The Yardbirds are an English rock band that
had a string of hits in the mid-1960s, including
"For Your Love", "Over Under Sideways Down"
and "Heart Full of Soul". The group is notable
for having started the careers of three of
rock's most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton,
Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, all of whom were
in the top five of Rolling Stone's 100 Top
Guitarists list. A blues-based band that broadened
its range into pop and rock, the Yardbirds
had a hand in many electric guitar innovations
of the mid-1960s, such as feedback, "fuzztone"
distortion and improved amplification. Pat
Pemberton, writing for Spinner, holds that
the Yardbirds were "the most impressive guitar
band in rock music". After the Yardbirds broke
up in 1968, their lead guitarist Jimmy Page
founded what became Led Zeppelin.
The bulk of the band's most successful self-written
songs came from bassist/producer Paul Samwell-Smith
who, with singer/harmonica player Keith Relf,
drummer Jim McCarty and rhythm guitarist/bassist
Chris Dreja, constituted the core of the group.
The band reformed in the 1990s, featuring
McCarty, Dreja and new members. The Yardbirds
were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame in 1992. They were included in Rolling
Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Artists
of All Time", and VH1's "100 Greatest Artists
of Hard Rock".
History
Beginnings
The group formed in the south-west London
suburbs. Relf and Samwell-Smith were originally
in a group named the Metropolitan Blues Quartet.
After being joined by Dreja, McCarty and Top
Topham in late May 1963, they decided to change
the name, and after a couple of gigs in September
1963 as the Blue-Sounds, they settled on the
Yardbirds, which was both an expression for
hobos hanging around rail yards waiting for
a train and also a reference to the jazz saxophonist
Charlie "Yardbird" Parker.
At Kingston Art School in late May 1963 they
first performed as a backup band for Cyril
Davies, and achieved notice on the burgeoning
British rhythm and blues scene in September
1963 when they took over as the house band
at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, succeeding
the Rolling Stones. They drew their repertoire
from the Chicago blues of Howlin' Wolf, Muddy
Waters, Bo Diddley, Sonny Boy Williamson II
and Elmore James, including "Smokestack Lightning",
"Good Morning Little School Girl", "Boom Boom",
"I Wish You Would", "Rollin' and Tumblin'"
and "I'm a Man".
Original lead guitarist Topham left and was
replaced by Eric Clapton in October 1963.
Crawdaddy Club impresario Giorgio Gomelsky
became the Yardbirds' manager and first record
producer. Under Gomelsky's guidance the Yardbirds
signed to EMI's Columbia label in February
1964. Their first album was the "live", Five
Live Yardbirds, recorded at the legendary
Marquee Club in London. Blues legend Sonny
Boy Williamson II invited the group to tour
Britain and Germany with him, a union that
later engendered another live album.
Breakthrough success and Clapton departure
The quintet cut two singles, "I Wish You Would"
and "Good Morning, School Girl", before their
third, "For Your Love", a Graham Gouldman
composition, provided their first major hit.
It sold over one million copies, and was awarded
a gold disc. Clapton, at the time a blues
purist, left the group in protest to join
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and then later,
Cream. Clapton recommended Jimmy Page, a prominent
young studio session guitarist, as his replacement.
Page, uncertain about giving up his lucrative
studio work and worried about his health,
recommended in turn his friend Jeff Beck.
Beck played his first gig with the Yardbirds
only two days after Clapton's departure on
25 March 1965.
Jeff Beck's tenure
Beck's experiments with fuzz tone, feedback
and distortion fit well into the increasingly
raw style of British beat music and the Yardbirds
began to experiment, producing arrangements
reminiscent of Gregorian chant and various
European and Asian styles. Beck was voted
No. 1 lead guitarist of 1966 in the British
music magazine Beat Instrumental.
The Beck-era Yardbirds produced a number of
memorable recordings including the hit singles
"Heart Full of Soul", "Evil Hearted You",
a cover of Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man", "Shapes
of Things" and "Over Under Sideways Down",
and the Yardbirds album.
The Yardbirds embarked on their first U.S.
tour in late August 1965. A pair of albums
were put together for the U.S. market; For
Your Love, and Having a Rave Up, half of which
came from Five Live Yardbirds. There were
three more U.S. tours during Beck's time with
the group. A brief European tour took place
in April 1966.
In 1966, the Yardbirds participated in the
Sanremo Music Festival with song Paf...Bum!,
with Italian songwriter Lucio Dalla.
