Ultimate!

Ultimate! is a two-disc compilation album by English blues rock band The Yardbirds, released in 2001 on Rhino Records, catalogue R2-79825. This is the first official "complete" compilation to feature the group throughout its entire recording era. The set includes every single, both A and b sides, released in either the UK or US during the band's lifetime, as well as the Italian single "Questa Volta" and the Dutch-only single from their first recording session, a cover of John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom". The b-side to the US-only single "I'm A Man" was "Still I'm Sad", and "I'm Not Talking" had initially been the flip to the American release of "Shapes of Things", pulled and replaced with "New York City Blues". The single "Over Under Sideways Down" and its b-side were released seven weeks ahead of their home album in the UK. "Drinking Muddy Water" appeared also as the b-side to the single "Ten Little Indians" three months after its release on the LP Little Games. In addition to the 32 tracks issued as singles, the album includes 20 tracks released on long-playing records. Tracks five through eight on disc one derive from a live gig at the Marquee Club in London in early 1964, released on the Five Live Yardbirds album. The first ten tracks on disc two approximate the Yardbirds album of the summer of 1966, those ten tracks identical to sides one and two of the British LP with the final tune on each side excised, bringing the British running order down from twelve tracks to the American length of ten. During the final year of the band's existence, the band's management concentrated on the American market, with only one EP and the single "Little Games" released in the UK after 1966. The set includes the only recordings by the line-up while both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were in the band, "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago", "Psycho Daisies", and "Stroll On", their reworking of "Train Kept A-Rollin'", for the film Blow-Up (1966), in which the group appeared. Also featured are three Keith Relf solo tracks recorded just prior to and following the Roger The Engineer sessions in 1966 and released as singles, which were extremely difficult to obtain until their issue on this compilation. Studio recordings done at R.G. Jones Studios, Olympic Sound Studios, IBC Studios, Advision Sound Studios, De Lane Lea Studios, and Sound Techniques Studios in London; Columbia Recording Studios in New York City; Sam Phillips Recording Studios in Memphis, Tennessee; and Chess Studios in Chicago, Illinois. Original recordings were produced by Giorgio Gomelsky, Paul Samwell-Smith, Simon Napier-Bell, and Mickie Most.