The Yardbirds

:For the American chain of home improvement stores see: Yardbirds Home Center

Breakthrough Success and Clapton Secession

The quintet went from there to cut several singles, including "I Wish You Would," but it was "For Your Love," a Graham Gouldman composition that was anything but the blues, which put the band to their highest chart position yet in England—and gave them their first major hit in the United States when it was released Stateside in 1965. The group's move into pop outraged lead guitarist Eric Clapton—at the time a no-holds-barred blues purist— and he left the group in protest, subsequently joining John Mayall's Blues Breakers. The loss could have been devastating to the Yardbirds; Clapton had already shown the striking, stabbingly virtuosic style he would later expand and deepen with Mayall and unfurl as a full-fledged virtuoso statement with the improvisational Blues rock/psychedilic Cream and return to pure blues again with Derek & The Dominos. Clapton recommended Jimmy Page, a studio guitarist he knew (and with whom he would soon cut a series of stirring blues guitar duets, including "Tribute to Elmore" and "Draggin' My Tail"), as his replacement, but Page—uncertain at the time about giving up his lucrative studio work—recommended in turn one Jeff Beck, whose fleet-fingered style and bent for experimentation pushed the Yardbirds to the direction from which they became widely credited for opening the door to "psychedelic" rock.

Related Topics:
Graham Gouldman - 1965 - Eric Clapton - John Mayall's Blues Breakers - Cream - Derek & The Dominos - Jimmy Page - Jeff Beck

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Yardbirds in 1965 and 1966 issued a pair of albums in the U.S., slapped together somewhat haphazardly from their British recordings, For Your Love (which included a delightful early take of "Hang On, Sloopy"—they'd gotten hold of a demo of the song before the McCoys had their chartbusting crack at it a year later, and their patented doubletime "rave up" version is a treat) and Havin' A Rave Up With The Yardbirds, half of which came from Five Live Yardbirds.

Related Topics:
1965 - 1966 - McCoys

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~