The Yardbirds formed in London in 1963. The band’s core lineup featured vocalist and harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, rhythm guitarist/bassist Chris Dreja and bassist/producer Paul Samwell-Smith. The band is known for starting the careers of three of rock’s most famous guitarists, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck.

Original lead guitarist Anthony “Top” Topham had left the group and was replaced by Eric Clapton in October 1963, who played on this record.

Shortly after its release by Columbia, it became a hit in the UK. When it was released a month later by Epic Records in the US, it became the group’s first charting single.

The song was a departure from the group’s blues roots in favour of a commercial pop rock sound. Guitarist Eric Clapton disapproved of the change and it influenced him to leave the group. Frustrated by the commercial approach, Clapton abruptly left the band on 25 March 1965, the day the single was released in the US. Soon Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, but not before he recommended Jimmy Page, a prominent young session guitarist, to replace him.

Jimmy Page had already turned down the Yardbirds … twice. The first time was in 1964, when Yardbirds manager Giorgio Gomelsky had asked Page to temporarily replace guitarist Eric Clapton because he was going on holiday. Page, who was friends with Clapton, refused out of loyalty to his friend, who was not looking to leave the band yet.

The second occasion came in 1965, when Clapton did want to leave the band to pursue more pure blues music. At that point, Page was enjoying his work as a studio musician too much to join the Yardbirds. He also had concerns about the British blues-rockers’ rigorous touring schedule, which he thought might affect his health. So instead he suggested another friend, Jeff Beck, to fill Clapton’s shoes.

One more year meant one more change in the Yardbirds’ lineup. This time, it was bass player Paul Samwell-Smith, who was done with touring (and with singer Keith Relf’s antics). Page, who often attended Yarbirds shows because of his friendship with Beck, was backstage at a gig in Oxford when Samwell-Smith declared his immediate intentions to leave the band.

“Jeff had brought me to the gig in his car, and on the way back I told him I’d sit in for a few months until they got things sorted out,” Page explained to Trouser Press in a 1977 interview. “Beck had often said to me, ‘It would be really great if you could join the band.’ But I just didn’t think it was a possibility in any way. In addition, since I’d turned the offer down a couple of times already, I didn’t know how the rest of them would feel about me joining.”

Seeing as they were stuck, the Yardbirds didn’t seem to have a problem with Page coming aboard. For his part, Page was (finally) excited to join the band. He had grown tired of playing as a studio guy, especially when he had to contribute to muzak recordings. “[Yardbirds Drummer] Jim McCarty says I was so desperate to get out of the studio that I’d have played drums,” Page later told Rolling Stone.

Instead, for the short term, Page would play bass. On June 21, 1966, at London’s Marquee Club, the Yardbirds took the stage for the first time with Page as a member. After that, rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja learned the bass guitar and Page played second guitar to his buddy Beck.

Sadly, the Page-Beck lineup was short-lived, with only a few recordings featuring their twin guitar style (including “Stroll On” and the psychedelic “Happening Ten Years Time Ago”). Beck was booted from the band later in 1966. Page remained the band’s lead guitarist until the Yardbirds took on new members and morphed into Led Zeppelin a couple of years later.

Here’s Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds in the movie “Blow Up” doing an alternate version of “Train Kept A’Rolling” they called “Stroll On”.

And a studio version:

As for “For Your Love”, Graham Gouldman wrote the song at the age of 19 while working by day in a gentlemen’s outfitters near Salford Docks and playing by night with the semi-professional Manchester band The Mockingbirds. He played in a number of Manchester bands from 1963, including the High Spots, the Crevattes, the Planets and the Whirlwinds. He was also a songwriter and wrote a string of hit songs, many of them million sellers. Between 1965 and 1967 alone he wrote “For Your Love”, “Heart Full of Soul” and “Evil Hearted You” for the Yardbirds, “Look Through Any Window” (with Charles Silverman) and “Bus Stop” for the Hollies, “Listen People”, “No Milk Today” and “East West” for Herman’s Hermits, “Pamela, Pamela” for Wayne Fontana, “Behind the Door” for St. Louis Union (covered by Cher), “Tallyman” for Jeff Beck and “Going Home”, which was a 1967 Australian hit for Normie Rowe (not the song “I’m Going Home”,  a blues classic later recorded by Alvin Lee and Ten Years After, among many others).

