The Yardbirds

The Yardbirds  are an English rock band that had a string of hits in the mid-1960's, 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 are in the top five of Rolling Stone's 100 Top Guitarists list (Clapton at No. 2, Page at No. 3 and Beck at No. 5).  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 1990's, featuring McCarty, Dreja and new members.  (More from Wikipedia)

Eric Clapton was a member of both Cream and Blind Faith, and he has been in several other rock bands as well over the years, mostly though not entirely before he began his solo career in 1970.  Eric Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:  as a solo artist, as a member of the Yardbirds, and as a member of Cream. 

The Yardbirds was one of my very favorite British Invasion bands.  Casual rock music fans might know the band as successively including within its ranks three of the greatest rock guitarists of all time:  Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page.  That is, after Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds, he suggested Jimmy Page as his replacement; but Page was highly successful as a session guitarist in this period and instead recommended Jeff Beck, who played his first gig with the band just two days after Clapton left.  Jimmy Page later joined the Yardbirds after Jeff Beck moved on. 

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. 

As with many of the British Invasion bands, the Yardbirds initially played American R&B and blues songs rather than their own compositions.  As reported in Wikipedia, during their days at the Crawdaddy Club: "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'."  In fact, Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds in March 1965 as a protest when the band finally got a hit single with a song that did not come from this milieu, "For Your Love" (written by Graham Gouldman, later a member of 10cc). 

*       *       * 

The frequent hit songs by the Yardbirds  – "I'm a Man", "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago", "For Your Love", "Heart Full of Soul", "Shapes of Things", "Over Under Sideways Down", etc. – hit my eardrums with at least as powerful an impact as the greatest Rolling Stones songs, like "Brown Sugar", "Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Paint it Black", "Get off of My Cloud", "Sympathy for the Devil", "Street Fighting Man", etc.  To me though, these songs sound every bit as fresh to me today, probably because they haven't been played to death on oldies' radio as much as anything else.  

It wasn't just the hits though; their album tracks also sound terrific, but it is as a live band that the Yardbirds truly cook.  On my first Yardbirds album, The Yardbirds' Greatest Hits, one live track was included, a scorching cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning"; as much as I loved the hit songs that made up most of the tracks, it quickly became one of my favorite songs on the album.  "Smokestack Lightning" was taken from the band's first (British) album, Five Live Yardbirds, described by Allmusic as "the first important – indeed, essential – live album to come out of the 1960's British rock & roll boom."  And how many rock bands have the guts to put out a concert album as their debut release?  Five Live Yardbirds wasn't released in the U.S. until a CD finally came out in the 1980's, although one side of Having a Rave up with the Yardbirds was composed of four songs from the album.  

The muddy sound on many of the Yardbirds songs over the years has been greatly improved as better master tapes have surfaced; Allmusic notes the Repertoire Records releases of the 1990's as showing significant improvement.  Cheap compilation albums with names like Eric Clapton and the Yardbirds and Jeff Beck and the Yardbirds usually feature assortments of uneven performances, and they also have not helped the Yardbirds' reputation since the 1960's.  But for those in the know, and if you find the right albums, rock music doesn't get much better than this.