The Yardbirds

This article is about the English musicians The Yardbirds. For the album The Yardbirds, see Roger the Engineer.

The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds, 1966. From left: Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Chris Dreja, Keith Relf and Jim McCarty.
Background information
Origin	London, England
Genres	Blues rock psychedelic rock rhythm and blues
Years active	1963–1968 1992–present
Labels	Columbia Epic EMI/Capitol
Members	Jim McCarty Kenny Aaronson John Idan Johnny A. Myke Scavone
Past members	See: Members section for detailed list
Website	www.theyardbirds.com

The Yardbirds are an English rock band formed in London in 1963 that had a string of hits during the mid-1960s, including "For Your Love", "Heart Full of Soul", "Shapes of Things" and "Over Under Sideways Down". The group launched the careers of guitarists Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck.

A blues-based band that broadened its range into pop, pioneering psychedelic rock and early hard rock, the Yardbirds contributed to many electric guitar innovations of the mid-1960s, such as feedback, "fuzztone" distortion and improved amplification. After the Yardbirds broke up in 1968, lead guitarist Jimmy Page founded what became Led Zeppelin, while vocalist and harmonica player Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty formed the symphonic rock group Renaissance.

The bulk of the band's most successful self-written songs came from Relf, McCarty and bassist and producer Paul Samwell-Smith, who, with rhythm guitarist and 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 ranked No. 37 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.

History

Beginnings

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, 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, either an expression for hobos hanging around rail yards waiting for a train or prisoners hanging around a prison yard; and a reference to seminal 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'" 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, Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds.

Breakthrough success and Clapton departure

The Clapton line-up cut two singles, the blues "I Wish You Would" and "Good Morning, School Girl", before the band scored its first major hit with the overtly pop "For Your Love", a Beatles-influenced Graham Gouldman composition built around a major chord progression (E-G-A) strummed on a harpsichord. "For Your Love" hit the top of the charts in the U.K. and Canada and reached No. 6 in the U.S., but it didn't please Clapton, a blues purist whose vision extended beyond three-minute singles. Frustrated by the commercial approach, he abruptly left the group on 25 March 1965, the day the single was released. Soon Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, but not before he recommended as his replacement Jimmy Page, a prominent young studio session guitarist. Content with his lucrative sessions work and worried about both his health and the politics of Clapton's departure, Page in turn recommended his friend Jeff Beck. Beck played his first gig with the Yardbirds only two days after Clapton's departure.

Jeff Beck's tenure

Beck's explorations of fuzz tone, reverb, feedback, sustain, distortion and hammer-on soloing fit well into the increasingly raw style of British beat music, and the Yardbirds began to experiment with eclectic arrangements reminiscent of Gregorian chants and various European and Asian styles ("Still I'm Sad", "Turn into Earth", "Hot House of Omagarashid", "Farewell", "Ever Since the World Began"). Beck was voted No. 1 lead guitarist of 1966 in the British music magazine Beat Instrumental.

The Beck-era group produced a number of memorable and often groundbreaking recordings including the hit singles "Heart Full of Soul", "Evil Hearted You", a cover of Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man" (U.S. only), "Shapes of Things" and "Over Under Sideways Down", and the Yardbirds album (known popularly as Roger the Engineer and first issued in the U.S. in an abridged version called Over Under Sideways Down).

Beck's fuzz tone guitar riff on "Heart Full of Soul" introduced Indian raga-style guitar to the pop charts in the summer of 1965; the follow-up, the reverb-laden "Evil Hearted You" continued the Eastern vibe, while its B-Side, the haunting "Still I'm Sad" backed its melody with the band chanting like Gregorian monks. The Diddley cover, "I'm a Man", was hard blues rock, 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 Yardbird's released their first self-written hit, "Shapes of Things" in Feb. 1966, the previous three U.K. A-sides having been written by Gouldman. Relf's vague anti-war protest lyrics and Beck's soaring, feedback-driven, raga scale solo heralded the coming of British psychedelia, months before the Beatles B-side "Rain". The follow-up single, "Over Under Sideways Down", continued the Yardbirds' trend toward psychedelia, and featured more quixotic lyrics by Relf and another blistering raga-inspired guitar line by Beck.