He explained: “I was sleeping most of the time because I’d been gigging with the Mockingbirds the night before, and then during the day when I’d got any spare time I’d write in the shop. I used to shut up the shop at lunch time and sit in the back writing.”

Gouldman cited the Beatles as his influence, “We went down to Denmark Street and went round all the publishers trying to find a song … we didn’t get any songs that we liked or we weren’t given any songs period and the Beatles had started and I thought ‘well, I’m gonna really have a crack at song-writing.’ I had dabbled a bit, but they were really my inspiration and gave me and I think a lot of other people the courage to actually do it. We all wanted to be like the Beatles. I wrote two songs and the record company we were with turned down one of the songs. The song they turned down was ‘For Your Love’, which eventually found its way to the Yardbirds.”

Gouldman’s manager, Harvey Lisberg, was so impressed by the song he told Gouldman they should offer it to the Beatles. “I said, ‘I think they’re doing alright in the songwriting department, actually”, Gouldman recalled. Undeterred, Lisberg gave a demo of the song to publisher Ronnie Beck of Feldman’s, who took it to the Hammersmith Odeon, where the Beatles were performing. By coincidence the Yardbirds were also performing on a Christmas show at the venue and Jeff Beck played the song to their manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, and the band.

In 1965, the Mockingbirds began a regular warm-up spot for BBC TV’s Top of the Pops, transmitted from Manchester. Gouldman recalled:

“There was one strange moment when the Yardbirds appeared on the show doing ‘For Your Love’. Everyone clamoured around them – and there I was just part of an anonymous group. I felt strange that night, hearing them play my song.”

The Yardbirds recorded “For Your Love” at the IBC Studios in London on 1 February 1965. The majority of the song was recorded with singer Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty backed by session musician Ron Prentice on bowed bass, Denny Piercy on bongos, and organist Brian Auger on harpsichord. Guitarists Eric Clapton and Chris Dreja only perform during the song’s double-time middle break section. Bassist Paul Samwell-Smith assumed the production duties and is listed as musical director on the 45. At the conclusion of the session, Auger wondered, “Who, in their right mind, is going to buy a pop single with harpsichord on it?”

Hits: 56

The Searchers emerged as part of the 1960s Merseybeat scene along with the Beatles, the Hollies, the Fourmost, the Merseybeats, the Swinging Blue Jeans, and Gerry and the Pacemakers. Founded as a skiffle group in Liverpool in 1959 by John McNally and Mike Pender, the band took their name from the classic 1956 John Ford western The Searchers. With  Tony Jackson (with his home-made bass guitar and amplifier) recruited as a lead singer, but took a back seat at first in order to learn the bass. Norman McGarry played drums, and these four are usually cited as the original foursome.

Over the years, this band name was used by many members who came and went while being mostly recognised in the UK with hits such as Needles and Pins, What Have They Done To The Rain, and Sugar and Spice.

The song (written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) describes a man seeking help to find love, so he talks to a Gypsy who determines, by means of palmistry, that he needs “love potion number 9”. The potion, an aphrodisiac, causes him to fall in love with everything he sees, kissing whatever is in front of him, eventually kissing a policeman on the street-corner, who breaks his bottle of love potion.

Love Potion No. 9 was originally recorded by an American rhythm and blues/doo-wop vocal group, The Clovers, who became one of the biggest selling acts of the 1950s. In one recorded version of the ending of the song, The Clovers used the alternative lyrics:

“I had so much fun that I’m going back again,
I wonder what’ll happen with Love Potion Number Ten?”