The Beck/Page line-up
In June 1966, shortly after the sessions that
produced Yardbirds, Samwell-Smith decided
to leave the group and work as a record producer.
Jimmy Page agreed to play bass until rhythm
guitarist Dreja had rehearsed on that instrument.
The Beck–Page tandem is heard on the single
"Happenings Ten Years Time Ago", though this
featured Beck and Page on twin lead guitar,
with John Paul Jones on bass: it was backed
with "Psycho Daisies", which featured Beck
on lead guitar and Page on bass.
The Beck–Page era Yardbirds also recorded
"Stroll On", a reworking of "Train Kept A-Rollin'"
recorded for the Michelangelo Antonioni film
Blowup, though Relf changed the lyrics and
title to avoid seeking permission from the
copyright holder. "Stroll On" features a twin
lead-guitar break by Beck and Page. Their
appearance in Blowup came after the Who declined
and the In-Crowd were unable to attend the
filming. The Velvet Underground were also
considered for the part but were unable to
acquire UK work permits. Director Michelangelo
Antonioni instructed Beck to smash his guitar
in emulation of the Who's Pete Townshend:
the guitar that Beck smashes at the end of
their set is a cheap German-made Hofner instrument.
The Beck–Page lineup recorded little else
in the studio and no live recordings of the
dual-lead guitar lineup have surfaced. The
Beck–Page Yardbirds recorded a commercial
for a milkshake product "Great Shakes" using
the opening riff of "Over Under Sideways Down",
featured on 1992's Little Games Sessions & More
compilation.
There was also one recording made by Beck
and Page with John Paul Jones on bass, Keith
Moon on drums and Nicky Hopkins on piano—"Beck's
Bolero", a piece inspired by Ravel's "Bolero",
credited to Page. "Beck's Bolero" was first
released as the B-side of Beck's first solo
single, "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and was included
on his first album, Truth.
The Yardbirds' final days: the Page era
Beck was sacked from the group for being a
consistent no-show—as well as for difficulties
caused by his perfectionism and explosive
temper, after a tour stop in Texas in late
October 1966; as such, the Yardbirds continued
as a quartet for the remainder of their career.
Page became the new lead guitarist and introduced
his technique of playing with a cello bow
and the use of a wah-wah pedal.
Meanwhile, the Yardbirds' commercial fortunes
were declining. "Happenings Ten Years Time
Ago" had only reached No. 30 on the U.S.
Hot 100 and had fared even worse in Britain.
A partnership with Columbia's hit-making producer,
Mickie Most, failed to reignite their commercial
success. The "Little Games" single released
in spring 1967 flopped so badly in the UK
that EMI did not release another Yardbirds
record there until after the band broke up.
A version of Tony Hazzard's "Ha Ha Said the
Clown"—on which only one band member, Relf,
actually performed—was the band's last single
to crack the U.S. Top 50, peaking at No. 44
in Billboard in the summer of 1967. Their
final album, Little Games, released in America
in July, was a commercial and critical non-entity.
A cover of Harry Nilsson's "Ten Little Indians"
hit the U.S. in the autumn of 1967 and quickly
sank.
The Yardbirds spent most of the rest of that
year touring in the States with new manager
Peter Grant, their live shows becoming heavier
and more experimental. The group rarely played
their 1967 singles on stage, preferring to
mix the Beck-era hits with blues standards
and covers from groups such as the Velvet
Underground and American folk singer Jake
Holmes, whose "Dazed and Confused", with lyrics
rewritten by Relf, was a live staple of the
Yardbirds' last two American tours. The latter
went down so well that Page selected it for
the first Led Zeppelin record, on which it
appears with further revised lyrics and Page
credited as writer.
By 1968 Relf and McCarty wished to pursue
a style influenced by folk and classical music
while Page, at a time when the psychedelic
blues-rock of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience
was enormously popular, wanted to continue
with the kind of "heavy" music for which Led
Zeppelin would become iconic. Dreja was developing
an interest in photography. By March, Relf
and McCarty had decided to leave, though the
other two managed to persuade them to stay
at least for one more American tour. The Yardbirds'
final single, recorded in January and released
two months later, reflected these divergences.
The A-side, "Goodnight Sweet Josephine", was
in the same vein as their Mickie Most-produced
singles of the previous year, while its B-side,
"Think About It", featured a proto-Zeppelin
Page riff and snippets of the "Dazed" guitar
solo. This last single did not even crack
the Hot 100.
