For Your Love is the first American album by English rock band the Yardbirds. Released in July 1965,[b] it contains new studio recordings along with previously released singles.[3] 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'sTop LPs chart. It was unissued in the UK, although the songs with Beck were released in August 1965 on the Five YardbirdsEP.
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".[4]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).[5]
"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.[6] In reality, though, "I Ain't Done Wrong" was largely a rewrite of Eddie Kirkland's "I Must Have Done Somebody Wrong",[7] by way of Elmore James' own rewrite, "Done Somebody Wrong".[6]
Clapton, who had left the band four months earlier, is not pictured on the album cover nor mentioned in the liner notes.[8] 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."[8]
The album reached number 96 in Billboard's Top LPs chart.[10] 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.[9] 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]."[9]
Track listing
Original album
Songwriter credits are taken from the original Epic LP.[1] However, since the running times are not given, those from The Yardbirds Story (2002), produced by Gomelsky, are used instead.[11]
The Yardbirds' 2001 compilation album Ultimate! contains eight of the eleven tracks from the original album.[17]For Your Love has been reissued by several record labels, including JVC, Castle, and Repertoire.[9] In addition to the eleven tracks from the original album, the Repertoire reissue includes 13 non-album single and demo tracks.
^Group chronicler Greg Russo also gives a secondary "street" release date of 5 July 1965.[2]
^In his 2007 autobiography, Eric Clapton writes "'Got to Hurry' which was based on a tune hummed by Giorgio [Gomelsky], who gave himself the writing credit under the pseudonym O. Rasputin."[12] Clapton biographer Marc Roberty calls it "the first song Clapton ever wrote, although credited to Gomelsky".[13]Cub Koda and Gregg Russo describe it as "cobbled together out of a group jam".[14]
^H.G. Demarais (or Dee Marais), a Shreveport, Louisiana record label owner/distributor, was credited on the original LP. Roberty lists the songwriters as Don Level and Bob Love,[15] who first recorded the song in 1961 as the R&B duo Don and Bob. Some reissues list Sonny Boy Williamson, who recorded a different "Good Morning, School Girl" in 1937.[16]
^On "Sweet Music", it is not clear if Clapton plays guitar.
^ abMcCarty, Jim; Thompson, Dave (2018). Nobody Told Me: My Life with the Yardbirds, Renaissance and Other Stories. Self-published. pp. 112, 115. ISBN978-0-244-96650-8.