The “kissing a cop” lyric led to the song being banned by some radio stations. The lyrics also have the narrator describe himself as being “a flop with chicks since 1956”; later recordings of the song have often changed the year to suit the year of recording or the age of the performer.

Hits: 91

“Lola” is a song written by Ray Davies and ranked number 422 on “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” as well as number 473 on the “NME’s 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time” list.

Ray Davies has claimed that he was inspired to write “Lola” after Kinks manager Robert Wace spent a night in Paris dancing with a transgender woman. Davies said of the incident, “In his apartment, Robert had been dancing with this black woman, and he said, ‘I’m really onto a thing here.’ And it was okay until we left at six in the morning and then I said, ‘Have you seen the stubble?’ He said ‘Yeah’, but he was too pissed [intoxicated] to care, I think”.

Drummer Mick Avory has offered an alternate explanation for the song’s lyrics, claiming that “Lola” was partially inspired by Avory’s frequenting of trans bars in west London. Avory said, “We used to know this character called Michael McGrath. He used to hound the group a bit, because being called The Kinks did attract these sorts of people. He used to come down to Top of the Pops, and he was publicist for John Stephen’s shop in Carnaby Street. He used to have this place in Earl’s Court, and he used to invite me to all these drag queen acts and transsexual pubs. They were like secret clubs. And that’s where Ray [Davies] got the idea for ‘Lola’. When he was invited too, he wrote it while I was getting drunk”.

Despite claims that the song was written about a supposed date between Ray Davies and Candy Darling, Davies has since claimed this rumour to be false, saying that the two only went out to dinner together and that he had known the whole time of Darling’s gender identity.

In his autobiography, Dave Davies said that he came up with the music for what would become “Lola”, noting that brother Ray added the lyrics after hearing it. In a 1990 interview, Dave Davies stated that “Lola” was written in a similar fashion to “You Really Got Me” in that the two worked on Ray’s basic skeleton of the song, saying that the song was more of a collaborative effort than many believed.

Initial recordings of the song began in April 1970, but, as the band’s bassist John Dalton remembered, recording for “Lola” took particularly long, stretching into the next month. During April, four to five versions were attempted, utilizing different keys as well as varying beginnings and styles.

In May, new piano parts were added to the backing track by John Gosling, the band’s new piano player that had just been auditioned. Vocals were also added at this time. The song was then mixed during that month. Mick Avory remembered the recording sessions for the song positively, saying that it “was fun, as it was the Baptist’s [John Gosling’s] first recording with us”.

The guitar opening on the song was produced as a result of combining the sound of a Martin guitar and a vintage Dobro resonating guitar. Ray Davies cited this blend of guitar sounds for the song’s unique guitar sound.

Hits: 61

In an interview, SRV said it was “A Prayer” and on an Austin City Limits performance, Stevie introduced this by saying it was “This one goes out for all the people still suffering out there tonight”.

ACL live version:

Done in one magic take, the recording session was the stuff of legends.

“Stevie told me he had an instrumental he wanted to try, and I said that I only had nine minutes of tape left,” producer Jim Gaines recalls. “He said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s only four minutes long.’

We dimmed the lights and the band started playing this gorgeous song, which went on to six minutes, seven minutes, seven-and-a-half… The performance was absolutely incredible, totally inspired, dripping with emotion—and here we were, about to run out of tape.

“I was jumping up and down, waving my arms, but everyone was so wrapped up in their playing that no one was paying me any mind. I finally got Chris’ attention and emphatically gave him the cut sign. He started trying to flag down Stevie, but he was hunched over his guitar with his head bent down.

:Finally, he looked up, and they brought the song down just in time. It ended, and a few seconds later the tape finished and the studio was silent, except for the sound of the empty reel spinning around.”

It has been said by those who knew Stevie best that he considered this to be his masterpiece, as it is his soul that your hearing not just notes and chords. It was the last song he played at what would be his last show, a show that he opened up for Eric Clapton.

After his performance he received a standing ovation that lasted for what seemed like an extended period of time going much longer than what would be considered normal. As he was finishing his bows of gratitude to the crowd you can see Clapton also giving a standing ovation near the back of the stage.

