The Yardbirds are an English rock band, noted for starting the careers of three of rock\'s most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. A blues-based band whose sound evolved into experimental pop rock, they had a string of hits including “For Your Love”, “Over, Under, Sideways, Down” and “Heart Full Of Soul”. They were a crucial link between British R&B and psychedelia.

The Yardbirds were pioneers in almost every guitar innovation of the \'60s: fuzz tone, feedback, distortion, backwards echo, improved amplification, and were one of the first to put an emphasis on complex lead guitar parts and experimentation. The term, \"Yardbird\" is used in the southern United States as slang for \'chicken\' (as in poultry), and it is a slang expression for \"prisoner\".

The bulk of the band\'s conceptual ideas, as well as their songwriting, came from the quartet of singer Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, rhythm guitarist/bassist Chris Dreja, and bassist/producer Paul Samwell-Smith, all of whom co-wrote the Yardbirds\' original hits and constituted the core of the group.

* June 18, 1966: Paul Samwell-Smith (bassist/songwriter/producer) leaves the Yardbirds; Jimmy Page takes his place.

It was shortly after the sessions that produced Yardbirds (aka, Roger the Engineer) that Paul Samwell-Smith decided to leave the group and work behind the console as a record producer. Jimmy Page re-entered the picture, agreeing to play bass until rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja could become comfortable with that instrument, and then teaming with Beck for tantalising twin-guitar attacks.

The Yardbirds were now blessed with two world-class lead guitarists. Pronounced examples of what the Beck-Page tandem could do were the concert dates they played as the opening band for The Rolling Stones, in which they were described by critics as \"World War Three\", and the single \"Happenings Ten Years Time Ago\". The \"Happenings\" single featured Beck and Page on twin lead guitar, with John Paul Jones brought in to the recording session to play bass; it was backed with \"Psycho Daisies\", which featured Beck on lead guitar and Page on bass (The B-side of the U.S. single, \"The Nazz Are Blue\", features a rare lead vocal by Beck). The Beck-Page era Yardbirds also recorded \"Stroll On\", their half-crazed rendition of the standard \"Train Kept A-Rollin\'\", which they recorded for the Antonioni film Blowup. Relf changed the lyrics and title the night before it was recorded because there was not enough time to acquire permission from the copyright holder. \"Stroll On\" features a twin lead-guitar break, so it is almost without a doubt that the Beck-Page tandem was at work on this recording (Beck had earlier played his same solo on live renditions of \'Train...\', while Page would later play the second lead part alone in the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin; put the separate Beck-Page solos together, and it sounds like the combined twin-solo on \'Stroll On\').

Unfortunately, the Beck-Page lineup recorded little else in the studio, and no live recordings (save a scratchy cover of the Velvet Underground\'s Waiting for the Man) of the dual-lead guitar lineup have yet surfaced. The Beck-Page Yardbirds are believed to have made one other recording, a commercial for a milkshake product \"Great Shakes\"—a short rehash of \"Over Under Sideways Down\". Yet there was also one additional recording that Beck and Page made in secret—\"Beck\'s Bolero\", a piece inspired by Ravel\'s \"Bolero\" yet credited to \"Page\" (Beck also claims to have written the song). The rest of the lineup was John Paul Jones on bass, Keith Moon on drums, and Nicky Hopkins on piano. \"Beck\'s Bolero\" was first released as the B-side of Beck\'s first solo single, \"Hi Ho Silver Lining\", and was included on his first solo album, Truth.

Their appearance in Blowup was accidental: originally, The Who were approached, but they declined, and then The In-Crowd had been planned but they were unable to attend the filming. The Yardbirds filled in at short notice, and the guitar that Beck smashes at the end of their set is a replica of Steve Howe\'s instrument. Director Michelangelo Antonioni instructed Beck to smash his guitar in emulation of The Who\'s Pete Townshend.[1]

[edit] The Yardbirds\' final days: the Page era

The powerful synergy between Beck and Page proved short-lived; Beck was fired from the group after a tour stop in Texas in late October 1966, and the Yardbirds continued as a quartet for the remainder of their career.

