Best known now, sadly, for being responsible for Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds were arguably the first real rock band, as they went from speedy, authenticity-obsessed blues with Eric Clapton, then into gorgeous beat music, then astonishing psychedelic guitar pop with Jeff Beck, and finally, after a Mickie Most-directed flirtation with the kind of kiddie-pop that even a young David Bowie might have baulked at, into the riff-powered post-blues overdriven sound that would comprise most rock bands’ output in the 1970s.
While their 60s colleagues all experimented with sound, none of them were so guitar-fixated as this group and, though they lacked a great songwriter like the Stones, The Who and The Kinks had, The Yardbirds were unfazed, mostly using songs as launch pads for extraordinary guitar workouts in the way modern jazz artists took pop standards into new dimensions.
On record they were often compelled to be brief, hooky and sometimes goofy. Live they were able to stretch out, and in their radio sessions, as this expanded collection of BBC appearances shows, they often went for it like a starving lion in a chicken coop.
The songs that would invent Zeppelin and their imitators – Train Kept A Rollin’ and Dazed And Confused – appear here in only mildly truncated form, but fans of the band, and of great beat music, will enjoy the best of the greatest of R&B bands in their rawest, most exciting form. From blues soup to rock nuts, everything here is entirely thrilling.
