1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 67. The Yardbirds – Roger the Engineer (1966)

 

The Yardbirds were the nurturing grounds for Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, although only Page and Beck overlapped for a while. This album just features Beck.  

The title comes from the cartoon on the cover which is meant to be audio engineer Roger Cameron, as drawn by band member Chris Dreja. The official titles are just The Yardbirds (in the UK), and Over Under Sideways Down (in the rest of the world).  

The tracks trend towards the blues, but with a bit of difference, often veering more into psychedelia. Lost Women, for example, starts bluesy but breaks into an almost tribal reverie. Farewell, by contrast, is a bit of English piano whimsy that prefigures some tracks by The Kinks, or the Edwardian music hall pastiche numbers of Queen.  

It’s all pretty good stuff, but nothing really jumped out at me. Compiling my notes later on, there was nothing stuck in my head that I really remembered as a stand-out, would probably benefit from a second listen to give it a chance. 

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