The Yardbirds formed in June of 1963, and until October of that year consisted of members Paul Samwell-Smith (bass, backing vocals), Chris Dreja (rhythm guitar), Jim McCarty (drums, backing vocals), Keith Relf (lead vocals, harmonica) and Anthony “Top” Topham (lead guitar). In October, Topham was replaced by Eric Clapton on lead guitar.

Although The Yardbirds had a string of six top-40 hits in the mid-1960’s, the group is probably best remembered for having launched the careers of three of rock music’s more famous guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. All three were never in the band at the same time, however.

The band received considerable notoriety when they replaced The Rolling Stones as the house band at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond (England), in September of 1963, just prior to Clapton’s arrival. Between 1963 and 1965, the quintet did a lot of work playing clubs in and around London. They recorded a few singles, including “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl,” and “I Wish You Would.”

The Yardbirds were predominantly a blues quintet during those first years. They played, and recorded, well-received covers of songs by artists such as Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters and others. They toured the U. S. early on accompanying blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson. Some of the material recorded during that tour was released, belatedly (in 1965), as an album under both names.

In 1965 The Yardbirds finally charted their first significant hit, “For Your Love.” Unfortunately, this also signaled the departure of Eric Clapton, who had become outraged at the band’s movement toward becoming more “pop-oriented.” That song had been written for the group by Graham Gouldman, who had penned songs for The Hollies and Herman’s Hermits among others. Clapton was a blues player, and didn’t think the group could continue in a blues vein after tasting success as a pop outfit.

Although Clapton was angry when departing, he did recommend that The Yardbirds meet with another guitarist that he knew, Jimmy Page. Page was a freelance studio musician with wide-ranging musical interests. Page turned the offer down, however, concerned about his health, and preferring to remain in what was a lucrative career for him at the time.

Jimmy Page introduced The Yardbirds to another musician-friend, Jeff Beck. He and the group hit it off immediately. Beck was a very experimental musician, and he and the band saw the opportunity to explore new dimensions and territories in music.

The new union turned out to be powerful and innovative, taking rock music into areas it had not yet gone. The Beck-era Yardbirds produced a number of memorable, groundbreaking recordings, from single hits like “Heart Full of Soul”, Bo Diddley’s “I’m A Man”, and “Shapes of Things”, to the “Yardbirds” album (known more popularly as “Roger the Engineer,” and first issued in the U.S. in an abridged version called “Over Under Sideways Down”).

Beck’s experimentation with guitar-sound effects such as fuzztone, reverb and distortion had a revolutionary effect on the British rock music scene of the time. The band introduced other musical influences, such as Gregorian Chant, World music and Old English Folk, into their blues and rock based sound. Songs such as “Still I’m Sad,” “Ever Since The World Began,” and “Turn Into Earth” garnered them a growing cult following among England’s hipster crowd, even while leading to a wane in their commercial appeal.

In June of 1966, The Yardbirds experienced yet another personnel shift. Paul Samwell-Smith (bass) decided to leave the group to assume duties behind the console, as sound engineer and record producer. Jimmy Page again entered the picture, agreeing to play bass until rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja could become comfortable enough with the instrument to take over.

The Yardbirds for this period were blessed with the presence of two guitar virtuosos, in Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. What this tandem could do was hinted at in a series of concert dates with The Yardbirds as opening act for The Rolling Stones. Critics dubbed it, “World War Three!” The band also released a single, “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago,” which featured Beck and Page on dual lead guitars, with John Paul Jones sitting in on bass. Jones would later join Page, Robert Plant and John Bonham to form Led Zeppelin.

The band also recorded “Stroll On,” which was a wild-and-woolly redo of their earlier “Train Kept A-Rollin’.” The song features a twin-lead guitar break which is undoubtedly the Beck-Page tandem at work once again.

Sadly, the Yardbirds recorded little or nothing else during this time featuring the dual guitar attack, save a poorly recorded version of “Waiting For The Man,” a cover of a number originally by The Velvet Underground.

There is another known recording featuring Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on dual guitars, called “Beck’s Bolero,” recorded “in secret.” This recording featured Keith Moon on drums, John Paul Jones on bass and Nicky Hopkins on piano. It was released as the B-side of Beck’s first single, “Hi Ho Silver Lining,” and included on his first solo album, “Truth.”

As powerful as the Beck-Page Yardbirds line-up proved to be, it was unfortunately short-lived. During a tour stop in Texas in October of 1966, Beck was fired from the group. The circumstances are unclear to this writer, and will not be speculated upon. The group remained a quartet for the rest of their career, with Page as the new lead guitarist.

Page was every bit as experimental in his approach to guitar as Beck had been. One of his styles included drawing a violin or cello bow across his guitar strings to produce other-worldly sounds. He also proved to be very adept at finger-picking, as evidenced by the folk-and-raga sounding “White Summer.”

Despite the critical greatness of what they were doing during this period, their commercial success had all but disappeared. “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” had reached only #30 on the U.S. charts, and did worse in their native England. The record company, in a doomed bid to re-kindle their career, foisted hit-maker Mickie Most onto the Yardbirds. They didn’t mesh. The first single, “Little Games,” did so badly in the U.K. that the label didn’t release another record there until after the group had disbanded. The final album release, “Little Games,” in Summer of 1967, did equally as bad in the U. S., where it was a virtual non-entity.

Another single, a cover of Manfred Mann’s “Ha Ha Said The Crown,” was released in the U. S. later in 1967, with only one original member, Keith Relf, actually performing on the recording. It struggled just to reach #44 on the Billboard charts. The group spent the rest of that year touring the U. S., with some success, owing mostly to their live persona. In concert, they were a heavy, blues-rock oriented band. In the studio, however, they were totally lightweight, even milquetoast, and their records flopped with a resounding thud.

By 1968, their concert performances rarely included any of their 1967 era hits. They preferred to stick with the Beck-era hits, blues staples and covers of American artists, like folksinger Jake Holmes. Their re-working of Holmes’ “Dazed and Confused,” punched up to a rock frenzy by Page, Dreja and Relf, was one of their most popular live performances. Page liked it so much, he decided to “keep it in the quiver.”

There was also a growing rift among group members around musical direction. Keith Relf and Jim McCarty, both using marijuana and LSD at the time, wanted to do music influenced by folk and classical genres. Jimmy Page, who avoided drugs, wanted to take the blues-rock to another level of intensity and power, much the direction he would later take with Led Zeppelin. Chris Dreja experienced some confusion, torn between loyalty to his bandmates and an actual preference for Page’s musical tastes.

On July 7, 1968, The Yardbirds played their final performance together, as a unit, at Luton Technical College in Bedfordshire, England. One Yardbirds era had died, but another was about to be born.