The band 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 (which included an early take of "My Girl Sloopy"), and Having a Rave Up, half of which came from the earlier Five Live Yardbirds album. There were three more U.S. tours during Beck's time with the group, and brief European tour in April 1966, coinciding with the recording sessions for Yardbirds ("Roger the Engineer")/Over Under Sideways Down.

Those sessions also marked the Yardbirds split with their manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, as writer Simon Napier-Bell took over management and shared production credit with Samwell-Smith on Roger the Engineer, and the band, led by Relf and McCarty, eschewed cover material, writing the entire album themselves.

The Beck/Page line-up

In June 1966, shortly after the Roger sessions, Samwell-Smith quit the group at a gig in Oxford, U.K., and went on to a career as a record producer. Jimmy Page, who was in attendance the at the gig, agreed that night to play bass until rhythm guitarist Dreja could rehearse on it. A Beck-Page lead guitar tandem, however, is heard on the avant garde psychedelic rock classic "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", an embryonic garage punk track featuring Beck on lead and Page on bass. The "Happenings" U.S. B-side, "The Nazz Are Blue", features a rare lead vocal by Beck.

The Yardbirds featuring both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, taken from the Michelangelo Antonioni film Blowup, c. 1966.

The Beck-Page era Yardbirds also recorded "Stroll On", a reworking of "Train Kept A-Rollin'", recorded for the Michelangelo Antonioni film Blowup, with Relf changing 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 destroys in the film was a cheap German-made Höfner instrument.

The Beck-Page lineup recorded little else in the studio and no live recordings of the dual-lead guitar lineup have surfaced (save a scratchy cover of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man"), though they did record a 1966 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, however, one recording made by Beck and Page in May 1966, just weeks prior to Page joining the Yardbirds: "Beck's Bolero", a piece inspired by Ravel's "Bolero", credited to Page (Beck also claims to have written the song), with John Paul Jones on bass, Keith Moon on drums and Nicky Hopkins on piano. It was around this session that the idea of a "super group" involving Beck, Page, Moon and Who bassist John Entwistle was kicked around, with Entwistle suggesting it would "go over like a lead balloon" and Moon quipping that they could call the group Lead Zeppelin. Though Page and Beck would briefly join forces in the Yardbirds and Moon and Entwistle would stay in The Who, Page recalled the conversation in 1968 when deciding on the name for Led Zeppelin. "Beck's Bolero" was first released in 1967 as the B-side of Beck's first solo single, "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and was later included on his 1968 debut album, Truth.

Final days: the Page era

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 violinist David McCallum, Sr.) and the combination of a wah-wah pedal in addition to a distortion fuzzbox. Other innovations included the use of a taped noise loop in live settings (on the psychedelic dirge "Glimpses") and open-tuned guitar to enhance the sitar-like sounds the Yardbirds were known for.

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. The band dropped Napier-Bell and entered into a partnership with Columbia Records hit-making producer, Mickie Most, known for his work with The Animals, Herman's Hermits and Scottish folk singer turned psychedelic artist Donovan Leitch, yet this move failed to reignite their chart success. After the disappointing sales of "Happenings", the single "Little Games" released in March 1967 flopped so badly in the UK that EMI did not release another Yardbirds record there until after the band broke up. The single did not chart, despite the appearance of another psychedelic gem, "Puzzles", on the B-Side. A 1968 UK release of the "Goodnight Sweet Josephine" single was planned but cancelled. A version of Tony Hazzard's "Ha Ha Said the Clown"—on which only Relf performed—backed with the Relf-McCarty original "Tinker Tailor, Soldier Sailor", was the band's last single to crack the U.S. Top 50, peaking at No. 44 on the Billboard charts in the summer of 1967.

