There are many reasons for loving The Yardbirds that go way beyond knowing that the group was the launchpad for three superstar guitarists – Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. The Yardbirds operated as an interdependent unit, from their ‘most blueswailing’ origins in which they followed The Rolling Stones with a Crawdaddy Club residency, through their series of innovative hit singles – ‘For Your Love’, ‘Evil Hearted You’, ‘I’m A Man’ into ‘Shapes Of Things’ and beyond, which rivalled The Beatles, The Kinks and The Who at the very bleeding-edge of 1960s rock culture.
The neglected psychedelic classics ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago’ and ‘Mister, You’re A Better Man Than I’ carried their legacy over into the punk era. Their cult albums, Five Live Yardbirds, Roger The Engineer and Little Games, remain highly esteemed and collectable decades later, while their sequence in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up movie catches the sixties at its most swingingly iconic. Classic rock seldom came as classic as it does with The Yardbirds, now considered stars of heritage rock. This book exhaustively traces the full Yardbirds story track-by-track from first to last, then picks up the narrative as former members become Led Zeppelin, Renaissance, Box of Frogs to the later Yardbirds reunion after the death of frontman Keith Relf.
While interviewing Fairground Attraction for their recent second album, Andrew Darlington found himself discussing favourite biscuits and the correct art of dunking with singer Eddi Reader. As part of UV Pop, Andrew’s own lyrics can be found on the CD See You Later, Cowboy. His popular Eternal Assassin Sci-Fi-Fantasy stories are available from Tule Fog Press, taking the chronology from prehistory all the way into the far future. This book follows his other works on The Hollies, The Human League and The Small Faces. He lives in Ossett, West Yorkshire.