A concert and some album tracks were recorded
in New York City in March. All were shelved
at the group's request. However, once Led
Zeppelin became successful, Epic tried to
release the concert material as Live Yardbirds:
Featuring Jimmy Page. The album was quickly
withdrawn after Page's lawyers filed an injunction.
On 7 July 1968, the Yardbirds played their
final gig at the College of Technology in
Luton, Bedfordshire. Rolling Stone magazine
announced the break-up by saying that "Jimmy
Paige [sic] intends to go into solo recording
work..."
The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin
Page and Dreja, with a tour scheduled for
the autumn in Scandinavia, saw the break-up
as an opportunity to put a new lineup together
with Page as producer and Grant as manager.
Procol Harum's B.J. Wilson, Paul Francis and
session man Clem Cattini, who'd guested on
more than a few Yardbirds tracks under Most's
supervision, were considered as drummers.
Young vocalist and composer Terry Reid was
asked to replace Relf but declined because
of a new recording contract with Most and
recommended the then-unknown Robert Plant.
Plant, in turn, recommended his childhood
friend John Bonham on drums. Dreja bowed out
to pursue a career as a rock photographer
and bassistarranger John Paul Jones—who,
like Cattini, had worked with Page on countless
sessions, including several with the Yardbirds—was
recruited. Rehearsals began in August; in
early September, Page's revised Yardbirds
embarked on the Scandinavian tour after which
the group returned to the UK to produce an
album, still billed as the Yardbirds as late
as October 1968.
While Page's new roster still played a few
songs from the Yardbirds' canon—usually
"Train Kept a-Rollin'," "Dazed and Confused"
or "For Your Love"—a name change was in
order as the autumn of 1968 drew to a close.
This may have been motivated, at least in
part, by a cease-and-desist order from Dreja,
who claimed that he maintained legal rights
to the "Yardbirds" name; other reports indicate
it was Page's desire to wipe the slate clean.
Whatever the reason, the band restyled itself
"Led Zeppelin", a term believed to have been
coined, originally, by Keith Moon in reference
to the supergroup that had performed on "Beck's
Bolero". Moon had quipped that a BeckHopkinsPage
lineup would go down "like a lead zeppelin."
The spelling of "lead" was changed to avoid
confusion over its pronunciation. This effectively
closed the books on the Yardbirds – at least
by name – for the next 24 years.
After the Yardbirds
Relf and McCarty formed an acoustic rock group
called Together and then Renaissance, which
recorded two albums for Island Records over
a two-year period. McCarty formed the group
Shoot in 1973. Relf, after producing albums
for Medicine Head and Saturnalia, resurfaced
in 1975 with a new quartet, Armageddon; a
hybrid of heavy metal, hard rock and folk
influences, which now included former Renaissance
bandmate Louis Cennamo. They recorded one
promising album before Relf died in an electrical
accident in his home studio on 14 May 1976.
In 1977, Illusion was formed, featuring a
reunited lineup of the original Renaissance,
including McCarty and Keith's sister Jane
Relf.
In the 1980s McCarty, Dreja and Samwell-Smith
formed a short-lived but fun Yardbirds semi-reunion
called Box of Frogs, which occasionally included
Beck and Page plus various friends with whom
they had all recorded over the years. McCarty
was also part of 'The British Invasion All-Stars'
with members of Procol Harum, Creation, the
Nashville Teens, the Downliners Sect and the
Pretty Things. Phil May and Dick Taylor of
the Pretty Things, together with McCarty,
recorded two albums in Chicago as the Pretty
Things-Yardbirds Blues Band – "The Chicago
Blues Tapes 1991" and "Wine, Women, Whiskey",
both produced by George Paulus.
The Yardbirds were inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Nearly all
the original surviving musicians who had been
part of the group's heyday, including Jeff
Beck and Jimmy Page, appeared at the ceremony.
Eric Clapton, whose Hall of Fame induction
was the first of three, was unable to attend
because of his obligations while recording
and working on a show for the MTV Unplugged
series. Accepting the induction on behalf
of the late Keith Relf were his wife April
and son Danny.
Reformation
In 1992, Peter Barton from Rock Artist Management
contacted Jim McCarty about the prospect of
reforming the Yardbirds. McCarty was interested
but only if Chris Dreja would agree, but at
the time he thought it highly unlikely that
Dreja would want to tour again. Barton then
contacted Dreja, who agreed to give it a try.
Their debut gig was booked at the Marquee
Club in London along with the newly reformed
Animals. It was a great success. The lineup
featured John Idan handling bass and lead
vocals. Barton managed the band and booked
all their dates for over a decade; he still
works with the band on occasion.
