The Historic Classic Recordings are from the early years of The Yardbirds. The double CD features studio and live recordings from the London Marquee Club and the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, Surrey. Not only Eric Clapton, but also the legendary Sonny Boy Williamson, with whom the band toured in December 1963, were involved in the fantastic recordings. Also, the contributions of Jimmy Page in some pieces are unmistakable. With For Your Love, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Shapes Of Things, Draggin 'My Tail (with Jimmy Page), Evil Hearted You, I Is not Got You, A Certain Girl, Got To Hurry, Too Much Monkey Business, Mr. You're a Better Man Than I, Choker (with Jimmy Page), Honey In Your Hips, West Coast Idea, I Wish You Would, Freight Loader (with Jimmy Page), Snake Drive, Jeff's Blues and others, a total of 36 titles.
This release presents, for the first time ever on a single set, all of the music recorded by the Eric Dolphy Quartet in Denmark on September 6 & 8, 1961, which originally appeared on three separate LPs: Eric Dolphy in Europe Vols. 1 to 3. Further versions of “Laura (unaccompanied) and “When Lights Are Low” as well as a short take on Thelonious Monk’s “52nd Street Theme”, recorded a few days earlier in Sweden, have been added here as a bonus.
Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival, which features world-class guitar players from all over the globe and has been held every three years since 2004, works as a fundraiser for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua, a treatment and educational center Clapton founded in 1998 to help people suffering from chemical dependency. The first three concerts were single-day outdoor events held in Dallas in 2004, and in Chicago in 2007 and 2010, with the fourth, the concert represented by this two-disc set, moving indoors to Madison Square Garden in New York and expanding to two nights in 2013…