Legendary Bands - The Yardbirds Posters

The Yardbirds were rock's first guitar supergroup and didn't even know it. As the 1960s launching pad for Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and then Jimmy Page, the Yardbirds are remembered most for their six-string pedigree. But during their tenure from 1963 to 1968, the quintet challenged pop music orthodoxy with a ferocity matched only by the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

The Yardbirds started in the early '60s as London's Metropolis Blues Quartet and later took over for the Stones as house band at the Crawdaddy. Their enthusiasm for R&B extended to sessions with blues vets Willie Dixon and Sonny Boy Williamson and several blues-rock remakes, "Smokestack Lightning" among them.

But the Yardbirds' best work was the raucous, ringing guitars and early use of feedback on "Shapes Of Things" (with Beck), "Over Under Sideways Down" (with Beck's Eastern scales) and "Happenings Ten Years Ago" (with Beck and Page, who can also be seen playing "Stroll On" in the Antonioni film Blow Up). These pioneering songs redefined the boundaries of the electric guitar. Most studios of the time had no clue how to record a band that played as loud or messed with conventions as much as the Yardbirds did.

But the resulting sonic clash of guitars with singer Keith Relf's unbridled harmonica and maxed-out recording studios resulted in albums with a distinct lo-fi color that further amplified the group's unique over-the-top tone.

When the band imploded in 1968, Clapton, Beck and Page were already on their way to becoming guitar royalty. Relf and drummer Jim McCarty took a different route, forming artsy folk-rock group Renaissance. So far, 1964's Five Live Yardbirds and 1967's Little Games are the only Yardbirds albums re-released on CD in the U.S. Rhino's Greatest Hits (1964-66) and Sony's double-CD volumes of The Yardbirds (1991) are worthwhile collections.