Between 1964 and 1968 The
Yardbirds cut a dynamic swath through the mid-60s British pop
scene. They were hugely influential but found only modest
commercial success, charting only 6 top ten hits, and never a
number one.
Jeff Beck was a member of the band from 1965 through
1967.
While they started out as something of a blues and R&B band of similar ilk to The Rolling Stones and The Animals, they were also one of the first that explored the elements closely associated with psychedelic music -- feedback, fuzztone, Eastern scales, and surrealistic lyrics.
The band's lasting fame is in large part due to three of the four guitarists that passed through the band's ranks:
- Eric Clapton, who left the join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in 1965 because he felt that "For Your Love", The Yardbirds's first hit, was "pop rubbish",
- his replacement Jeff Beck,
- and Jimmy Page, who started as the band's bass player, and who originally dubbed his next band (Led Zeppelin, in case you hadn't heard) "The New Yardbirds".
Below: The Yardbirds appear
on "Ready, Steady, Go!"; Jeff Beck is on the far right.
Andy Partridge has said that The Dukes of Stratosphear song "My Love Explodes" was inspired by the Yardbirds's "Over Under Sideways Down" (a song that Jeff Beck played on), "mixed with the Pretty Things, or anyone who had an armful of maraccas and a basin haircut."