Page became the new lead guitarist and he was just as bent toward experimentation as Beck, particularly his striking technique of scraping a violin or cello bow across his guitar strings to induce a round of odd and surreal sounds, and his dextrous use of a wah-wah pedal. He also proved an adept finger-style guitarist, as evident on the shimmering \"White Summer\", a raga- and folk-styled instrumental composition that employs the melody of \"She Moves Through The Fair\" and owes an evident debt to Davy Graham\'s \"She Moved Through the Bizarre\".

Increasing chart indifference, record company pressure (their British label EMI pressed hitmaking producer Mickie Most upon them in a failed bid to re-ignite their commercial success), and drug-related problems meant that by 1967, the Yardbirds\' days were numbered. The \"Little Games\" single released in the spring flopped so badly in the UK that EMI did not release a Yardbirds record in Britain for another year. A cover of Manfred Mann\'s \"Ha Ha Said The Clown\"—on which only one band member, Relf, actually performed—was the band\'s last single to crack the U.S. Top 50, peaking at No. 44 in Billboard in the summer of \'67. Their final album, Little Games, released in America in July, was a commercial and critical non-entity.

The Yardbirds spent most of the rest of that year touring in the States with new manager Peter Grant while living a schizophrenic pop life: their records became more benign (a cover of Harry Nilsson\'s \"Ten Little Indians\" hit the U.S. in the fall of \'67 and quickly sank) as their live shows were becoming heavier and more experimental. The band rarely played their 1967 singles live, preferring to mix the Beck-era hits with blues standards and covers by groups such as the Velvet Underground and an American folk singer Jake Holmes. Holmes\' \"Dazed and Confused\", with lyrics rewritten by Relf and cranked up to a blues-metal frenzy by Page, McCarty and Dreja, was a live staple of the Yardbirds\' last two American tours—and it went down so well that Page decided to keep it in the quiver even after the band\'s demise.

A concert and some album tracks were recorded in New York City in March 1968 (including the currently 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 band\'s request, although once Led Zeppelin hit big, Epic tried to cash in by releasing the concert material as the bootleg Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page. The album was quickly withdrawn after Page\'s lawyers filed an injunction on it.

The Yardbirds\' final single, \"Goodnight Sweet Josephine\", was recorded in January 1968. Released two months later, it failed to crack the Billboard Top 100 but is notable in retrospect for its B-side, \"Think About It\", which featured a proto-Zeppelin Page riff and snippets of the \"Dazed\" guitar solo in the break.

Such efforts did not improve the commercial success of the band. In addition, the members were split over the band\'s direction: Relf and McCarty wanted a folk sound, while Jimmy Page wanted to steer blues-rock into new, more intense directions of dynamics and depth—the kind of music that Led Zeppelin would become famous for.

Jim McCarty and Chris Dreja reformed the Yardbirds in the 1990s, with John Idan handling bass and lead vocals, and touring regularly since then with a number of guitarists and harmonica players passing through their ranks.

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 sixties, Top Topham.

Since the release of Birdland, Gypie Mayo has been briefly replaced by Jerry Donahue, and subsequently by 22 year old Ben King, while Alan Glen has been replaced by Billy Boy Miskimmon from Nine Below Zero fame.

Note: The Yardbirds released a live 2007 CD, \"Live At B.B. King Blues Club\" (Favored Nations).

According the Total Rock website. Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page are to possibly rejoin the Yardbirds for a reunion tour some time in 2008.

Lead vocalist John Idan would retain his front man position. Ben King would also remain as lead guitarist as any reunion with Page and Beck would be temporary.

The first episode of the 2007/2008 season for \"The Simpsons\" featured The Yardbirds\' \"I\'m A Man\" from the CD \"Live At B.B. King Blues Club\" (Favored Nations).

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yardbirds