176-629: The Yardbirds are an English rock band formed in London in 1963. The band started the careers of three of rock's most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton (1963–1965), Jeff Beck (1965–1966) and Jimmy Page (1966–1968), all of whom ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 greatest guitarists. The band's other members during 1963–1968 were vocalist/harmonica player Keith Relf , drummer Jim McCarty , rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja , and bassist Paul Samwell-Smith , with Dreja switching to bass when Samwell-Smith departed in 1966. The band had
352-670: A Graham Gouldman composition with a prominent harpsichord part by Brian Auger . "For Your Love" was a Top-10 hit in the UK, Canada and the US but displeased Clapton, a blues purist whose vision extended beyond three-minute singles. Frustrated by their commercial approach, he abruptly left the band in March 1965, shortly after the single was released. Soon Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers , but not before he recommended Jimmy Page ,
528-746: A compilation album featuring Williamson's recordings for the label. It was later included in Robert Christgau 's "basic record library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). In the early 1960s he toured Europe several times during the height of the British blues craze, backed on a number of occasions by the Authentics (see American Folk Blues Festival ), recording with
704-580: A Man ". Original lead guitarist Topham left and was replaced by Eric Clapton in October 1963. Crawdaddy Club impresario Giorgio Gomelsky became their manager and first record producer. Under Gomelsky's guidance the Yardbirds toured Britain as the back-up band for blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson II in December 1963 and early 1964. Recordings from the performances were released two years later during
880-603: A backup band for Cyril Davies . Following a couple of gigs in September 1963 as the Blue-Sounds, they changed their name to the Yardbirds. McCarty claims that Relf was the first to use the name; he may have got it from Jack Kerouac 's novel On the Road , where it referred to railroad yard hobos . He adds that Topham identified it as a nickname for jazz saxophonist Charlie "Yardbird" Parker . The quintet achieved notice on
1056-643: A bowler hat, matching umbrella, and an attaché case for his harmonicas. He appears credited as "Big Skol" on Roland Kirk 's live album Kirk in Copenhagen (1963). Upon his return to the U.S., he resumed playing the King Biscuit Time show on KFFA, and performed in the Helena, Arkansas area. As fellow musicians Houston Stackhouse and Peck Curtis waited at the KFFA studios for Williamson on May 25, 1965,
1232-569: A brief European tour in April 1966. The single " Shapes of Things ", released in February 1966, "can justifiably be classified as the first psychedelic rock classic," according to music journalist Richie Unterberger and heralded the coming of British psychedelia three months before the Beatles' " Paperback Writer "/" Rain ". Reaching number three on the UK charts and 11 in the US, "Shapes" was also
1408-413: A cease-and-desist order from Dreja, who claimed that he maintained legal rights to "The Yardbirds" name, although most sources indicate that Page and Grant fully intended to change the name after they returned from Scandinavia with or without the nudge from Dreja. From 19 October 1968 onwards, they were Led Zeppelin , the name taken from The Who bandmembers Moon and Entwistle's "lead balloon" discussion of
1584-514: A certain degree doesn't care if it's popular. — Bill Wyman in Vulture (2016) The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was also greatly influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists. The sound of an electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered jazz music in
1760-484: A few Yardbirds tracks under Most's supervision, were considered for the band, as was vocalist and composer Terry Reid . Reid declined because of a new recording contract with Most and recommended the then-unknown Robert Plant . Plant, in turn, recommended his childhood friend John Bonham as a drummer. Dreja bowed out to pursue a career as a rock photographer. Bassist/keyboardist/arranger John Paul Jones , who had worked with Page on countless sessions including several with
1936-464: A fondness for a good beat, a meaningful lyric with some wit, and the theme of youth, which holds an "eternal attraction" so objective "that all youth music partakes of sociology and the field report ." Writing in Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), he said this sensibility is evident in the music of folk singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked , rapper LL Cool J , and synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys —"all kids working out their identities"—as much as it
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#17327905283372112-481: A foundation of simple syncopated rhythms in a 4 meter , with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies often originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian , as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s, and particularly from
2288-628: A frequent addition to the established rock format of guitars, bass, and drums in subsequent progressive rock. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy and science fiction. The Pretty Things ' SF Sorrow (1968), the Kinks' Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969), and the Who 's Tommy (1969) introduced
2464-507: A handful of shows in the UK in June, before heading to Vancouver to begin their fourth tour of North America with Page. Their final album, Little Games , was released in July 1967, again only in the US. It was a commercial and critical non-entity. A cover of Harry Nilsson 's " Ten Little Indians " charted briefly in the US. The Yardbirds spent much of the rest of that year touring in the US with
2640-575: A key feature of psychedelia. Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , including the controversial track " Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ", the Rolling Stones responded later that year with Their Satanic Majesties Request , and Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper at
2816-470: A line-up of Jim McCarty, John Idan, Ben King, David Smale, and Billyboy Miskimmin. On 12 August 2015, it was announced that Boston -based guitarist Johnny A. would become the newest member of the Yardbirds for their North American tour running from 30 October to 22 November 2015. Johnny A. continued to tour as the Yardbirds' lead guitarist throughout 2016, 2017, and 2018 performing a total of 110 shows before departing. Johnny A.'s last show with The Yardbirds
2992-573: A loud amplified sound, often centered on the electric guitar, based on the Chicago blues , particularly after the tour of Britain by Muddy Waters in 1958, which prompted Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to form the band Blues Incorporated . The band involved and inspired many of the figures of the subsequent British blues boom, including members of the Rolling Stones and Cream , combining blues standards and forms with rock instrumentation and emphasis. The other key focus for British blues
3168-587: A mainstream audience with hits including " Blowin' in the Wind " (1963) and " Masters of War " (1963), which brought " protest songs " to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences. Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals' " House of the Rising Sun " (1964), which
3344-495: A major element of progressive rock. From about 1967 bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had moved away from purely blues-based music into psychedelia . By the 1970s, blues rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple , and the lines between blues rock and hard rock "were barely visible", as bands began recording rock-style albums. The genre
3520-429: A major influence on subsequent electronic rock . With the advent of punk rock and technological changes in the late 1970s, progressive rock was increasingly dismissed as pretentious and overblown. Many bands broke up, but some, including Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd, regularly scored top ten albums with successful accompanying worldwide tours. Some bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and
3696-535: A member of Elmore James's band. During his Chess years he enjoyed his greatest success and acclaim, recording about 70 songs for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records from 1955 to 1964. His first LP record was a compilation of previously released singles. Titled Down and Out Blues , Checker released the collection in 1959. A single, "Boppin' with Sonny" backed with "No Nights by Myself", was released by Ace Records in 1955. In 1972, Chess released This Is My Story ,
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#17327905283373872-510: 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
