The Yardbirds are an English blues rock band formed in London in 1963. The band started the careers of three of rock's most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton (1963–1965), Jeff Beck (1965–1966) and Jimmy Page (1966–1968), all of whom ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone magazine's 2011 list of 100 greatest guitarists.The Yardbirds were formed in London in 1963 by vocalist and harmonica player Keith Relf and fellow musicians Paul Samwell-Smith, Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty and Anthony “Top” Topham. Relf remained the band's frontman throughout its original 1963–1968 existence and was central to its development from a blues-based club band into one of the most innovative British rock groups of the decade.
During those years, the Yardbirds successively featured three lead guitarists who later became among rock’s most celebrated figures: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Their presence has sometimes overshadowed the importance of the band’s founding members, particularly Relf, whose vocals, harmonica playing and songwriting were integral to the Yardbirds’ distinctive sound. The band's other members during 1963–1968 were vocalist/harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja, and bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, with Dreja switching to bass when Samwell-Smith departed in 1966. The band had a string of hits in the mid-1960s, including "For Your Love", "Heart Full of Soul", "Evil Hearted You", "Still I'm Sad", "Shapes of Things", "Over Under Sideways Down", and "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago".
Originally a blues-based band noted for their signature "rave-up" instrumental breaks, the Yardbirds broadened their range into pop, mixed raw rockabilly and blues, pioneered psychedelic rock and early hard rock, and contributed to many electric guitar innovations of the mid-1960s. Some rock critics and historians also cite their influence on the later punk rock, progressive rock, and heavy metal trends. Following the band's split in 1968, Relf and McCarty formed Renaissance, and Page formed Led Zeppelin. The Yardbirds re-formed in the 1990s, featuring McCarty and Dreja as the only original members. Dreja left the band in 2012, leaving McCarty as the sole original member of the band.
The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992."The Yardbirds: inducted in 1992". The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Retrieved 26 April 2012 They were included at No. 89 in Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" and ranked No. 37 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.VH1: '100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists': 1–50. VH1:Rock on the Net. Retrieved 16 April 2012Tyler, Steven. "The Yardbirds: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 26 April 2012
History
Beginnings and Clapton line-up (1963–1965)
The band formed in the southwest London suburbs in 1963. Relf and Samwell-Smith were originally in a band named the Metropolitan Blues Quartet. After being joined by Dreja, McCarty, and Anthony "Top" Topham, they performed at Kingston School of Art in late May 1963 as a backup band for Cyril Davies. Following a couple of gigs in September 1963 as the Blue-Sounds, they changed their name to the Yardbirds. McCarty claims that Relf was the first to use the name; he may have got it from Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, where it referred to railroad yard hoboes. He adds that Topham identified it as a nickname for jazz saxophonist Charlie "Yardbird" Parker.
The quintet achieved notice on the burgeoning British rhythm and blues scene when they took over as the house band at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, succeeding the Rolling Stones. Their repertoire drew 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'", "Got Love if You Want It", 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 their manager and first record producer. Under Gomelsky's guidance, the Yardbirds toured Britain as the back-up band for blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson II in December 1963 and early 1964. Recordings from those performances were released two years later during the height of Yardbird popularity on the album Sonny Boy Williamson and the Yardbirds.
After the tours with Williamson, the Yardbirds signed to EMI's Columbia label in February 1964, and they recorded more live tracks on 20 March at the legendary Marquee Club in London. The resulting album of mostly American blues and R&B covers, Five Live Yardbirds, was released by Columbia nine months later, and it failed to enter the UK Albums Chart. Over time, Five Live gained stature as one of the few high-quality live recordings of the era and as a historical document of both the British rock and roll boom of the 1960s and Clapton's time in the band.
The Clapton line-up recorded two singles, the blues "I Wish You Would" and "Good Morning, School Girl", before the band scored its first major hit with "For Your Love", a Graham Gouldman composition with a prominent harpsichord part by Brian Auger. "For Your Love" was a Top 10 hit in the UK, Canada, and the US, but it displeased Clapton, a blues purist whose vision extended beyond three-minute singles. Frustrated by their commercial approach, he abruptly left the band in March 1965, shortly after the single was released. Soon after, Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, and Jeff Beck replaced Clapton in the Yardbirds on his friend Jimmy Page's recommendation. The band had first approached Page to replace Clapton, but Page was content with his lucrative sessions work and was worried about both his health and the politics of Clapton's departure. Beck played his first gig with the Yardbirds two days after Clapton's departure.
