Album: The Yardbirds

Little Games, EMI

Recorded in 1967 but unavailable in the UK until the mid-Eighties, Little Games was the final album of The Yardbirds' career; by that time, both Clapton and Beck were long gone, and EMI clearly had little faith in the leftovers. Hindsight, however, bestows historical significance upon this unappreciated swansong – particularly in this expanded form, where it's augmented with contemporary BBC session recordings. With Jimmy Page now the dominant musical force in the band, the album offers what is effectively a blueprint for Led Zeppelin, with raw blues rave-ups like "Drinking Muddy Water" rubbing shoulders with acoustic guitar pieces like "White Summer", which prefigures Zep's more pastoral leanings. Page's desire to wrestle new sounds from his guitar is evident "Glimpses", while "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor" features the earliest recorded example of his bowed-guitar technique. The most significant indication of future developments, however, occurs in the title-track, for which producer Mickie Most brought in session bassist John Paul Jones: his additional cello part, allied to Page's fiery guitar, provides a hint of Zep's skirling Middle Eastern folk-metal sound. The cherry on the top, though, has to be the previously-unreleased BBC session recording, featuring a "Dazed and Confused" already complete in most essentials, ready and waiting to hoist its arranger to legendary status.