4048-410: A more basic form of rock and roll that incorporated its original influences, particularly blues, country and folk music, leading to the creation of country rock and Southern rock. In 1966 Bob Dylan went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde . This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, such as Nashville Skyline , have been seen as creating the genre of country folk ,
4224-486: A multibillion-dollar industry and doubling its market while, as Christgau noted, suffering a significant "loss of cultural prestige". "Maybe the Bee Gees became more popular than the Beatles, but they were never more popular than Jesus ", he said. "Insofar as the music retained any mythic power, the myth was self-referential – there were lots of songs about the rock and roll life but very few about how rock could change
4400-534: A national phenomenon. It is often argued that the surf music craze and the careers of almost all surf acts was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion from 1964, because most surf music hits were recorded and released between 1960 and 1965. By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like the Beatles , Gerry & the Pacemakers and
4576-471: A new manager Peter Grant , their live shows becoming heavier and more experimental. The band rarely played their 1967 Mickie Most-produced singles on stage, preferring to mix the Beck-era hits with blues standards and experimental psychedelia, such as "Glimpses", a Page-written piece from Little Games featuring bowed guitars, pre-recorded noise loops, and a hypnotic wah-wah guitar groove. They also covered
4752-622: A new quartet, Armageddon ; a hybrid of heavy metal , hard rock and folk influences, which now included former Renaissance bandmate Louis Cennamo , drummer Bobby Caldwell (previously a member of Captain Beyond and Johnny Winter ), and guitarist Martin Pugh (from Steamhammer , Rod Stewart 's An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down , and most recently in 7th Order ). They recorded one promising album before Relf died in an electrical accident in his home studio on 12 May 1976. In 1977, Illusion
4928-411: A preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the rock and roll era established at that point had come to an end. Rock quickly spread out from its origins in the US, associated with the rapid Americanization that
5104-444: A prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, heralding the era of pomp or arena rock , which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festivals as major live venues in the 1990s. The instrumental strand of the genre resulted in albums like Mike Oldfield 's Tubular Bells (1973),
5280-409: A prominent young session guitarist, to replace him. Content with his lucrative sessions work, and worried about both his health and the politics of Clapton's departure, Page in turn recommended his friend Jeff Beck. Beck played his first gig with the Yardbirds two days after Clapton's departure. Beck's exploration of fuzz tone, reverb, feedback, sustain, distortion, and hammer-on soloing fit well into
5456-446: A rigidly delineated musical definition." In the opinion of music journalist Robert Christgau , "the best rock jolts folk-art virtues—directness, utility, natural audience—into the present with shots of modern technology and modernist dissociation ". Rock and roll was conceived as an outlet for adolescent yearnings ... To make rock and roll is also an ideal way to explore intersections of sex, love, violence, and fun, to broadcast
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5632-625: A rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. By the late 1960s " classic rock " period, a few distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock , folk rock , country rock , Southern rock , raga rock , and jazz rock , which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock , influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene . New genres that emerged included progressive rock , which extended artistic elements, heavy metal , which emphasized an aggressive thick sound, and glam rock , which highlighted showmanship and visual style. In
5808-721: A route pursued by a number of largely acoustic folk musicians. Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group the Band and the California-based Creedence Clearwater Revival , both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder , Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George , and influenced
5984-481: A slogan one only began to hear in 1972 or so, mobilized all those eager to believe that idealism had become passe, and once they were mobilized, it had. In popular music, embracing the '70s meant both an elitist withdrawal from the messy concert and counterculture scene and a profiteering pursuit of the lowest common denominator in FM radio and album rock . Rock saw greater commodification during this decade, turning into
6160-399: A string of hits throughout the mid-1960s, including " For Your Love ", " Heart Full of Soul ", " Shapes of Things ", and " Over Under Sideways Down ". Originally a blues -based band noted for their signature "rave-up" instrumental breaks, the Yardbirds broadened their range into pop , pioneered psychedelic rock and early hard rock , and contributed to many electric guitar innovations of
6336-444: A tour of Scandinavia scheduled for late summer 1968, saw the break-up as an opportunity to put a new lineup together, with Page as producer and Grant as manager. Page initially described his vision for the new band as "a new sort of collage of sound" that would include mellotron keyboard while still featuring the guitar. Drummers B.J. Wilson of Procol Harum , Paul Francis, and session man Clem Cattini , who had guested on more than
6512-464: A variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock . However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song, and concepts of "authenticity". Psychedelic music's LSD -inspired vibe began in
6688-529: A variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music , and rhythm and blues . Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, and asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more generally, noise ." The predominance of white, male, and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted, and rock has been seen as an appropriation of Black musical forms for
6864-501: A young, white and largely male audience. As a result, it has also been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has usually been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it
7040-675: Is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues , rhythm and blues , and country music . Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk , and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock
7216-423: Is centered on the electric guitar , usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar , drums , and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 4 time signature using a verse–chorus form , but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music , lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock
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7392-540: Is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. Four years later, Bill Haley 's " Rock Around the Clock " (1954) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry , Bo Diddley , Fats Domino , Little Richard , Jerry Lee Lewis , and Gene Vincent . Soon rock and roll
7568-472: Is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft . New styles had evolved to replace garage rock. Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts,
7744-555: Is in the music of Chuck Berry , the Ramones , and the Replacements . The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music , with country and western . Debate surrounds
7920-411: Is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre's history and development. According to Simon Frith , rock was "something more than pop, something more than rock and roll" and "[r]ock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with
8096-399: Is termed as a rock band or a rock group. Furthermore, it typically consists of between three (the power trio ) and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer, and often keyboard player or another instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on
8272-485: Is the Band." Sonny Boy Williamson II Alex or Aleck Miller (originally Ford , possibly December 5, 1912 – May 24, 1965), known later in his career as Sonny Boy Williamson , was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He was an early and influential blues harp stylist who recorded successfully in the 1950s and 1960s. Miller used various names, including Rice Miller and Little Boy Blue , before calling himself Sonny Boy Williamson, which
8448-535: The Billboard Hot 100 . The British Invasion greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod groups) to adopt a British influence, and encouraging many more groups to form. Thousands of garage bands were extant in the United States and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It
