Copenhagen, Denmark, September 1968. A former Yardbirds guitarist, an in-demand session bass player, a jobbing drummer and a big-in-the-Midlands vocalist begin a 10-date Scandinavian tour. Billed as The New Yardbirds for contractual reasons, they are the band’s first gigs after getting together only three weeks previously.
With them on the trip is their manager, a large, bearded, imposing man with an ‘unconventional’ dress-sense; ex-coffee bar and club doorman, ex-wrestler, bit-part actor (doubling for Anthony Quinn in The Guns of Navarone, small parts in TV programmes), and former manager of 60s chart-toppers the Animals, Jeff Beck and others.
On returning to England, the band go into a London recording studio and polish off their entire debut album in just 30 hours at a cost of £1,800 including the cover (seven years…
