By the time this footage was taken in 1964, The Yardbirds had been together for little over a year. when The Ealing Club opened its doors for the first time, giving everyone from The Yardbirds to The Rolling Stones somewhere to hone their craft.
The Yardbirds ended up as the house band of one of The Ealing Club’s main rivals, The Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, where they replaced The Rolling Stones.
This footage – taken from the Reelin In The Years archive – was filmed shortly after Eric Clapton replaced guitarist Top Topham in October 1963
The Yardbirds were one of the seminal bands of the 1960s. At one time or another, they had three of the great guitarists - Eric Clapton (Cream), Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) - in the group. Excerpt from Forbes, to read the full article click here
The band still tours under The Yardbirds name, but only one original member - drummer Jim McCarty - is with the group now.
Jim McCarty: Eric was a great purist. If he ever stayed with you, he’d be up early in the morning, playing before he even had breakfast. He was very dedicated, and also very much into clothes, the Steve McQueen look [laughs]. He’d have a crew cut and wear a trench-coat. It was really funny. All of sudden, he’d grow his hair long, grow longer sideburns and wear completely different clothing. He was always changing, but also always very dapper, very interested in what he wore.
Jeff (Beck) was completely different from Eric. He couldn’t care less what he wore. His playing had much more variety to it. He liked jazz, rockabilly, old-time electronic music. He loved Les Paul, double-tracked stuff.
Jimmy (Page) was different again. He was the ultimate professional, because he used to play studios in London on other people’s records. He did what people asked him to do, very exact and businesslike. He was a session man. My favorite was the Jeff Beck
Forbes: Of all the songs you’ve done, which is your favorite?
McCarty: Again, from the Beck lineup, I’d say, "Shapes of Things." It was at the height of that lineup, was recorded in the U.S. at Chess Studios, and it had all the best parts on the band in it: a great guitar solo, good lyrics, good rhythm and breaks. It was also interesting, and we wrote it.
Eric Clapton quit the Yardbirds in 1965. Clapton, a self-declared blues purist, thought the band—which included singer Keith Relf, guitarist Chris Dreja, bassist Paul Samwell-Smith and drummer Jim McCarty—was getting too commercial.
After quitting the Yardbirds, Clapton joined—on two occasions in 1965—John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a serious blues band that had no aspirations of pop stardom. He also traded in his Telecaster/Vox tone for a magical sound created by playing a 1960 Les Paul through an incredibly loud, overdriven Marshall combo. Clapton, his Les Paul, his Marshall—and the other three members of the Bluesbreakers—recorded one of the most important guitar albums of all time, 1966's Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton.
