About The Band ( The Yard Birds)
12:14The Yardbirds were an English rock band formed in London in 1963 that had a string of hits during the mid-1960s, including "For Your Love", "Over Under Sideways Down" and "Heart Full of Soul".
The group launched the careers of guitarists Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, 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 group formed in the south-west 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 Top Topham in late May, they performed at Kingston Art School in late May 1963 as a backup band for Cyril Davies. Following a couple of gigs in September 1963 as the Blue-Sounds, they decided to change their name to the Yardbirds, both an expression for hobos hanging around rail yards waiting for a train and a reference to the jazz saxophonist Charlie "Yardbird" Parker.
Relf and Samwell-Smith were originally in a band named the Metropolitan Blues Quartet. After being joined by Dreja, McCarty and Top Topham in late May, they performed at Kingston Art School in late May 1963 as a backup band for Cyril Davies. Following a couple of gigs in September 1963 as the Blue-Sounds, they decided to change their name to the Yardbirds, both an expression for hobos hanging around rail yards waiting for a train and a reference to the jazz saxophonist Charlie "Yardbird" Parker.
The quintet achieved notice on the burgeoning British rhythm and blues scene that month 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'" and "I'm a Man";
Jimmy Page and future member John Paul Jones would later record Sonny Boy Williamson II's "Bring It On Home" in Led Zeppelin.
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.
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.
It sold over one million copies and went Gold.
But Clapton was a blues purist whose vision extended far beyond three-minute singles.
Frustrated by the commercial approach, he abruptly left the group on March 25, 1965, the day that "For Your Love" was released to the public.
Soon Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, but not before he recommended Jimmy Page, a prominent young studio session guitarist, as his replacement.
Unwilling to give up his lucrative gig and worried about his health, Page in turn recommended his friend Jeff Beck.
Beck played his first gig with the Yardbirds only two days after Clapton's departure.
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 could rehearse on it.A Beck–Page lead guitar tandem, however, is heard on the counterculture-era psychedelic rock highlight "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" (with future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones instead of Dreja). It was backed in the U.K. with "Psycho Daisies", with Beck on lead and Page on bass; the U.S. B-side, "The Nazz Are Blue", features a rare lead vocal by Beck.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 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 Höfner instrument.
After a tour stop in Texas in late October 1966 Beck was sacked both for being a consistent no-show and difficulties caused by his perfectionism and explosive temper.
The band continued as a quartet thereafter, with Page as sole lead guitarist; he subsequently introduced playing the instrument with a cello bow (suggested to him by session musician David McCallum, Sr.) and the use of a wah-wah pedal in addition to his fuzzbox.
Meanwhile, the act's 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 chart 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 UK release of the "Goodnight Sweet Josephine" single was planned the following year but was eventually cancelled).
A version of Tony Hazzard's "Ha Ha Said the Clown"—on which only Relf 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.
The group's final single was recorded in January and released two months later. Reflecting members' divergences, its 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. It did not enter the Hot 100.
Current Members:
Jim McCarty – drums, backing vocals (1963–1968, 1982–1983, 1992–present)
John Idan – bass, lead vocals (1992–2009), lead guitar, backing and lead vocals (2015–present)Ben King – lead guitar (2005–2014), rhythm guitar (2015-present)
David Smale – bass, backing vocals (2009-2014; 2015-present)
Billy Boy Miskimmin – harmonica, percussion (2003–2008; 2015-present)
Albums:
Five Live Yardbirds (1964)
For Your Love (1965)
Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds (1965)
Roger the Engineer (1966)
Little Games (1967)
Birdland (2003)
This Band will always live on as one of the bands of the swinging London scene it has many hits that will live on forever.
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