He greeted Stevie as he was leaving the stage and told him that his song was beautiful, powerful, something special. The song pulled him (Clapton) out of his dressing room, that he had to come see this being played, that he was just like the people in the crowd, he was blown away by it.

When Clapton took the stage he even told the crowd he was taken by the song and it was the first time in a very long time that he didn’t know what to open with saying how do you even follow that performance.

Stevie took Clapton’s seat on the flight out, he was trying to beat the bad weather said to be coming and there wasn’t room for the two of them, Clapton was being nice and trying to help when he offered up his seat to Stevie.

Before Stevie left he told the members of his crew/band that he received what he considered to be the greatest compliment in the history of his life tonight from someone he looked up to since he was a child. It meant so much to him to hear that from Eric Clapton, someone he considered to be one of the all time greatest guitarist in the world.

That flight crashed, killing everyone onboard.

Clapton was devastated when he learned of the crash and Stevie’s untimely death, he later again talked about Stevie’s performance that night and how he (Clapton) was just like the people in the crowd and was so taken by that beautiful, powerful piece of music, calling it a masterpiece by anyone’s standards and like the artist something special that should be remembered for eternity.

Hits: 50

I’ll be the first to say it about Jim Morrison – “There was something deeply wrong with that boy”:

“The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall

He went into the room where his sister lived, and then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
He came to a door, and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother, I want to fuck you”

But somewhere in that troubled mind sprung some of the most poetic, immersive musical landscapes in rock. Just remember kids that “Drugs and alcohol are bad, mmkay”.

In John Densmore’s autobiography Riders on the Storm, he recalls when Morrison explained the meaning:

“At one point Jim said to me during the recording session, and he was tearful, and he shouted in the studio, ‘Does anybody understand me?’ And I said yes, I do, and right then and there we got into a long discussion and Jim just kept saying over and over kill the father, fuck the mother, and essentially boils down to this, kill all those things in yourself which are instilled in you and are not of yourself, they are alien concepts which are not yours, they must die.

Fuck the mother is very basic, and it means get back to essence, what is reality, what is, fuck the mother is very basically mother, mother-birth, real, you can touch it, it’s nature, it can’t lie to you. So what Jim says at the end of the Oedipus section, which is essentially the same thing that the classic says, kill the alien concepts, get back reality, the end of alien concepts, the beginning of personal concepts.”

Hits: 53

The inspiration for and influences affecting the composition of “The Weight” came from the music of the American South, the life experiences of band members, particularly Levon Helm, and movies of Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel.

The original members of The Band performed “The Weight” as an American Southern folk song with country music (vocals, guitars and drums) and gospel music (piano and organ) elements. The lyrics, written in the first-person, are about a traveler’s experiences arriving, visiting, and departing a town called Nazareth. According to Robertson, this is based on Nazareth, Pennsylvania because it was the home of Martin Guitars. He wrote the guitar parts on a 1951 Martin.

The singers, led by Helm, vocalize the traveler’s encounters with people in the town from the perspective of a Bible Belt American Southerner, like Helm himself, a native of rural Arkansas. After Helm’s death in 2012, Robertson, who was raised in Canada, described how visits to the Memphis, Tennessee area, around which Helm grew up, affected him and influenced his songwriting:

“To me … going there was like going to the source. Because I was at such a vulnerable age then, it made a really big impact on me. Just that I had the honor joining up with this group and then even going to this place, which was close to a religious experience – even being able to put my feet on the ground there, because I was from Canada, right?

“So it was like, ‘Woah, this is where this music grows in the ground, and [flows from] the Mississippi river. My goodness.’ It very much affected my songwriting and, because I knew Levon’s musicality so well, I wanted to write songs that I thought he could sing better than anybody in the world.

“While I was there, I was just gathering images and names, and ideas and rhythms, and I was storing all of these things … in my mind somewhere. And when it was time to sit down and write songs, when I reached into the attic to see what I was gonna write about, that’s what was there.