8624-524: The American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, using traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics . In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach
8800-680: The Midwestern US , and the California coast. Beck fell ill late in the latter tour and was hospitalised in San Francisco. Page took over as lead guitarist at the Carousel Ballroom (San Francisco) on 25 August and Dreja switched to bass. Beck stayed in San Francisco to recuperate with his girlfriend Mary Hughes, while the rest of the band completed the tour. After the Yardbirds reunited in London, Dreja remained on bass and
8976-892: The Riverside Hotel . A 13-year-old Ike Turner backed Williamson on piano during local gigs. In 1949, Williamson relocated to West Memphis, Arkansas , and lived with Howlin' Wolf . (Later, for Checker Records, he did a parody of Howlin' Wolf, entitled "Like Wolf".) He started his own KWEM radio show from 1948 to 1950, selling the elixir Hadacol . He brought his King Biscuit musician friends to West Memphis—Elmore James, Houston Stackhouse , Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup , Robert Nighthawk , and others—to perform on KWEM radio. Williamson married Howlin' Wolf's half-sister Maggy and he showed Wolf how to play harmonica. Williamson's first recording session took place in 1951 for Lillian McMurry of Trumpet Records , based in Jackson, Mississippi . It
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#17327905283379152-610: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Nearly all the surviving musicians who had been part of the band's heyday, including Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, appeared at the ceremony (original lead guitarist Top Topham was not included). Eric Clapton, whose Hall of Fame induction was the first of three, was unable to attend because of his obligations while recording and working on a show for the MTV Unplugged series. In 1992, Peter Barton from Rock Artist Management contacted Jim McCarty about
9328-474: The UK Albums Chart . Over time, Five Live gained stature as one of the few high-quality live recordings of the era and as an historical document of both the British rock and roll boom of the 1960s and Clapton's time in the band. The Clapton line-up recorded two singles, the blues " I Wish You Would " and " Good Morning, School Girl ", before the band scored its first major hit with " For Your Love ",
9504-559: The Yardbirds (for the album Sonny Boy Williamson and the Yardbirds ) and the Animals , and appearing on several television broadcasts throughout Europe. Around this time he was quoted as saying of the backing bands who accompanied him, "those British boys want to play the blues real bad, and they do". Sonny Boy took a liking to the European fans, and while there had a custom-made, two-tone suit tailored personally for him, along with
9680-476: The Yardbirds and Animals . "Help Me" became a blues standard , and many blues and rock artists have recorded his songs. Miller's date and place of birth are disputed. There are various opinions about his year of birth, five of which are 1897, 1899, 1908, 1909, and 1912. According to David Evans , professor of music and an ethnomusicologist at the University of Memphis , census records indicate that Miller
9856-422: The garage rock / post-punk revival in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, rock has lost its position as the pre-eminent popular music genre in world culture, but remains commercially successful. The increased influence of hip-hop and electronic dance music can be seen in rock music, notably in the techno-pop scene of the early 2010s and the pop-punk-hip-hop revival of the 2020s. Rock has also embodied and served as
10032-417: The protest song , rock music has been associated with political activism , as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex, and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity . At the same time, it has been commercially highly successful, leading to accusations of selling out . A good definition of rock, in fact, is that it's popular music that to
10208-589: The "supergroup" that had played on the "Beck's Bolero" sessions in May 1966. The spelling of "lead" was changed to avoid confusion over the pronunciation. This effectively marked the end of the Yardbirds for the next 24 years. Relf and McCarty formed an acoustic rock band called Together and then Renaissance , which recorded two albums for Island Records over two years. McCarty formed the band Shoot in 1973. Relf, after producing albums for Medicine Head (with whom he also played bass) and Saturnalia, resurfaced in 1975 with
10384-446: The 12:15 broadcast time was approaching and Williamson was nowhere in sight. Peck left the radio station to locate Williamson, and discovered his body in bed at the rooming house where he had been staying, dead of an apparent heart attack suffered in his sleep the night before. Williamson is buried on New Africa Road, just outside Tutwiler, Mississippi at the site of the former Whitman Chapel cemetery. Trumpet Records owner McMurry provided
10560-454: The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray , and Scotty Moore . The use of distortion , pioneered by Western swing guitarists such as Junior Barnard and Eldon Shamblin was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s. The use of power chords , pioneered by Francisco Tárrega and Heitor Villa-Lobos in
10736-518: The 1960s, Top Topham. After the release of Birdland , Mayo was replaced briefly by Jerry Donahue , and subsequently in 2005 by the then 20-year-old guitarist Ben King , while Glen was replaced by Billy Boy Miskimmin from Nine Below Zero fame. In 2007 the Yardbirds released a live CD, recorded on 19 July 2006, entitled Live at B.B. King Blues Club (Favored Nations), featuring the McCarty, Dreja, Idan, King, and Miskimmin line-up. The first episode of
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#173279052833710912-599: The 1960s. As the blues rock genre developed, some acts like Chicken Shack were playing a louder and more aggressive style, while the Yardbirds emphasized instrumental textures and extended instrumental improvisations. They covered blues classics like Howlin' Wolf 's " Smokestack Lightning " (1956) and Bo Diddley 's 1955 " I'm a Man " which had a repetitive structure where instrumental solos were brief breaks between repetition of verses. The Yardbirds often extended these instrumental sections into "heavy jams". Current members Citations Sources Rock music Rock
11088-467: The 19th century and later on by Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s, was popularized by Link Wray in the late 1950s. Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become
11264-514: The 2007/08 season for The Simpsons featured the Yardbirds' "I'm a Man" from the CD Live at B.B. King Blues Club (Favored Nations). According to his website, Idan resigned from the Yardbirds in August 2008, although his last gig with them was on Friday 24 April 2009, when they headlined the first concert in the new Live Room venue at Twickenham rugby stadium . This was also Glen's last gig with
11440-407: The Animals , Herman's Hermits and Donovan , yet this move failed to reignite their chart success. Most was hired by the Yardbirds' label to broaden their pop appeal and rectify their waning chart performance; however, the band's change in sound under his direction was poorly received. After the disappointing sales of "Happenings", the single " Little Games " released in March 1967 flopped so badly in
11616-477: The Banshees , Ultravox , and Simple Minds , showed the influence of progressive rock, as well as their more usually recognized punk influences. In the late 1960s, jazz-rock emerged as a distinct subgenre out of the blues-rock, psychedelic, and progressive rock scenes, mixing the power of rock with the musical complexity and improvisational elements of jazz. AllMusic states that the term jazz-rock "may refer to
11792-569: The Beatles, demonstrating "to the rock generation in general that an album could be a major standalone statement without hit singles", such as on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like the Mamas & the Papas and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including
11968-554: The Byrds ' shift from folk to folk rock from 1965. The psychedelic lifestyle, which revolved around hallucinogenic drugs, had already developed in San Francisco and particularly prominent products of the scene were Big Brother and the Holding Company , the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane . The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's lead guitarist, Jimi Hendrix did extended distorted, feedback-filled jams which became
12144-431: The Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker guitars, which became a major element in the sound of the genre. Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage of many folk purists, with his " Like a Rolling Stone " becoming a US hit single. According to Ritchie Unterberger , Dylan (even before his adoption of electric instruments) influenced rock musicians like
