For Your Love (album) explained

For Your Love
Type:studio
Artist:the Yardbirds
Cover:The Yardbirds - For Your Love.jpg
Recorded:March 1964 – April 1965
Studio:Olympic, IBC and Advision,London
Genre:Blues rock
Length:31:04
Label:Epic
Producer:Giorgio Gomelsky
Chronology:The Yardbirds US album
Next Title:Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds
Next Year:1965

For Your Love is the first American album by the English rock band the Yardbirds. Released in June1965, it contains new studio recordings along with previously released singles. The album features some of the earliest recordings by guitarists Eric Clapton and his replacement Jeff Beck.

The Yardbirds' manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, who selected the songs, planned to capitalise on the group's hit "For Your Love". The album, released as the Yardbirds were preparing for their first American tour, reached number 96 in Billboard Top LPs chart. It was unissued in the UK, although the songs with Beck were released in August 1965 on the Five Yardbirds EP.

Recording and composition

For Your Love features three songs from Jeff Beck's first recording sessions with the Yardbirds: "I'm Not Talking", "I Ain't Done Wrong", and "My Girl Sloopy". Eric Clapton provided the guitar for the remainder of the tracks, that include the three Yardbirds singles (with B-sides) released up to that time and two demos which were not released in the UK until the 1980s (see discography for singles information).

"I Ain't Done Wrong" was solely credited as a Keith Relf composition, as part of the group's desire to emulate the Beatles and other some other British groups that were doing their own songwriting.[1] In reality, though, "I Ain't Done Wrong" was largely a rewrite of Eddie Kirkland's "I Must Have Done Somebody Wrong",[2] by way of Elmore James' own rewrite, "Done Somebody Wrong".[1]

Clapton, who had left the band four months earlier, is not pictured on the album cover nor mentioned in the liner notes. Group chronicler Gregg Russo notes, "The cover was somewhat of a joke, as Jeff Beck was humorously seated in front of a keyboard that he did not play on the album."

Charts and reception

The album reached number 96 in Billboards Top LPs chart. It was the Yardbirds' first charting album; their British debut, Five Live Yardbirds, did not reach the UK Albums Chart and was not issued in the US.

In a retrospective review, AllMusic writer Bruce Eder gave the album three out of five stars, who notes the inconsistency of the Gomelsky-selected material. He describes the songs with Beck as "hard, loud, blazing showcases... show[ing] where the band was really heading" and although the material with Clapton is "primitive" compared to his later efforts, it "was some of the best blues-based rock & roll of its era [1964]."

Track listing

Original album

Songwriter credits are taken from the original Epic LP.[3] However, since the running times are not given, those from The Yardbirds Story (2002), produced by Gomelsky, are used instead.

Album reissues

The Yardbirds' 2001 compilation album Ultimate! contains eight of the eleven tracks from the original album. For Your Love has been reissued by several record labels, including JVC, Castle, and Repertoire. In addition to the eleven tracks from the original album, the Repertoire reissue includes 13 non-album single and demo tracks.

Personnel

The Yardbirds

Additional musicians

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Book: Nobody Told Me: My Life with the Yardbirds, Renaissance and Other Stories . Jim . McCarty . Dave . Thompson . 2018 . 112, 115 . 978-0-244-96650-8 . Self-published .
  2. News: Merchant . Stuart . Make a Note of these... Little Eddie Kirkland . Birmingham Evening Mail . 7 July 2000 . ProQuest.
  3. For Your Love . The Yardbirds. 1965. Album notes. Epic Records. BN 26167. 29310757. LP label.