“I just felt a strong passion toward the discovery of going there, and it opened my eyes, and all my senses were overwhelmed by the feeling of that place. When I sat down to write songs, that’s all I could think of at the time.”

The colorful characters in “The Weight” were based on real people members of The Band knew, as Levon Helm explained in his autobiography, This Wheel’s on Fire. In particular, “young Anna Lee” mentioned in the third verse is Helm’s longtime friend Anna Lee Amsden, and, according to her, “Carmen” was from Helm’s hometown, Turkey Scratch, Arkansas. “Crazy Chester” was an eccentric resident of Fayetteville, Arkansas, who carried a cap gun. Ronnie Hawkins would tell him to “keep the peace” at his Rockwood Club when Chester arrived.

According to Robertson, “The Weight” was inspired by the movies of Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel. Buñuel’s films are known for their surreal imagery and criticism of organized religion, particularly Catholicism.

The song’s lyrics and music invoke vivid imagery, the main character’s perspective is influenced by the Bible, and the episodic story was inspired by the predicaments Buñuel’s film characters faced that undermined their goals for maintaining or improving their moral character. Of this, Robertson once stated:

“(Buñuel) did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood. People trying to be good in Viridiana and Nazarin, people trying to do their thing. In ‘The Weight’ it’s the same thing.

“People like Buñuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them but it wasn’t necessarily a religious meaning. In Buñuel there were these people trying to be good and it’s impossible to be good. In ‘The Weight’ it was this very simple thing.

“Someone says, ‘Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say “hello” to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You’re going to Nazareth, that’s where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you’re there.’

“This is what it’s all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it’s like ‘Holy shit, what’s this turned into? I’ve only come here to say “hello” for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament.’ It was very Buñuelish to me at the time.”

Hits: 86

This was written by Clarence “Sonny” Henry and originally recorded by jazz percussionist Willie Bobo on his 1967 album Bobo Motion. Bobo was Latin Jazz percussionist who was a big influence on Santana and played on some of their tracks in the late ’70s.

Gregg Rolie (who joined Journey in 1973) performs the lead vocals and plays a Hammond organ solo in the middle section. The double-time coda includes a guitar solo performed by Carlos Santana who also does the backing vocals.

This was the first hit for Santana, who released their first album “Santana” shortly after their appearance at the Woodstock festival, which had brought them to notice in the music world.

Santana – Evil Ways at Woodstock, Live in 1969:

On first pressings of both Santana’s debut album and the single release, the songwriting credit was given to Jimmie Zack. Zack was a minor rockabilly artist out of the Midwest who recorded a song with the same title in 1960, credited as Jimmie Zack and the Blues Rockers, however, it was not the same song as recorded by Santana.

Rather surprisingly, Johnny Mathis released a cover of this in 1970. A departure from his usual repertoire of romantic ballads he is known for. With a little less Latin flavor, his version added a little more orchestration.

Hits: 40

Before The Moody Blues recorded it, this was an obscure soul single for Bessie Banks, who released it in 1964. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller produced her recording, and it was written by her husband Larry Banks and Milton Bennett, in 1963.  The song was arranged by Gary Sherman with Cissy Houston, mother of singer Whitney Houston, as one of the backing singers. Cissy was also aunt of singers Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick, and a cousin of opera singer Leontyne Price.

Bessie Banks later commented:

“‘I remember 1963 Kennedy was assassinated; it was announced over the radio. At the time, I was rehearsing in the office of Leiber and Stoller. We called it a day. Everyone was in tears. “Come back next week and we will be ready to record ‘Go Now'”; and we did so. I was happy and excited that maybe this time I’ll make it. ‘Go Now’ was released and right away it was chosen Pick Hit of the Week on W.I.N.S. Radio. That means your record is played for seven days. Four days went by, I was so thrilled. On day five, when I heard the first line, I thought it was me, but all of a sudden, I realized it wasn’t. At the end of the song it was announced, “the Moody Blues singing ‘Go Now'”. I was too out-done. This was the time of the English Invasion and the end of Bessie Banks’ career, so I thought. America’s DJs had stopped promoting American artists.”