12320-464: The Dick Clark tour as a quartet, with Page as the sole lead guitarist. They caught up with Beck in late November, at which point Beck officially left the band. Beck's lack of professionalism, his temper, Relf's drunkenness, the gruelling and unrewarding Dick Clark Caravan, and other pressures were cited, none of which involved Beck being fired. Beck's official departure was announced on 30 November in
12496-537: The Dominos , followed by an extensive solo career that helped bring blues rock into the mainstream. Green, along with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie , formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac , who enjoyed some of the greatest commercial success in the genre. In the late 1960s Jeff Beck , also an alumnus of the Yardbirds, moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band,
12672-565: The Engineer was released in June 1966. Soon afterward, Samwell-Smith quit the band at a drunken gig at Queen's College in Oxford and embarked on a career as a record producer. Jimmy Page , who was at the show, agreed that night to play bass until rhythm guitarist Dreja could rehearse on the instrument. The band toured with Page on bass, and Beck and Dreja on guitars, playing dates in Paris, the UK,
12848-507: The Gates of Dawn . Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and the Doors ' self-titled debut album . These trends peaked in the 1969 Woodstock festival , which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts. Sgt. Pepper was later regarded as the greatest album of all time and a starting point for the album era , during which rock music transitioned from
13024-471: The Jeff Beck Group . The last Yardbirds guitarist was Jimmy Page , who went on to form The New Yardbirds which rapidly became Led Zeppelin . Many of the songs on their first three albums, and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs. In America, blues rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie Mack , but the genre began to take off in
13200-506: The Joint " (1949), also covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952; and " Rocket 88 " by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band the Kings of Rhythm ), recorded by Sam Phillips for Chess Records in 1951. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music (then termed " race music ") for a multi-racial audience, and
13376-503: The Lovin' Spoonful and Simon and Garfunkel , with the latter's acoustic " The Sounds of Silence " (1965) being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits. These acts directly influenced British performers like Donovan and Fairport Convention . In 1969 Fairport Convention abandoned their mixture of American covers and Dylan-influenced songs to play traditional English folk music on electric instruments. This British folk-rock
13552-476: The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds , were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music. Soon these groups were composing their own material, combining US forms of music and infusing it with a high energy beat. Beat bands tended towards "bouncy, irresistible melodies", while early British blues acts tended towards less sexually innocent, more aggressive songs, often adopting an anti-establishment stance. There was, however, particularly in
13728-588: The Searchers from Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers , Herman's Hermits and the Hollies from Manchester. They drew on a wide range of American influences including 1950s rock and roll, soul, rhythm and blues, and surf music, initially reinterpreting standard American tunes and playing for dancers. Bands like the Animals from Newcastle and Them from Belfast , and particularly those from London like
13904-672: The Seeds ) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers , the Remains , and the Fifth Estate ). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound. The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by
14080-519: The UK (where it was backed by "Puzzles") that EMI did not release another Yardbirds record there until after the band broke up. A 1968 UK release of the "Goodnight Sweet Josephine" single was planned but cancelled. A version of Tony Hazzard 's "Ha Ha Said the Clown" (recorded by Relf with session musicians and none of the other Yardbirds), backed by the Relf–McCarty original "Tinker Tailor, Soldier Sailor",
14256-529: The US market: For Your Love and Having a Rave Up , half of which came from the earlier Five Live Yardbirds album, combined with new tracks such as " You're a Better Man Than I " and " Train Kept A-Rollin' ", both recorded with legendary producer Sam Phillips at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, during the first US tour. There were three more United States tours during Beck's time with the band and
14432-676: The US was becoming dominated by lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances were developing a style more strongly influenced by blues-rock pioneers, and were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts; this influence would go on to shape the future of rock music through the British Invasion . The first four years of the 1960s has traditionally been seen as an era of hiatus for rock and roll. More recently some authors have emphasised important innovations and trends in this period without which future developments would not have been possible. While early rock and roll, particularly through
14608-552: The US, "The Nazz Are Blue", also features a lead vocal by Beck. The Yardbirds also recorded "Stroll On", a reworking of " Train Kept A-Rollin' ", recorded for Michelangelo Antonioni 's critically acclaimed film Blow-Up . Relf changed the song's lyrics and title to avoid having to seek permission from the copyright holder. Their appearance in the film, about a hip fashion photographer (played by David Hemmings ) undergoing an existential crisis in Swinging London , came after
14784-435: The US. The Yardbirds finished their remaining US dates with Page as sole lead guitarist and headed back to the UK for more shows scheduled by Napier-Bell. Page subsequently introduced playing the guitar with a cello bow (suggested to him by violinist David McCallum Sr. ) and the combination of a wah-wah pedal in addition to a distortion fuzzbox . Other innovations included the use of a taped noise loop in live settings (on
14960-619: The USSR and South Africa from 1955 to 1957, influencing the globalisation of rock. Johnny O'Keefe 's 1958 record " Wild One " was one of the earliest Australian rock and roll hits. By the late 1950s, as well as in the American-influenced Western world, rock was popular in communist states such as Yugoslavia, and the USSR, as well as in regions such as South America. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, American blues music and blues rock artists, who had been surpassed by
15136-517: The Velvet Underground (" I'm Waiting for the Man "), Bob Dylan (" Most Likely You Go Your Way And I'll Go Mine ") and American folk singer Jake Holmes , whose " Dazed and Confused ", with overhauled arrangement by Page and lyrics modified by Relf, was shaped in fall of 1967 and a live fixture of the final American tour in 1968. "Dazed and Confused" went down so well that Page selected it for
15312-751: The Wailers and " Louie Louie " by the Kingsmen (1963) are mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages. By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen (Minneapolis) and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana). Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached
15488-480: The Who declined and the In-Crowd were unable to attend the filming. Andy Warhol 's "Factory" band The Velvet Underground was also considered for the part but was unable to acquire UK work permits. Director Antonioni instructed Beck to smash his guitar in emulation of the Who's Pete Townshend . The guitar that Beck destroys in the film was a cheap Höfner instrument. The Beck/Page line-up recorded little else in
15664-617: The Yardbirds' first self-penned hit, the previous three UK A-sides having been written by Gouldman. Relf's vague anti-war protest lyrics and Beck's feedback-driven, Middle Eastern-influenced solo reflected the band's increasing embrace of psychedelia, as did the UK B-side "You're a Better Man Than I" and the follow-up single, " Over Under Sideways Down ". The latter was released in May and features more quixotic lyrics by Relf and another Eastern-inspired guitar line by Beck. The "Over Under Sideways Down" sessions were held in April 1966 and produced
15840-743: The Yardbirds, approached Page and offered to be the new bassist. Rehearsals began in mid-August 1968; in early September, Page's revised Yardbirds embarked as the New Yardbirds on the Scandinavian tour , after which the band returned to the UK to produce what would become the debut Led Zeppelin album . While Page's new roster still played a few songs from the Yardbirds' canon – usually "Train Kept a-Rollin ' ", "Dazed and Confused" or "For Your Love" and snatches of Beck's "Shapes of Things" solo – a name (and identity) change
