Little Games [Remaster]

The recordings the Yardbirds made with the Jimmy Page quartet lineup haven't been subject to nearly as much commercial exploitation as the material from when Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck were in the band. Nevertheless, this 2003 release did mark no less than the third time EMI had packaged Little Games with bonus tracks, each of the editions differing from the other. This time around, the actual Little Games album is embellished by all seven non-LP tracks from their 1967-1968 singles (including both the "phased" and "unphased" versions of "Goodnight Sweet Josephine"), as well as eight tracks from 1967-1968 BBC sessions. The point of presenting Jimmy Page-era Yardbirds recordings in this fashion is a little unclear, since it still doesn't come close to gathering every last relevant 1967-1968 studio track. The 1992 two-CD set Little Games Sessions & More, which has all the non-LP singles plus a bunch of outtakes and spinoff project rarities, remains the most definitive document of those. While that 1992 package didn't include any of the 1967-1968 BBC sessions, six of the BBC tracks on this 2003 release had already been officially issued elsewhere. Odds are, then, that if you're a serious Yardbirds collector, you're grudgingly picking this up for the two cuts that hadn't been previously commercially released, those being March 1968 BBC versions of "White Summer" and "Dazed and Confused." Even though the fidelity on these is notably murkier than the other BBC recordings, they are worthwhile if you're a Yardbirds fanatic, particularly as this is a rare chance to hear the group doing "Dazed and Confused" (which they do quite well, and quite differently than Led Zeppelin did). A nicely illustrated 20-page booklet with liner notes by Yardbirds expert Greg Russo is another good bonus. But if you're going to deal with the post-Jeff Beck Yardbirds at all at this point, it's time to finally put together a multi-disc set that really has everything -- Little Games, the non-LP singles, the outtakes, the BBC sessions, the live recordings -- instead of continuing to dole it out piecemeal. As erratic as this final phase of their career was, it was interesting and sometimes produced exceptional psychedelic music, and deserves exhaustive documentation, even down to the flawed, oft-bootlegged March 1968 New York concert that was only briefly officially available before getting withdrawn. ~ Richie Unterberger|