Little Games Sessions and More

Little Games Sessions and More is a "two-CD set that assembles the complete Little Games album and all of the usable rehearsals, unmixed backing tracks, and alternate takes associated with it, along with a few Yardbirds-related holdings in the EMI vaults. For a variety of reasons (not all the fault of the band), Little Games was the Yardbirds' least commercially successful album, despite the desires of producer Mickie Most's quest for a pop/rock tone to the album. It was also their only full-length studio recording featuring guitarist Jimmy Page, whose desire to move towards a more album-orientated rock approach was frustrated by Most's "hit single" formula. The odd B-sides, outtakes, alternate takes, and bonus tracks reveal a high level of virtuosity that Most failed to exploit—the unanthologized B-sides "Puzzles" and "Think About It," the acoustic version of "White Summer," and the punchier mono mixes of "Little Games" and "Drinking Muddy Water" are superior to much on the finished album; other tracks like the raw instrumental backing track for "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor" and an alternate version of "Glimpses", showed promise. Keith Relf and Jim McCarty's post-Yardbirds acoustic duo, Together, which evolved into the original Renaissance, is also represented on three tracks, doing the brand of folkish soft rock that they favoured."