Education
As a youth, Samwell-Smith attended Hampton School with drummer Jim McCarty.
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Paul Samwell-Smith
Edit ProfileCareer
While in, he co-produced and engineered much of their music, working with record producers such as Mickie Most, Simon Napier-Bell and Giorgio Gomelsky. He left in June 1966 to pursue a career as a music producer. In late May 1963 he formed with Keith Relf, Anthony Topham, Chris Dreja, and Jim McCarty.
He mainly used an Epiphone Rivoli bass.
He played on the United Kingdom albums, Five Live Yardbirds and Yardbirds (also known as Roger the Engineer) and on the United States albums Foreign Your Love, Having a Rave Up, and Over Under Sideways Down (which was Roger the Engineer retitled), all released on Epic Records. He provided background vocals on many songs like "Good Morning Little School Girl", "Foreign Your Love", "Heart Full of Soul", "Evil Hearted You", and more.
While in the Yardbirds he started working on the technical side in the studio. In 1966, becoming tired of touring and wanting to focus on production, he left the Yardbirds and was replaced by Jimmy Page.
The last Yardbirds album he played on was Yardbirds (Roger the Engineer).
In the early 80s, Samwell-Smith played in the Yardbirds reunion band Box of Frogs with original Yardbird members Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty. The Box of Frogs did not tour because Chris Dreja was busy with his photography and Samwell-Smith was busy in the recording studio. Producer He went on to become a successful producer with credits including the most successful albums of Cat Stevens, and in addition, Jethro Tull, Carly Simon, Renaissance, Murray Head, Chris de Burgh, Beverley Craven, Illusion and Claire Hamill, as well as producing two of Amazing Blondel"s albums for Island Records, and the first and second albums by All About Eve for Mercury.
Samwell-Smith also co-produced "American Tune" with Paul Simon.
Yardbirds (John Platt, Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty) Sidgwick & Jackson, 1983 Yardbirds: The Ultimate Rave-Up (Greg Russo) Crossfire Publications 1997 (Alan Clayson) Backbeat Books 2002.
Membership
He was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Yardbirds in 1992.