Beck line-up (1965–1966)
Beck's exploration of fuzz tone, reverb, feedback, sustain, distortion, and hammer-on soloing fit well into the increasingly raw style of British beat music. The Yardbirds experimented with eclectic arrangements reminiscent of Gregorian chants and various European and Asian styles while Beck infused a pervasive Middle Eastern influence into the mix. Beck was voted No. 1 lead guitarist of 1966 in the British music magazine Beat Instrumental.
The Beck-era Yardbirds produced many groundbreaking recordings, including the hit singles "Heart Full of Soul", "Evil Hearted You"/"Still I'm Sad", a cover of Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man" (US only), "Shapes of Things", and "Over Under Sideways Down", the last from the album Yardbirds (known popularly as Roger the Engineer).
Beck's fuzz-tone guitar riff on "Heart Full of Soul" helped introduce Indian-influenced guitar stylings to the UK singles chart in the summer of 1965. The follow-up, the reverb-laden "Evil Hearted You", furthered the Eastern influence, while its B-side, "Still I'm Sad", featured the band chanting like Gregorian monks. The Diddley cover, "I'm a Man", was hard blues rock and featured the Yardbirds' signature "rave-up", where the tempo shifted to double time and Relf's harmonica and Beck's scratching guitar raced to a climax before falling back into the original beat.
The band embarked on its first US tour in late August 1965. A pair of albums were put together for the US market: For Your Love and Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds, half of which came from the earlier Five Live Yardbirds album, combined with new tracks such as "You're a Better Man Than I" and "Train Kept A-Rollin'", both recorded with legendary producer Sam Phillips at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, during the first US tour. There were three more United States tours during Beck's time with the band and a brief European tour in April 1966.
The single "Shapes of Things", released in February 1966, "can justifiably be classified as the first psychedelic rock classic", according to music journalist Richie Unterberger, and it heralded the coming of British psychedelia three months before the Beatles' "Paperback Writer"/"Rain". Reaching No. 3 on the UK charts and No. 11 in the US, "Shapes" was also the Yardbirds' first self-penned hit, the previous three UK A-sides having been written by Gouldman. Relf's vague anti-war protest lyrics and Beck's feedback-driven, Middle Eastern-influenced solo reflected the band's increasing embrace of psychedelia, as did the UK B-side "You're a Better Man Than I" and the follow-up single, "Over Under Sideways Down". The latter was released in May 1966 and features more quixotic lyrics by Relf and another Eastern-inspired guitar line by Beck.
The "Over Under Sideways Down" sessions took place in April 1966 and produced the album Yardbirds. It was commonly referred to as "Roger the Engineer", which were the words scrawled under a cartoon by Dreja of engineer Roger Cameron that appears on the cover of the UK release.Yardbirds, album by The Yardbirds, reissue 2011 by Demon Records Ltd, EU In the US, an abridged version of the album, minus the cartoon cover art, was released as Over Under Sideways Down. The recording session marked the Yardbirds' split with manager Giorgio Gomelsky, as writer Simon Napier-Bell took over management and shared production credit with Samwell-Smith.
The band, led by Relf and McCarty, eschewed cover material, writing the entire album themselves. They were allotted "a whole week" to record the album, according to Dreja, resulting in a "crammed" albeit eclectic mix of blues, hard rock, monkish chanting ("Turn into Earth", "Ever Since the World Began"), and African tribal rhythms ("Hot House of Omagararshid"). Beck's guitar lines were a unifying constant throughout. Roger the Engineer was ranked at No. 350 on Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
Beck/Page line-up (1966)
Roger the Engineer was released in June 1966. Soon afterward, Samwell-Smith quit the band at a drunken gig at Queen's College in OxfordRosen, Steven (25 May 2007). "1977 Jimmy Page Interview" Modern Guitars. Archived from the original on 5 January 2011. Retrieved 16 December 2012. and embarked on a career as a record producer. Jimmy Page, who was at the show, agreed that night to play bass until rhythm guitarist Dreja could rehearse on the instrument. The band toured with Page on bass, and Beck and Dreja on guitars, playing dates in Paris, the UK, the Midwestern US, and the California coast. Beck fell ill late in the latter tour and was hospitalised in San Francisco. Page took over as lead guitarist at the Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco on 25 August, and Dreja switched to bass. Beck stayed in San Francisco to recuperate with his girlfriend Mary Hughes, while the rest of the band completed the tour. After the Yardbirds reunited in London, Dreja remained on bass and the group's dual lead guitar attack was born.
The Beck/Page lead guitar partnership created the avant-garde/psychedelic rock single "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" (with future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones on bass instead of Dreja), which the band recorded in July and September 1966. The single's UK B-side was "Psycho Daisies", two minutes of garage punk sludge featuring Beck on vocals and lead guitar, and Page on bass. The single's B-side in the US, "The Nazz Are Blue", also features a lead vocal by Beck.