16016-527: The advent of rockabilly, saw the greatest commercial success for male and white performers, in this era, the genre was dominated by black and female artists. Rock and roll had not disappeared entirely from music at the end of the 1950s and some of its energy can be seen in the various dance crazes of the early 1960s, started by Chubby Checker 's record " The Twist " (1960). Some music historians have also pointed to important and innovative technical developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including
16192-585: The album Yardbirds . It was commonly referred to as " Roger the Engineer ", which were the words scrawled under a cartoon by Dreja of engineer Roger Cameron that appears on the cover of the UK release. In the US, an abridged version of the album, minus the cartoon cover art, was released as Over Under Sideways Down . The recording session marked the Yardbirds' split with their manager, Giorgio Gomelsky , as writer Simon Napier-Bell took over management and shared production credit with Samwell-Smith. The band, led by Relf and McCarty, eschewed cover material, writing
16368-623: The band "Lead Zeppelin". Although all the musicians remained with their respective bands, Page recalled the conversation in 1968 when deciding on the name for Led Zeppelin. "Beck's Bolero" was first released in 1967 as the B-side of Beck's first solo single, " Hi Ho Silver Lining ", and was included the following year on The Jeff Beck Group 's debut album, Truth . The Yardbirds opened for the Rolling Stones' 1966 UK tour (with Ike & Tina Turner , Peter Jay and Long John Baldry also on
16544-491: The band after temporarily standing in when Miskimmin was unavailable. Idan and Glen were replaced by Andy Mitchell (lead vocals, harmonica, acoustic guitar) and David Smale (bass, backing vocals), brother of the virtuoso guitarist Jonathan Smale. Dreja sat out the US spring 2012 tour to recover from an illness. It was announced in 2013 that he was leaving the band for medical reasons and would be replaced by original Yardbirds guitarist Topham. McCarty announced in December 2014 that
16720-469: The band and booked all their dates for over a decade; he still works with the band on occasion. 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
16896-788: The band's request, but after Led Zeppelin became successful Epic tried to release the concert material as Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page . The album was quickly withdrawn after Page's lawyers filed an injunction. The Yardbirds played their final shows on 31 May and 1 June at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, and on 4 and 5 June at the Spring Fair at the Montgomery International Speedway in Alabama. The Los Angeles shows were documented in
17072-661: The band. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. They were included at number 89 in Rolling Stone 's list of the " 100 Greatest Artists of All Time " and ranked number 37 on VH1 's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock . The band formed in the south-west London suburbs in 1963. Relf and Samwell-Smith were originally in a band named the Metropolitan Blues Quartet. After being joined by Dreja, McCarty, and Top Topham , they performed at Kingston Art School in late May 1963 as
17248-585: The biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed into the US charts by numerous British bands. During the next two years British acts dominated their own and the US charts with Peter and Gordon , the Animals, Manfred Mann , Petula Clark , Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders , Herman's Hermits, the Rolling Stones, the Troggs , and Donovan all having one or more number one singles. Other major acts that were part of
17424-647: The bill), released the " Happenings " single, shot their scenes in Blow-Up , and then headed back to the US for a show at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, and a slot on American Bandstand host Dick Clark 's "Caravan of Stars" tour, which they joined in Texas. After a few shows with the Caravan, Beck stormed out and headed back to San Francisco and Mary Hughes. The band, still in Texas, continued on
17600-613: The bootleg release Last Rave-Up in L.A . The Yardbirds announced the departure of Relf and McCarty in a press release on 12 June ("Two Yardbirds Fly") and returned home to play one last show, on 7 July 1968, at the College of Technology in Luton , Bedfordshire , supported by the Linton Grae Sound. Rolling Stone magazine announced the break-up by saying that Page "intends to go into solo recording work". Page and Dreja, with
17776-591: The burgeoning British rhythm and blues scene when they took over as the house band at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond , succeeding the Rolling Stones . Their repertoire drew from the Chicago blues of Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters , Bo Diddley , Sonny Boy Williamson II , and Elmore James , including " Smokestack Lightning ", " Good Morning Little School Girl ", " Boom Boom ", " I Wish You Would ", " Rollin' and Tumblin' ", "Got Love if You Want It", and " I'm
17952-461: The chart. Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) is considered a milestone in American pop culture. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the entire top five. The Beatles went on to become
18128-520: The compilation also presented young garage rock musicians of the psychedelic era with a handy textbook of the band's work during 1965–66. Greatest Hits was the Yardbirds' best-selling US album release, peaking at No. 28 on the Billboard chart. The band spent the first half of 1967 touring Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and France (including a stop in Cannes to help promote Blow-Up) . They also played
18304-558: The current lineup of the Yardbirds had disbanded. He told fans in an email that he would be "working on solo ventures and other Yardbirds projects in 2015.” However, the Yardbirds continued to tour in 2015. In May 2015 Topham left the band and was replaced by Earl Slick , although Slick never played a gig with the band. In August 2015, it was announced they would play the Eel Pie Club in Twickenham , west London on 17 October with
18480-424: The delights and limitations of the regional , and to deal with the depredations and benefits of mass culture itself. — Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide (1981) Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, sex, rebellion against " The Establishment ", social concerns, and life styles. These themes were inherited from
18656-455: The early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts. The vibrant Canterbury scene saw acts following Soft Machine from psychedelia, through jazz influences, toward more expansive hard rock, including Caravan , Hatfield and the North , Gong , and National Health . The French group Magma around drummer Christian Vander almost single-handedly created
18832-403: The early 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): The decade is, of course, an arbitrary schema itself—time doesn't just execute a neat turn toward the future every ten years. But like a lot of artificial concepts—money, say—the category does take on a reality of its own once people figure out how to put it to work. "The '60s are over,"
19008-462: The early stages, considerable musical crossover between the two tendencies. By 1963, led by the Beatles, beat groups had begun to achieve national success in Britain, soon to be followed into the charts by the more rhythm and blues focused acts. " I Want to Hold Your Hand " was the Beatles' first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 , spending seven weeks at the top and a total of 15 weeks on
19184-519: The electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek , and the elaborate production methods of the Wall of Sound pursued by Phil Spector . The instrumental rock and roll of performers such as Duane Eddy , Link Wray and the Ventures was further developed by Dick Dale , who added distinctive "wet" reverb , rapid alternate picking, and Middle Eastern and Mexican influences. He produced
19360-536: The entire album themselves. They were allotted "a whole week" to record the album, according to Dreja, resulting in a "crammed" albeit an eclectic mix of blues, hard rock, monkish chanting ("Turn into Earth", "Ever Since the World Began") and African tribal rhythms ("Hot House of Omagararshid"). Beck's guitar lines were a unifying constant throughout. Roger the Engineer was ranked at number 350 on Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Roger
19536-581: The example set by the Beatles ' 1965 LP Rubber Soul in particular, other British rock acts released rock albums intended as artistic statements in 1966, including the Rolling Stones ' Aftermath , the Beatles' own Revolver , and the Who 's A Quick One , as well as American acts in the Beach Boys ( Pet Sounds ) and Bob Dylan ( Blonde on Blonde ). Garage rock was a raw form of rock music, particularly prevalent in North America in
