1967 MONO YARDBIRDS LITTLE GAMES Hard Pop Psych JIMMY PAGE Zeppelin MONO MIX

$

133

A "rare" BEAUTY!

• 1967 MONO COLLECTIBLE POP-PSYCH CLASSIC ~ !!! ..|/\|...............................................|/\|..
• "LITTLE GAMES"
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• USA -Epic Records - LN 26313 - MONO
  
      ::MACHINE STAMPED MATRIX::
  
  A "rare" BEAUTY!
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      MONO SONG MIXES, 1967 STILL IN CELLOPHANE
  
  FINAL COLLECTION COPY !!!
  
      ....Original 1967 first pressing in glorious MONO with big punchy production and monaural song mixes that differ from the stereo release ...
  
      If almost any group other than the Yardbirds had released Little Games, it would be considered prime late-'60s psychedelic/hard poprock artifact ...Not that it's a bad album, it in fact is quite good measuring it on its own -- it just lacks the cohesion of the group's preceding album, Over Under Sideways Down aka Roger the Engineer). Although they were nominally the same group they'd been a year earlier, in reality the Yardbirds had undergone a massive shift in personnel since the release of The Yardbirds. The departure of original bassist Paul Samwell-Smith in June of 1966 set off a sequence of personnel shifts, bringing guitarist Jimmy Page into the lineup, first on bass and then on lead guitar in tandem with Jeff Beck (while rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja switched to bass), until Beck's exit in November 1966 for a solo career left Page as their lone guitarist. At the same time, the band was forced -- when its fabulous single "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" went over most listeners heads -- to accept a new producer in the guise of Mickie Most, who was currently enjoying huge success with psychedelic-pop era Donovan and had a formidable string of hit singles to his credit with the Animals, et al. The Yardbirds' blues roots and progressive tendencies clashed with Most's pop/rock preferences, and the two sides never did reconcile, much less mesh for more than a few minutes on the album. To top it off, the bandmembers were finally seeing some serious money for their live performances (ironically, just as they were hanging on by their fingertips to a recording contract), courtesy of their new manager, Peter Grant, and so were committed to lots of stage work. The overall result was a hastily done LP with flashes of brilliance. Apart from the title single -- one of the better compromises between where the group had been and where Most wanted to take them -- the two best cuts were "White Summer" and "Drinking Muddy Water," excellent showcases for the experimental and bluesy sides of the band, respectively; both, curiously, were also virtually thefts, "White Summer" lifted from Davy Graham's arrangement of the 300-year-old "She Moves Through the Fair" and "Drinking Muddy Water" a rewrite of "Rollin' and Tumblin'," a blues standard usually attributed to Muddy Waters. The best of the rest included "Only the Black Rose," a strangely beautiful, moody acoustic psychedelic piece; "Stealing, Stealing," an unusual (for this band) pre-World War II-style acoustic blues; and "Smile on Me," a hard, bluesy number that could have come from any part of the group's history. A cool catchy rocker, "No Excess Baggage," needed better involvement from vocalist Keith Relf; the power chord-laden "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor" was a great piece of psychedelic pyrotechnics, sounding more like the Who than the Yardbirds, and introduced Jimmy Page's violin bow discourses on the guitar; and "Little Soldier Boy" was a psychedelic pop piece more appropriate to the lighter pop bands of the era than the Yardbirds. The album was unintentionally revealing, in hindsight, of the growing schism within the band, as Relf and drummer Jim McCarty's growing embrace of flower power and hallucinogenic drugs came to be reflected in the trippier numbers such as "Glimpses," whereas Jimmy Page was starting to take his blues slower and flashier, and into wholly new territory with that violin bow. One more album or a proper concert might've sealed the deal for the Yardbirds, but pressures from all sides imploded the legendary act...
  
      Little Games
  
      Smile on Me
  
      White Summer
  
      Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
  
      Glimpses
  
      Drinking Muddy Water
  
      No Excess Baggage
  
      Stealing Stealing
  
      Only the Black Rose
  
      Little Soldier Boy
  
  

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2.                  CONDITION:
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4. The cover: rated: near M- NO delete marks and still VERY solid all over, looks GREAT! This is normally a highly wear-prone cover - pretty nice survivor here...the back group cover is Mint clean. Stressing it's very hard to find this cover retaining clean colorful visuals (see photo!) ...
5. ALL with strong seams, no bends, no writing ...

1. The vinyl: Rated: TOP clean M- both sides are shiny and real glossy, a BEAUTY, play grade is outstanding with rich full sound clarity ...and the EPIC labels are both spotlessly CLEAN

• "LITTLE GAMES"
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