Even as the singles bombed, Epic compiled the six earlier A-Side hits and B-Sides ("New York City Blues", "Still I'm Sad") with the heaviest material from For Your Love ("I'm Not Talking") and Having a Rave Up ("Smokestack Lightning"), and released The Yardbirds Greatest Hits in the U.S. only in March 1967. The album featured the first appearance of "Happenings" and "Shapes of Things" on an album, which, along with "Over Under Sideways Down" formed the Yardbirds 1966 trinity of pioneering psychedelic rock classics. Though it left off the avant sludge-punk of "Psycho Daisies", which had only been released in the U.K. as a B-side, Greatest Hits described to the Yardbirds' growing American audience a nearly complete picture of "what made the Yardbirds a great band", according to critics; it also presented young garage rock musicians of the psychedelic era the full range of the band's work 1965-66. Greatest Hits would be the Yardbirds' best-selling U.S. album release, rising to No. 28 on the Billboard charts as the band toured the states heavily.

Their final album, Little Games, released in America in July 1967, was, however, 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 Most-produced singles on stage, preferring to mix the Beck-era hits with blues standards and experimental psychedelia such as "Glimpses", a Page-written dirge from Little Games featuring bowed guitars, pre-recorded noise loops and a hypnotic wah-wah guitar groove. They also covered the Velvet Underground ("I'm Waiting for the Man") and Bob Dylan ("Most Likely You Go Your Way And I'll Go Mine") and American folk singer Jake Holmes, whose "Dazed and Confused", with overhauled arrangement by Page and lyrics rewritten by Relf, was a live staple of the Yardbirds' last two American tours. "Dazed and Confused" 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. (Page and Holmes would settle on an "Inspired by" credit for Holmes in 2011).

By 1968, the psychedelic blues rock of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience was enormously popular, yet Relf and McCarty wished to pursue a style influenced by folk and classical music; Page 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 but were persuaded by the other two to stay at least for one more American tour.

The group's final single was recorded in January and released two months later. Reflecting the divergences of the band members and their producer, the A-side, "Goodnight Sweet Josephine", was another Mickie Most-produced pop single of the kind that flopped the previous year; while the B-side, "Think About It", featured a proto-Zeppelin Page riff and snippets of the "Dazed and Confused" guitar solo. It did not enter the Billboard Top 100.

A concert and some album tracks were recorded in New York City in March and early April (including the unreleased song "Knowing That I'm Losing You", an early version of a track that would be re-recorded by Led Zeppelin as "Tangerine"). All were shelved at the group's request, but after 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, The New 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 bassist/keyboardist/arranger 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 as the New Yardbirds on the aforementioned Scandinavian tour after which the group returned to the UK to produce an album (subsequently Led Zeppelin), with studio tapes and promotional material indicating the band being 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 (and identity) 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, according by Led Zeppelin future road manager Richard Cole that while in New York he hung out with Keith Moon and John Entwistle and Entwistle said of forming a band with Jimmy Page and Steve Winwood and he would name it "Lead Zeppelin" because it'll go over like a lead balloon". 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

Jim McCarty drums the Yardbirds 1963–68, 1992–present

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 (with whom he also played bass) 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, drummer Bobby Caldwell (previously a member of Captain Beyond and Johnny Winter), and guitarist Martin Pugh (from Steamhammer, Rod Stewart's An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down, and most recently in 7th Order). 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. They recorded two albums for Epic, the self-titled "Box of Frogs" (1984) and "Strange Land" (1986). McCarty was also part of 'The British Invasion All-Stars' with members of Procol Harum, The 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.

Handprints of the living members of the Yardbirds at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Left to right: Page, Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Clapton

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. (Original lead guitarist Top Topham was not included.) 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.

The Yardbirds at Langueux (France) 9 September 2006, left to right: John Idan, Jim McCarty (behind the drums) and Chris Dreja. Photo: Corentin Lamy.

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 (lead guitar, backing vocals), John Idan (bass, lead vocals) and Alan Glen (harmonica, backing vocals), 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 was replaced briefly 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 (Favored Nations), 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 (Favored Nations).