19712-447: The first Led Zeppelin record, on which it appears with further revised lyrics and Page credited as the writer. (Page and Holmes would settle on an "Inspired by" credit for Holmes in 2011). By 1968, the psychedelic blues rock of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and former Yardbird Eric Clapton's band Cream was enormously popular, yet Relf and McCarty wished to pursue a style influenced by folk and classical music. Page wanted to continue with
19888-498: The first record, and worldwide hit, for the Virgin Records label, which became a mainstay of the genre. Instrumental rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk , Tangerine Dream , Can , Focus (band) and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy " krautrock ", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music ), would be
20064-455: The folk scene. The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators from Texas. The Beatles introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound to audiences in this period, such as guitar feedback , the Indian sitar and backmasking sound effects . Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed
20240-513: The format of rock operas and opened the door to concept albums , often telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme. King Crimson 's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King , which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron , with jazz and symphonic music , is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in
20416-464: The group's dual lead guitar attack was born. The Beck/Page lead guitar partnership created the avant-garde psychedelic rock single " Happenings Ten Years Time Ago " (with future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones on bass instead of Dreja), which the band recorded in July and September 1966. The single's UK B-side was " Psycho Daisies ", two minutes of garage punk sludge featuring Beck on vocals and lead guitar, and Page on bass. The single's B-side in
20592-409: The headstone with an incorrect date of death. The recordings made by John Lee Williamson between 1937 and his death in 1948 and those made between 1951 and 1964 by "Rice" Miller were all originally issued under the name Sonny Boy Williamson. It is believed that Miller adopted the name to suggest to audiences (and to his first record label) that he was the "original" Sonny Boy. To differentiate between
20768-434: The height of Yardbird popularity on the album Sonny Boy Williamson and the Yardbirds . After the tours with Williamson, the Yardbirds signed to EMI 's Columbia label in February 1964, and recorded more live tracks on 20 March at the legendary Marquee Club in London. The resulting album of mostly American blues and R&B covers, Five Live Yardbirds , was released by Columbia nine months later, and it failed to enter
20944-551: The hit singles " Heart Full of Soul ", " Evil Hearted You "/"Still I'm Sad", a cover of Bo Diddley's " I'm a Man " (US only), " Shapes of Things ", and " Over Under Sideways Down ", and the Yardbirds album (known popularly as Roger the Engineer ). Beck's fuzz-tone guitar riff on " Heart Full of Soul " helped to introduce Indian-influenced guitar stylings to the UK Singles Chart in the summer of 1965. The follow-up,
21120-458: The impetus was soon taken up by a second wave of bands that drew their inspiration more directly from American blues , including the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds . British blues musicians of the late 1950s and early 1960s had been inspired by the acoustic playing of figures such as Lead Belly , who was a major influence on the Skiffle craze, and Robert Johnson . Increasingly they adopted
21296-428: The increasingly raw style of British beat music. The Yardbirds began to experiment with eclectic arrangements reminiscent of Gregorian chants and various European and Asian styles while Beck infused a pervasive Middle Eastern influence into the mix. Beck was voted No. 1 lead guitarist of 1966 in the British music magazine Beat Instrumental . The Beck-era Yardbirds produced many groundbreaking recordings, including
21472-467: The invasion included the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five . The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success. In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idols , that had dominated the American charts in
21648-543: The kind of "heavy" music for which Led Zeppelin would become iconic. Dreja was developing an interest in photography. By March, Relf and McCarty had decided to leave but were persuaded by the other two to stay at least for one more American tour. The band's final single was recorded in January and released two months later. Reflecting the divergences of the band members and their producer, the A-side, "Goodnight Sweet Josephine",
21824-517: The label were R&B oriented white rock bands that made use of jazzy horn sections, like Electric Flag , Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago , to become some of the most commercially successful acts of the later 1960s and the early 1970s. British acts to emerge in the same period from the blues scene, to make use of the tonal and improvisational aspects of jazz, included Nucleus and the Graham Bond and John Mayall spin-off Colosseum . From
22000-446: The late 1950s and 1960s. It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino and Chubby Checker and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis. The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters. Following
22176-410: The loudest, wildest, most electrified fusion bands from the jazz camp, but most often it describes performers coming from the rock side of the equation." Jazz-rock "...generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late '60s and early '70s", including the singer-songwriter movement. Many early US rock and roll musicians had begun in jazz and carried some of these elements into
22352-476: The many recordings which have been suggested as "the first rock and roll record ". Contenders include " Strange Things Happening Every Day " by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1944); " That's All Right " by Arthur Crudup (1946), which was later covered by Elvis Presley in 1954; " The House of Blue Lights " by Ella Mae Morse and Freddie Slack (1946); Wynonie Harris ' " Good Rocking Tonight " (1948); Goree Carter 's "Rock Awhile" (1949); Jimmy Preston 's " Rock
22528-674: The mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins , Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley . Hispanic and Latino American movements in rock and roll, which would eventually lead to the success of Latin rock and Chicano rock within the US, began to rise in the Southwest ; with rock and roll standard musician Ritchie Valens and even those within other heritage genres, such as Al Hurricane along with his brothers Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby as they began combining rock and roll with country- western within traditional New Mexico music . In addition,
22704-609: The mid-1960s the Left Banke , the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords , wind , and string sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum 's " A Whiter Shade of Pale " (1967), with its Bach -inspired introduction. The Moody Blues used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed (1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesizers. Classical orchestration, keyboards, and synthesizers were
22880-479: The mid-1960s and so called because of the perception that it was rehearsed in the suburban family garage. Garage rock songs often revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" and unfair social circumstances being particularly common. The lyrics and delivery tended to be more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming. They ranged from crude one-chord music (like
23056-435: The mid-1960s as acts developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield (whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat , the early Jefferson Airplane , Janis Joplin , Johnny Winter , the J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix with his power trios , the Jimi Hendrix Experience (which included two British members, and
23232-401: The mid-1960s onwards, rock music often used the verse–chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock. Because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to
23408-423: The mid-1960s. Some rock critics and historians also cite their influence on the later punk rock , progressive rock , and heavy metal trends. Following the band's split in 1968, Relf and McCarty formed Renaissance and Page formed Led Zeppelin . The Yardbirds re-formed in the 1990s, featuring McCarty and Dreja as the only original members. Dreja left the band in 2012, leaving McCarty as the sole original member of
23584-465: The new music genre zeuhl with their first albums in the early 1970s. Greater commercial success was enjoyed by Pink Floyd, who also moved away from psychedelia after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), seen as a masterpiece of the genre, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. There was an emphasis on instrumental virtuosity, with Yes showcasing