Banks’ recollections are questionable, because her single was released in the US in January 1964, and the Moody Blues’ version was not released until November 1964 (in the UK) and January 1965 in the US.

“Go Now!” was made popular internationally later in 1964 when an English beat group from Birmingham named The Moody Blues recorded it, with Denny Laine on guitar and lead vocals, Clint Warwick on bass, along with Mike Pinder (piano, organ), Ray Thomas (harmonica, vocals), and Graeme Edge (drums). In contrast to other songs from their debut album The Magnificent Moodies, “Go Now!” contained many early elements of what later would become progressive rock, such as the lush instrumentation, the innovative variations of the Fifties Progression, as well as strong baroque elements that would later become hallmarks of prog rock.

This was the first “version” of the Moody Blues. They had little success with singles after “Go Now!” in the mid-1960s, which led to Laine’s departure from the band, later being replaced by Justin Hayward. Denny Laine left the band to set up his own Electric String Band in 1966 and later joined forces with Paul McCartney in Wings. Bassist Clint Warwick had already departed the band at this time. Rodney Clark had replaced him for a while before they recruited John Lodge. With the new lineup, The Moody Blues continued to perform “Go Now!” for a short time, up until they began writing their own material.

Denny Laine recalled to Gibson.com how the band came to cover this song:

“It came in one of these suitcases full of records from America. This guy, James Hamilton, he was a friend of B. Mitchel Reed, who was a DJ, and he would send this stuff across. So I picked that one out especially because Mike Pinder was a piano player. (chuckles) We’d always get the gig where the piano would be out of tune and we’d get the slow handclap because they were waiting to tune the piano… (laughs) Anyway, we did ‘Go Now’ because it was a song with a piano in it.”

TV Version:

As reported in The Independent, a 21-year-old Denny Cordell, who was working for an artist management company, placed this song with The Moody Blues, who were a new group looking for their first hit. Cordell convinced the band to sign an unusual business agreement that earned him £36,000 when the song became a hit. Cordell would later work with Joe Cocker, producing his version of “With A Little Help From My Friends” and organizing his first US tour. In the ’70s, Cordell set up Shelter Records in Tulsa, Oklahoma with Leon Russell.

Hits: 64

While the actual title is “I Got You (I Feel Good)”, it is a twelve-bar blues with a brass-heavy instrumental arrangement similar to Brown’s previous hit, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”. It also features the same emphasis “on the one” (i.e. the first beat of the measure) that characterizes Brown’s developing funk style. The lyrics have Brown exulting in how good he feels (“nice, like sugar and spice”) now that he has the one he loves, his vocals punctuated by screams and shouts.

This is a reworking of “I Found You,” a song recorded and released by Yvonne Fair and produced by James Brown in 1962. Fair was one of Brown’s backup singers on the road.

The original 1964 version of this song had no guitar. When Brown redid it 1965, he made his screams more pronounced and added some instrumentation, including more sax. Some of the players on the recording were Maceo Parker on sax, his brother Melvin Parker on drums, Nat Jones on organ and Bernard Odum on bass.

This song has a very convoluted release history. Brown recorded it in September 1964 and leased it, along with some of his other songs, to Smash Records, who planned to release it as a single but couldn’t because Brown’s label, King Records, filed a lawsuit. In October 1964, a judge ruled that Smash Records would be allowed to issue only instrumental recordings by Brown, and all masters of vocals by JB would become property of King Records.

The song was pulled, but Brown had already been promoting it: he played it on the road (335 nights a year) and performed it on The T.A.M.I. Show and Shindig, as well as a movie called Ski Party. Brown then recorded a new version of the song in May 1965 at Criteria Studios in Miami, creating the first gold record to come out of Criteria, where the Eagles did Hotel California and Derek and the Dominos did Layla.

Hits: 39