sitting at the bottom in front of the others. Originally, he was much lower, so only his head was showing. But I used Photoshop to raise him up. I think that improved the composition of the photo.

The Yardbirds - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1964-1965

Boy, am I glad to post this album. The Yardbirds are a no-brainer fit for the kind of music I post at this blog, but up until now I hadn't posted any of their music. For some artists, that's just because I hadn't gotten around to them yet. But for the Yardbirds, I wanted to, but I was daunted by the sheer mess of their musical discography.

In my opinion, the Yardbirds' musical legacy has been treated shabbily from day one up until current day as I write this (in November 2021). Some artists have been treated great, with lovingly created deluxe editions, box sets, and the like. While others have been treated terribly, or ignored, like the Easybeats. The Yardbirds are a more confounding case, because many archival releases and editions have come out, but few of them have hit the nail of the head. One gets some things right, another gets other things right, etc... So that leaves it to someone like me to have to sort through all that stuff.

Luckily, when it comes to the Yardbirds' BBC recordings, someone else has paved the way for me. A music collector named DocDandy created a list of what he considered the best sounding version of each BBC performance the band did. So I almost always followed his advice.

But there is another problem. As a rule, I don't like having multiple versions of the same song on the same album, yet the Yardbirds tended to play their small number of hits on TV and radio over and over again. So I listened to each version, and chose the one that I thought had the best sound quality. However, a big part of the Yardbirds' appeal, maybe the biggest part, are the guitar solos from their three stellar lead guitarists, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. That means even versions with lesser sound quality are desired by many fans. So I'll be posting this album, plus two more, with almost no repeated songs. Then I plan on posting a fourth album that has all the other unique BBC performances, usually with poorer sound quality.

Speaking of those famous lead guitarists, although many fans know Eric Clapton was a member of the Yardbirds, he actually wasn't with the band for that long. As soon as they started to get famous with their first big hit, "For Your Love," in early 1965, he jumped ship, feeling the band was too poppy and not bluesy enough. As luck would have it, he's only on the first two songs here, which also happen to be the only ones from 1964. All the rest feature Jeff Beck on lead guitar.

There have been a few official Yardbirds BBC albums over the years. But I'll argue that, once this three-album series is done, you'll find these albums sound better than any of those, thanks to that list made by DocDandy. All but one of the songs in the three albums have been officially released, including all the songs here. But these are the best sounding from those various albums.

Furthermore, sometimes BBC DJs talked over the song's intros. I've used the X-Minus sound editing program to remove such talking while keeping the underlying music. Luckily, that only happened once on this album, on the last song. But it's more common on the other two (as well as the extra fourth album of duplicated songs).

Only the first two songs here were done before a cheering audience, the same two 1964 songs with Clapton. But luckily those were recorded with excellent sound quality, especially for the 1964 Yardbirds. Frankly, those songs (taken from a TV show) sound better than the songs from their early live albums.

By the way, the sound quality of the song "I've Been Trying" isn't as good as the others. But I figured it was worth including, and not as a bonus track, because this is the only known recording of the song by the band. It was originally done by the Impressions.

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 Louise (Yardbirds)
02 I Wish You Would (Yardbirds)
03 I Ain't Got You (Yardbirds)
04 For Your Love (Yardbirds)
05 I'm Not Talkin' (Yardbirds)
06 Spoonful (Yardbirds)
07 Bottle Up and Go (Yardbirds)
08 Hushabye [All the Pretty Little Horses] (Yardbirds)
09 Steeled Blues (Yardbirds)
10 Heart Full of Soul (Yardbirds)
11 I Ain't Done Wrong (Yardbirds)
12 I've Been Trying (Yardbirds)
13 Jeff's Boogie [Instrumental] (Yardbirds)
14 Love Me like I Love You (Yardbirds)
15 Too Much Monkey Business [Edit] (Yardbirds)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701185/TYARDBRDS1964-1965_BBSssonsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from 1964, and includes Eric Clapton. It would have been more accurate for me to use a photo with Jeff Beck in the band, since he's on most of the songs here, but I figured this was my only opportunity to use the Clapton photo, so I took it. In case you're curious, he's on the right, in the back row.