KEITH RELF
Keith Relf (22 March 1943 – 14 May 1976) was an English musician, best known as the lead vocalist and harmonica player for The Yardbirds. (More from Wikipedia)
The core of the Yardbirds though is Paul Samwell-Smith (bass guitar and producer), Keith Relf (vocalist and harmonica), Chris Dreja (bass and rhythm guitar), and Jim McCarty (drums); together with original lead guitarist Anthony “Top” Topham, the band originally assembled in May 1963 under the name the Blue Sounds before settling on the Yardbirds, a slang term for hobos waiting around for a freight train, and also a nickname for legendary jazz musician Charlie Parker. In September 1963, the Yardbirds took over as the house band for the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, succeeding the Rolling Stones.
(May 2014)
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Many people don’t realize that Led Zeppelin is a successor band to the Yardbirds. After Keith Relf and Jim McCarty left the Yardbirds in mid-1968, lead guitarist Jimmy Page was about the only bandmember left. He set about finding new musicians for his next band that was sometimes called the New Yardbirds. When the four bandmembers in Led Zeppelin started played together, the first song they did was “Train Kept A-Rollin’”. Jimmy Page recalls of that session (as quoted in Wikipedia): “We did ‘Train’ . . . It was there immediately. It was so powerful that I don’t remember what we played after that. For me it was just like, ‘Crikey!’ I mean, I’d had moments of elation with groups before, but nothing as intense as that. It was like a thunderbolt, a lightning flash – boosh! Everyone sort of went ‘Wow’.”
(June 2015)
