Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds

Sonny Boy Williamson & the Yardbirds
Live album by Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds
Released	late 1965
Recorded	December 8, 1963 at the Crawdaddy Club, London, England[1]
Genre	Blues, blues-rock
Length	34:03
Label	Fontana
Producer	Horst Lippmann, Giorgio Gomelsky[1]
The Yardbirds chronology
Five Live Yardbirds (December 1964) Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds (1965) Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page (September 1971)

Sonny Boy Williamson & the Yardbirds is a live album by Chicago blues veteran Sonny Boy Williamson II backed by English blues-rock band The Yardbirds. It was recorded in England at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, Surrey on December 8, 1963.

When Williamson visited London with the (September/October) 1963 American Folk Blues Festival tour, he attended a Yardbirds concert near the festival. He returned shortly afterwards for a small club tour of England and to record this album. There he was backed by several local rock bands, including The Animals with whom a similar live album was recorded.

Original album

All songs are written by Sonny Boy Williamson II, except as noted. The recordings have been consistently reissued in various formats.^[2]

Side 1

1. "Bye Bye Bird" (Williamson, Willie Dixon)
2. "Mister Downchild"
3. "23 Hours Too Long" (Williamson, Eddie Boyd)
4. "Out On The Water Coast"
5. "Baby Don't Worry"

Side 2

1. "Pontiac Blues"
2. "Take It Easy Baby"
3. "I Don't Care No More"
4. "Do The Weston"

Related recordings

Over the years, other songs recorded during this club tour were released piecemeal by various record labels. In 1993, most were collected on The Yardbird's four-CD boxset "Train Kept a Rollin' - The Complete Giorgio Gomelsky Productions" (Charly LIKBOX3). (Two songs from the original album were not included: "I Don't Care No More" and "Baby Don't Worry"; these are essentially solo pieces by Williamson and feature little or no Yardbird backing.) Besides additional recordings by Williamson, it also includes a six-song set by The Yardbirds from the 8 December 1963 Crawdaddy date.

All songs are written by Sonny Boy Williamson II, except as noted. Tracks 1-6 feature The Yardbirds; the rest are Williamson backed by The Yardbirds. Tracks 1-15 were recorded 8 December 1963, Crawdaddy Club; tracks 16 & 17 recorded 7 December 1963, Star Club; tracks 18-20 recorded 28 February 1964, Birmingham Rhythm & Blues Festival.

1. "Smokestack Lightning" (Howlin' Wolf) - The Yardbirds
2. "You Can't Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover" (Willie Dixon) - The Yardbirds
3. "Let It Rock" (Chuck Berry) - The Yardbirds
4. "I Wish You Would" (Billy Boy Arnold) - The Yardbirds
5. "Who Do You Love?" (Bo Diddley) - The Yardbirds
6. "Honey in Your Hips" (Keith Relf) - The Yardbirds
7. "Bye Bye Bird" (Williamson, Dixon)
8. "Mister Downchild"
9. "The River Rhine"
10. "23 Hours Too Long" (Williamson, Boyd)
11. "A Lost Care"
12. "Pontiac Blues"
13. "Take It Easy Baby" (version 1)
14. "Out on the Water Coast"
15. "Western Arizona" aka "Do the Weston" (version 1)
16. "Take It Easy Baby" (version 2)
17. "Do the Weston" (version 2)
18. "Slow Walk" aka "The River Rhine" The correct title is "Sonny's Slow Walk", "The River Rhine" isn't with Animals is with the Yardbirds.
19. "Highway 49"
20. "My Little Cabin"

After the boxset, expanded reissues of Sonny Boy Williamson & the Yardbirds appeared. However, they invariably leave off two or more of the twenty-two recordings available. Some of the labels that have reissued the album include Repertoire,^[3] JVC,^[4] Victor,^[5] and Sunspots.^[6]

Personnel

• Sonny Boy Williamson II - vocal, harmonica

The Yardbirds

• Eric Clapton - guitar
• Chris Dreja - guitar
• Jim McCarty - drums
• Paul Samwell-Smith - bass
• Keith Relf - handclapping, shouting and foot-tapping - Not credited on "Blues Records"

References

External links

• Sonny Boy Williamson discography at Discogs