23760-608: The new music. In Britain the subgenre of blues rock, and many of its leading figures, like Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of the Eric Clapton -fronted band Cream , had emerged from the British jazz scene. Often highlighted as the first true jazz-rock recording is the only album by the relatively obscure New York–based the Free Spirits with Out of Sight and Sound (1966). The first group of bands to self-consciously use
23936-500: The prospect of reforming the Yardbirds. McCarty was interested but only if Chris Dreja would agree, but at the time he thought it highly unlikely that Dreja would want to tour again. Barton then contacted Dreja, who agreed to give it a try. Their debut gig was booked at the Marquee Club in London along with the newly reformed Animals . It was a great success. The lineup featured John Idan handling bass and lead vocals. Barton managed
24112-486: The psychedelic dirge "Glimpses") and open-tuned guitar to enhance the sitar-like sounds the Yardbirds were known for. Meanwhile, the act's commercial fortunes were declining. " Happenings Ten Years Time Ago " had only reached No. 30 on the US Hot 100 and had fared worse in the U.K. The band dropped Napier-Bell and entered into a partnership with Columbia Records hit-making producer Mickie Most , known for his work with
24288-471: The psychedelic rock and the Canterbury scenes came Soft Machine, who, it has been suggested, produced one of the artistically successfully fusions of the two genres. Perhaps the most critically acclaimed fusion came from the jazz side of the equation, with Miles Davis , particularly influenced by the work of Hendrix, incorporating rock instrumentation into his sound for the album Bitches Brew (1970). It
24464-653: The regional hit " Let's Go Trippin ' " in 1961 and launched the surf music craze, following up with songs like " Misirlou " (1962). Like Dale and his Del-Tones , most early surf bands were formed in Southern California, including the Bel-Airs , the Challengers , and Eddie & the Showmen . The Chantays scored a top ten national hit with " Pipeline " in 1963 and probably the best-known surf tune
24640-566: The reverb-laden " Evil Hearted You ", furthered the Eastern influence, while its B-side, "Still I'm Sad", featured the band chanting like Gregorian monks . The Diddley cover, " I'm a Man ", was hard blues rock, featured the Yardbirds' signature "rave-up", where the tempo shifted to double time and Relf's harmonica and Beck's scratching guitar raced to a climax before falling back into the original beat. The band embarked on their first US tour in late August 1965. A pair of albums were put together for
24816-400: The rise of rock and roll in the US, found new popularity in the UK, visiting with successful tours. Lonnie Donegan 's 1955 hit " Rock Island Line " was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon 's Quarrymen (later the Beatles ), moved on to play rock and roll. While former rock and roll market in
24992-475: The romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere". In the new millennium, the term rock has occasionally been used as a blanket term including forms like pop music, reggae music , soul music , and even hip hop , which it has been influenced with but often contrasted through much of its history. Christgau has used the term broadly to refer to popular and semipopular music that caters to his sensibility as "a rock-and-roller", including
25168-522: The same era, and by percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ , and the synthesizer. The basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation (prominent lead guitar, second chordal instrument, bass, and drums). A group of musicians performing rock music
25344-555: The second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave , post-punk and eventually alternative rock . From the 1990s, alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge , Britpop , and indie rock . Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop-punk , electronic rock , rap rock , and rap metal . Some movements were conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including
25520-546: The singles format to albums and achieved cultural legitimacy in the mainstream. Led by the Beatles in the mid-1960s, rock musicians advanced the LP as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, initiating a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. Progressive rock, a term sometimes used interchangeably with art rock , moved beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms. From
25696-413: The skills of both guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Rick Wakeman , while Emerson, Lake & Palmer were a supergroup who produced some of the genre's most technically demanding work. Jethro Tull and Genesis both pursued very different, but distinctly English, brands of music. Renaissance , formed in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, evolved into a high-concept band featuring
25872-410: The studio. No live recordings of the dual-lead guitar lineup have surfaced, except for "Great Shakes", a commercial recorded for Great Shakes milkshakes using the opening riff of " Over Under Sideways Down ", included on the 1992 Little Games Sessions & More compilation. One recording made by Beck and Page in May 1966, just weeks before Page joined the Yardbirds, was " Beck's Bolero ". This piece
26048-615: The three-octave voice of Annie Haslam . Most British bands depended on a relatively small cult following, but a handful, including Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, managed to produce top ten singles at home and break the American market. The American brand of progressive rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Frank Zappa , Captain Beefheart and Blood, Sweat & Tears , to more pop rock orientated bands like Boston , Foreigner , Kansas , Journey , and Styx . These, beside British bands Supertramp and ELO , all demonstrated
26224-409: The vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the U.K., the hippie movement and the wider Western counterculture movement that spread out from San Francisco in the U.S. in the 1960s, the latter of which continues to this day. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the goth , punk, and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of
26400-480: The work of the Beach Boys , formed in 1961 in Southern California. Their early albums included both instrumental surf rock (among them covers of music by Dick Dale) and vocal songs, drawing on rock and roll and doo wop and the close harmonies of vocal pop acts like the Four Freshmen . The Beach Boys first chart hit, " Surfin ' " in 1961 reached the Billboard top 100 and helped make the surf music craze
26576-533: The work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (1968) and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970). Reflecting on this change of trends in rock music over the past few years, Christgau wrote in his June 1970 "Consumer Guide" column that this "new orthodoxy" and "cultural lag" abandoned improvisatory, studio-ornamented productions in favor of an emphasis on "tight, spare instrumentation" and song composition: "Its referents are '50s rock, country music, and rhythm-and-blues, and its key inspiration
26752-404: The world, except as a new brand of painkiller ... In the '70s the powerful took over, as rock industrialists capitalized on the national mood to reduce potent music to an often reactionary species of entertainment—and to transmute rock's popular base from the audience to market." Roots rock is the term now used to describe a move away from what some saw as the excesses of the psychedelic scene, to
26928-519: Was John Mayall ; his band, the Bluesbreakers , included Eric Clapton (after Clapton's departure from the Yardbirds) and later Peter Green . Particularly significant was the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings and the sound of which was much emulated in both Britain and the United States. Eric Clapton went on to form supergroups Cream, Blind Faith , and Derek and
27104-681: Was 1963's " Wipe Out ", by the Surfaris , which hit number 2 and number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965. Surf rock was also popular in Europe during this time, with the British group the Shadows scoring hits in the early 1960s with instrumentals such as " Apache " and " Kon-Tiki ", while Swedish surf group the Spotnicks saw success in both Sweden and Britain. Surf music achieved its greatest commercial success as vocal pop music, particularly
27280-459: Was a major blues star who had already released dozens of successful and widely influential records under the name "Sonny Boy Williamson" from 1937 onward, Miller would later claim to have been the first to use the name. Some blues scholars believe that Miller's assertion he was born in 1899 was a ruse to convince audiences he was old enough to have used the name before John Lee Williamson, who was born in 1914. While in Clarksdale, Williamson stayed at
