Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds (1965)

Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds, or simply Having a Rave Up, is the second American album by the English rock group the Yardbirds. It was released in November 1965, eight months after Jeff Beck replaced Eric Clapton on guitar. It includes songs with both guitarists and reflects the group's blues rock roots and their early experimentations with psychedelic and hard rock. The title refers to the driving "rave up" arrangement the band used in several of their songs.

The album contains some live recordings from March 1964 when Clapton was the lead guitarist, and which first appeared on the band's British debut album, Five Live Yardbirds, which was not issued in the United States. The songs with Beck were recorded in the studio in the months after he joined the group in March 1965. These include several charting singles and introduced "The Train Kept A-Rollin'", one of the Yardbirds' most copied arrangements. Although most were not written by the group, the songs became a fixture of the group's concert repertoire and continued to be performed after Jimmy Page replaced Beck.

Next to their 1967 Greatest Hits collection, Having a Rave Up is the Yardbirds' highest-charting album in the US and has remained in print longer than others in the band's catalogue. The album continues to be reissued, often with bonus material, such as the next single "Shapes of Things", demo recordings for their follow-up album, and "Stroll On", featuring dual lead guitar by Beck and Page, from the Blow-Up soundtrack. Several music critics have cited the album's influence, particularly on hard rock guitar.

Background

Singer and harmonica player Keith Relf, rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja, bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, drummer Jim McCarty, and lead guitarist Top Topham formed the Yardbirds near London in mid-1963. The group were a part of the early British rhythm and blues scene that produced bands such as the Rolling Stones, whom they replaced as the resident act at the Crawdaddy Club. Songs by American blues and rhythm and blues artists such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Bo Diddley made up the repertoire of the early British R&B groups. The Yardbirds' set lists included "I Wish You Would", "Smokestack Lightning", "Who Do You Love?", "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover", and "Too Much Monkey Business".

Eric Clapton replaced Topham in October 1963 and by early 1964, the Yardbirds had expanded their following on the home counties club circuit. The group made several attempts at recording in the studio, but were unable to reproduce their live sound to their satisfaction. Manager Giorgio Gomelsky then arranged to have a March performance at London's Marquee Club recorded. A key element of the Yardbirds' live shows was an extended instrumental section during some songs. Clapton recalled, "While most other bands were playing three-minute songs, we were taking three-minute numbers and stretching them out to five or six minutes, during which time the audience would go crazy". Dubbed a "rave up", this musical arrangement usually came during the middle instrumental section, in which the band shifted the beat into double-time and built the instrumental improvisation to a climax. The rave up has roots in jazz and became a signature part of the Yardbirds' sound. Musicologist Michael Hicks describes it:

Wherever it occurred, the rave-up made a small narrative curve that introduced a basic conflict (backbeat vs. off-beats), drove that conflict to a climax (by getting more and more raucous), then resolved it (by returning it to a 'normal' beat). Through this technique the Yardbirds created a rock mannerism; sometimes the rave-up seemed the whole point of the song.

Several songs recorded at the Marquee show use this arrangement and are included on the debut album, Five Live Yardbirds, which was released in the UK in December 1964. Although AllMusic critic Bruce Eder calls it "the best such [British rock] live record of the entire middle of the decade", it did not reach the charts and was not issued in the US. Four songs from the album made their first American appearance on Having a Rave Up.