In 2003, a new album, Birdland, was released
under the Yardbirds name on the Favored Nations
label by a lineup including Chris Dreja, Jim
McCarty and new members Gypie Mayo, John Idan
and Alan Glen, which consisted of a mixture
of new material mostly penned by McCarty and
re-recordings of some of their greatest hits,
with guest appearances by Joe Satriani, Steve
Vai, Slash, Brian May, Steve Lukather, Jeff
"Skunk" Baxter, John Rzeznik, Martin Ditchum
and Simon McCarty. Also, Jeff Beck reunited
with his former bandmates on the song "My
Blind Life". And then there was the rare and
improbable guest appearance on stage in 2005
by their first guitarist from the 1960s, Top
Topham.
Since the release of Birdland, Mayo has been
briefly replaced by Jerry Donahue, and subsequently
in 2005 by the then 22-year-old Ben King,
while Glen has been replaced by Billy Boy
Miskimmin from Nine Below Zero fame.
In 2007 the Yardbirds released a live CD,
recorded on 19 July 2006, entitled Live at
B.B. King Blues Club, featuring the McCarty,
Dreja, Idan, King and Miskimmin line-up.
The first episode of the 2007/08 season for
The Simpsons featured the Yardbirds' "I'm
A Man" from the CD Live at B.B. King Blues
Club.
According to his website, Idan resigned from
the Yardbirds in August 2008, although his
last gig with them was on Friday 24 April
2009, when they headlined the first concert
in the new Live Room venue at Twickenham rugby
stadium. This was also Glen's last gig with
the band after temporarily standing in when
Miskimmin was unavailable.
Idan and Glen were replaced by Andy Mitchell
and David Smale, brother of the virtuoso guitarist
Jonathan Smale.
Dreja sat out the US spring 2012 tour to recover
from an illness. It was announced in 2013
that he was leaving the band for medical reasons
and would be replaced by original Yardbirds
guitarist Topham.
Members
Current members
Jim McCarty – drums, backing vocals
Anthony "Top" Topham – lead/rhythm guitar
Ben King – lead guitar
David Smale – bass, backing vocals
Andy Mitchell – lead vocals, harmonica,
acoustic guitar
Former members
Keith Relf – lead vocals, harmonica
Chris Dreja – rhythm guitar, bass, percussion
Paul Samwell-Smith – bass, backing vocals
Eric Clapton – lead guitar
Jeff Beck – lead guitar
Jimmy Page – lead guitar, bass
John Knightsbridge – lead guitar, backing
vocals
Mark Feltham – lead vocals, harmonica
Joe Allanson – bass
Rod Demick – bass, harmonica, backing vocals
John Idan – lead vocals, bass, lead guitar
Ray Majors – lead guitar, backing vocals
Laurie Garman – harmonica
Denny Ball - Bass guitar during brief re-shuffle
for Gypie Mayo time out. John Idan moved to
lead guitar
Gypie Mayo – lead guitar, backing vocals
Alan Glen – harmonica, percussion
Billy Boy Miskimmin – harmonica, percussion
Jerry Donahue – lead guitar
Discography
Five Live Yardbirds
For Your Love
Having a Rave Up
Roger the Engineer
Little Games
Birdland
See also
Freakbeat
Swinging London
References
Bibliography
Bob Brunning Blues: The British Connection,
London: Helter Skelter, 2002, ISBN 1-900924-41-2
Dick Heckstall-Smith The safest place in the
world: A personal history of British Rhythm
and blues, Clear Books, ISBN 0-7043-2696-5
– First Edition : Blowing The Blues – Fifty
Years Playing The British Blues
Christopher Hjort Strange brew: Eric Clapton
and the British blues boom, 1965–1970, foreword
by John Mayall,JawboneISBN 1-906002002
Paul Myers: Long John Baldry and the Birth
of the British Blues, Vancouver 2007 – GreyStone
Books
Harry Shapiro Alexis Korner: The Biography,
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, London 1997, Discography
by Mark Troster
Yardbirds Sidgwick & Jackson, 1983. ISBN 0-283-98982-3.
Yardbirds : The Ultimate Rave-Up Crossfire
Publications, 1997. ISBN 0-9648157-8-8.
The Yardbirds Backbeat Books, 2002. ISBN 0-87930-724-2
Notes
External links
Official website
Yardbirds American website
The Yardbirds at The Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame
Favored Nations Yardbirds web page