27456-473: Was a major influence on subsequent rock-influenced jazz artists, including Herbie Hancock , Chick Corea and Weather Report . The genre began to fade in the late 1970s, as a mellower form of fusion began to take its audience, but acts like Steely Dan , Frank Zappa and Joni Mitchell recorded significant jazz-influenced albums in this period, and it has continued to be a major influence on rock music. Reflecting on developments that occurred in rock music in
27632-525: Was also associated with Robert Johnson during this period. Miller developed his style and raffish stage persona during these years. Willie Dixon recalled seeing Lockwood and Miller playing for tips in Greenville, Mississippi , in the 1930s. He entertained audiences with novelties such as inserting one end of the harmonica into his mouth and playing with no hands. At this time he was often known as "Rice" Miller—a childhood nickname stemming from his love of rice and milk —or as "Little Boy Blue". In 1941 Miller
27808-460: Was also part of 'The British Invasion All-Stars' with members of Procol Harum, The Creation , the Nashville Teens , the Downliners Sect and The Pretty Things . Phil May and Dick Taylor of the Pretty Things, together with McCarty, recorded two albums in Chicago as the Pretty Things–Yardbirds Blues Band – The Chicago Blues Tapes 1991 and Wine, Women, Whiskey , both produced by George Paulus . The Yardbirds were inducted into
27984-465: Was also the name of a popular Chicago blues singer and harmonica player . To distinguish the two, Miller has been referred to as Sonny Boy Williamson II . He first recorded with Elmore James on " Dust My Broom ". Some of his popular songs include " Don't Start Me Talkin' ", " Help Me ", " Checkin' Up on My Baby ", and " Bring It On Home ". He toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival and recorded with English rock musicians, including
28160-480: Was another Mickie Most-produced pop single, while the B-side, "Think About It", featured a proto-Zeppelin Page riff and snippets of the "Dazed and Confused" guitar solo. It failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. A concert and some album tracks were recorded in New York City in March and early April (including the 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
28336-586: Was born in Glendora, Mississippi in 1897. According to researchers Bob Eagle and Eric S. LeBlanc, he was born in the small community of Money , near Greenwood, Mississippi , in 1912. He lived and worked with his sharecropper stepfather, Jim Miller, whose last name he soon adopted, and mother, Millie Ford, until the early 1930s. Beginning in the 1930s, he traveled around Mississippi and Arkansas and encountered Big Joe Williams , Elmore James and Robert Lockwood Jr. , also known as Robert Junior Lockwood, who would play guitar on his later Checker Records sides. He
28512-406: Was born in about 1912, being seven years old on February 2, 1920, the day of the census. Miller's gravestone at Tutwiler, Mississippi , set up by record company owner Lillian McMurry twelve years after his death, gives his date of birth as March 11, 1908. In a spoken word performance called “The Story of Sonny Boy Williamson” that was later included in several compilations, Miller states that he
28688-424: Was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers , but, particularly on the British scene (except perhaps for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock ), bands became focused on heavy metal innovation, and blues rock began to slip out of the mainstream. By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of
28864-453: Was formed, featuring a reunited lineup of the original Renaissance, including McCarty and Keith's sister Jane Relf . In the 1980s McCarty, Dreja, and Samwell-Smith formed a short-lived Yardbirds semi-reunion called Box of Frogs , which occasionally included Beck and Page plus various friends with whom they had all recorded over the years. They recorded two albums for Epic, the self-titled "Box of Frogs" (1984) and "Strange Land" (1986). McCarty
29040-449: Was founded in Britain), and Band of Gypsys , whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade. Blues rock bands from the southern states, like the Allman Brothers Band , Lynyrd Skynyrd , and ZZ Top , incorporated country elements into their style to produce the distinctive genre Southern rock . Early blues rock bands often emulated jazz, playing long, involved improvisations, which would later be
29216-457: Was hired to play the King Biscuit Time show, advertising the King Biscuit brand of baking flour on radio station KFFA in Helena, Arkansas , with Lockwood. The program's sponsor, Max Moore, began billing Miller as Sonny Boy Williamson, apparently in an attempt to capitalize on the fame of the well-known Chicago-based harmonica player and singer Sonny Boy Williamson (birth name John Lee Curtis Williamson, died 1948). Although John Lee Williamson
29392-419: Was in order in October 1968. They appeared on contracts, promotional material, ticket stubs and other collateral as "The Yardbirds" or "The New Yardbirds" for three shows in October 1968, with the Marquee Club date reported as the Yardbirds' "farewell London appearance" and the Liverpool University show 19 October announced as the Yardbirds' "last ever appearance". This may have been motivated, at least in part, by
29568-430: Was inspired by Ravel's "Bolero" and credited to Page (although Beck also claims to have written the song), with John Paul Jones on bass, Keith Moon on drums and Nicky Hopkins on piano. Around the time of this session, the idea of a " supergroup " involving Beck, Page, Moon, and Who bassist John Entwistle originated, with Entwistle suggesting it would "go over like a lead balloon" and Moon quipping that they could call
29744-414: Was on 23 June 2018 at The Egyptian Theater, Park City, Utah. Former Ram Jam harmonica player Myke Scavone joined the band at the end of 2015. On 15 April 2016, the band played at the Under the Bridge venue in London with a line-up of Jim McCarty, John Idan, Johnny A, Kenny Aaronson, and Billyboy Miskimmin. Along with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers , The Yardbirds were part of the British blues scene of
29920-411: Was taken up by bands including Pentangle , Steeleye Span and the Albion Band , which in turn prompted Irish groups like Horslips and Scottish acts like the JSD Band , Spencer's Feat and later Five Hand Reel , to use their traditional music to create a brand of Celtic rock in the early 1970s. Folk-rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967–68, before many acts moved off in
30096-548: Was taking place globally in the aftermath of the Second World War . Cliff Richard is credited with one of the first rock and roll hits outside of North America with " Move It " (1959), effectively ushering in the sound of British rock . Several artists, most prominently Tommy Steele from the UK, found success with covers of major American rock and roll hits before the recordings could spread internationally, often translating them into local languages where appropriate. Steele in particular toured Britain, Scandinavia, Australia,
30272-418: Was the band's last single to enter the US top 50, peaking at No. 44 on the Billboard chart in the summer of 1967. Epic released The Yardbirds Greatest Hits in the US in March 1967. Greatest Hits described to the Yardbirds' growing American audience an almost complete picture of "what made the Yardbirds a great band", according to AllMusic critic Bruce Eder. In the description by author Greg Russo,
30448-439: Was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation and the Beatles " I'm a Loser " (1964), arguably the first Beatles song to be influenced directly by Dylan. The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with the Byrds ' recording of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man " which topped the charts in 1965. With members who had been part of the café-based folk scene in Los Angeles,
30624-430: Was the major force in American record sales and crooners , such as Eddie Fisher , Perry Como , and Patti Page , who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed. Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of distinct subgenres, including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in
30800-400: Was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s. Rock musicians in the mid-1960s began to advance the album ahead of the single as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, with the Beatles at the forefront of this development. Their contributions lent the genre a cultural legitimacy in the mainstream and initiated
30976-422: Was three years since the death of John Lee Williamson, which for the first time allowed some legitimacy to Miller's carefully worded claim to being "the one and only Sonny Boy Williamson". When Trumpet went bankrupt in 1955, Williamson's recording contract was yielded to its creditors, who sold it to Chess Records in Chicago. He had begun developing a following in Chicago beginning in 1953, when he appeared there as
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