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 (lead vocals, harmonica, acoustic guitar) and David Smale (bass, backing vocals), 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.

McCarty announced in December 2014 that the current lineup of the Yardbirds had disbanded. He told fans in an email that he would be "working on solo ventures and other Yardbirds projects in 2015.” This has been proven to be untrue as the Yardbirds are on tour as of 2015. In May 2015 Topham left the band and was replaced by Earl Slick. Ultimately, Slick would not play with them.

In August 2015 it was announced they would play the Eel Pie Club in Twickenham on 17 October with a line-up of Jim McCarty, John Idan, Ben King, David Smale and Billyboy Miskimmin.

On 12 August 2015 it was announced that Boston guitarist Johnny A. would become the newest member of the Yardbirds for their North American tour running from 30 October to 22 November 2015. Former Ram Jam harmonica played Myke Scavone joined the band at the end of 2015.

On 15 April 2016 the band played at the Under the Bridge venue in London with a line-up of Jim McCarty, John Idan, Johnny A, Kenny Aaronson, and Billyboy Miskimmin. Chris Dreja was in the audience.

Members

Main article: List of the Yardbirds members

Current members

• Jim McCarty – drums, backing vocals (1963–1968, 1982–1983, 1992–present), lead vocals (1992)
• John Idan – lead vocals (1992–2009, 2015–present), lead guitar (1992–1994), bass (1994–2009), rhythm guitar (2015–present)
• Kenny Aaronson – bass (2015, 2016–present)
• Johnny A. – lead guitar (2015–present)
• Myke Scavone – harmonica, percussion, backing vocals (2015–present)

Former members

• Keith Relf (deceased 1976) – lead vocals, harmonica (1963–1968), rhythm guitar (1966–1968)
• Chris Dreja – rhythm guitar (1963–1966, 1982–1983, 1992–2013), bass (1966–1968), lead guitar (1992)
• Paul Samwell-Smith – bass, backing vocals (1963–1966, 1983)
• Eric Clapton – lead guitar, backing vocals (1963–1965)
• Jeff Beck – lead guitar, backing vocals (1965–1966), rhythm guitar (1966)
• Jimmy Page – lead guitar (1966–1968), bass (1966)
• Anthony "Top" Topham – lead guitar (1963), rhythm guitar (2013–2015)
• Rod Demick – bass, harmonica, backing vocals (1992–1993)
• Ray Majors – lead guitar, backing vocals (1994–1995)
• Laurie Garman – harmonica (1994–1996)
• Denny Ball – bass during brief reshuffle on account of Gypie Mayo's taking a timeout and John Idan's moving to lead guitar (summer 1998)
• Gypie Mayo – lead guitar, backing vocals (1995–2005; died 2013)
• Alan Glen – harmonica, percussion (1996–2003, 2008–2009)
• Jerry Donahue – lead guitar (2004–2005)
• Andy Mitchell – lead vocals, harmonica, acoustic guitar (2009–2015)
• Earl Slick - lead and rhythm guitars (2015)
• David Smale – bass, backing vocals (2009–2014; 2015–2016)
• Ben King – lead guitar (2005–2015)
• Billy Boy Miskimmin – harmonica, percussion (2003–2008; 2016)

Timeline

Discography

Main article: The Yardbirds discography

• 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)

See also

• Freakbeat
• Swinging London

References

Bibliography

• Bob Brunning (1986) Blues: The British Connection, London: Helter Skelter, 2002, ISBN 1-900924-41-2
• Dick Heckstall-Smith (2004) 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,Jawbone (2007)ISBN 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 (John Platt, Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty) Sidgwick & Jackson, 1983. ISBN 0-283-98982-3.
• Yardbirds : The Ultimate Rave-Up (Greg Russo) Crossfire Publications, 1997. ISBN 0-9648157-8-8.
• The Yardbirds (Alan Clayson) Backbeat Books, 2002. ISBN 0-87930-724-2

External links

• Official website
• Yardbirds American website
• "The Yardbirds". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• Favored Nations Yardbirds web page