THE YARDBIRDS: THE MOST BLUESWAILING FUTURISTIC WAY-OUT HEAVY BEAT SOUND by Peter Stanfield

Peter Stanfield wrote an unusual, rather scholarly, book about The Who that I reviewed on Just Backdated in 2021. Entitled A Band With Built-In Hate, it referenced the writings of critic Nik Cohn to position The Who as a Pete Townshend/Kit Lambert art project as much as a career rock band, a perception I found fascinating if a tad implausible in light of their longevity. No such slightly left-field insights find their way into Stanfield’s book on The Yardbirds, but it’s just as scholarly in a pointed, research-driven fashion. 

        Stanfield appreciated my review of his Who book and about 15 months ago the publishers of this book sent me an early draft with a request that I write an endorsement for its back cover. “Not so much a biography of The Yardbirds as an earnest plea for their importance in the story of UK rock to be fully recognised,” I wrote after reading it, “and a righteous endorsement of their significance, alongside a comprehensive history of the development of R&B in the UK during the early 1960s. The definitive Yardbirds book.”   

That quote appears on the cover but as it happens I wrote a bit more than that, adding: “As author Peter Stanfield points out, The Yardbirds went from R&B to psychedelia and acid rock and wound up as precursors to heavy metal via Led Zeppelin; and, in the course of this bumpy journey, became the training ground for Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, not a bad legacy by any means. Stanfield’s research has involved a comprehensive trawl through the cuttings files of every UK music magazine and elsewhere not only for mentions of The Yardbirds but of the growth of UK R&B in general.” 

        Clearly that was too much for a short paragraph on the back cover, but having now received a hard copy of the book, my reward for the endorsement, I stick by what I said, adding only that after about the first third of the book the story of UK R&B gives way to the somewhat chequered history of The Yardbirds themselves and how, with Beck on guitar, they expanded their repertoire into hi-tech music that was sonically way ahead of its time.  

        I never saw The Yardbirds on stage and by the time I reached Melody Maker in 1970 they’d sort of morphed into Led Zeppelin and/or Renaissance, two groups I wrote about, the former far more than the latter of course. But even up in North Yorkshire, where groups like The Yardbirds seldom visited, I was well aware of them, albeit not in their original incarnation as R&B raver-uppers but as a band that seemed to have taken their cue from chanting monks. The slightly haunting sound of their 1965 singles ‘For Your Love’ and, more especially, ‘Still I’m Sad’ reminded me of Joe Meek’s production of ‘Johnny Remember Me’ by John Leyton, a record I love, but the former prompted Clapton to quit the band on account of it being insufficiently purist for his tender blues sensibilities, or so we were told at the time. 

        Stanfield is having none of it. “Clapton’s departure from The Yardbirds was expertly stage-managed,” he writes, “an object lesson in how to deflect attention away from the real cause of his leaving – his personal behaviour and a falling out with management – and onto a story that lasted down the years.” We’re left to ponder on the specifics of Clapton’s “personal behaviour” but his leave-taking did The Yardbirds a favour in the long term as his replacement, the mercurial Beck, dragged them into the modern world where for two years they, alongside The Who, became innovative pioneers as pop morphed into rock. So fond was Beck of the song that opened the door to The Yardbirds for him that he gleefully played ‘For Your Love’ during his 50-year career celebration concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 2016, the film of which I can recommend for anyone seeking confirmation of Beck’s outstanding talent. 

        But I digress. The Yardbirds had “a sound unequalled by any other group”, wrote Richard Spaete in American Hit Parader magazine in 1966. Stanfield agrees. “The sonic adventurism of The Yardbirds (and The Who) kept them ahead of the pack of R&B-scene graduates,” he writes, noting also that The Small Faces and a few lesser known acts were in their slipstream too. No lesser critic than Lester Bangs also agreed: ”They came stampeding in and just blew everybody clean off the tracks,” Bangs is quoted in Stanfield’s introduction. “They were so fucking good, in fact, that people were imitating ’em as much as a decade later, and getting rich doing it.” No prizes for guessing who he’s referring to there. 

        This book about what Stanfield calls the “most blueswailing futuristic way-out heavy beat sound” is an ambitious as The Yardbirds were under Beck and his successor, Jimmy Page. Stanfield has trawled through the UK music press, mostly notably Melody Maker I’m pleased to note, for every mention of the group as it moved through its various incarnations, and he’s righteously distressed that for all their hard work and inventiveness they never quite made it in the manner he believes they deserved. It was a mixture of bad luck, faltering management and recurrent instability, with singer Keith Relf’s health a seemingly perpetual issue, while bassist/second guitarist Chris Dreja’s real ambition – in which he succeeded – was to become a professional photographer. Original bass player Paul Samwell-Smith became a successful record producer, drummer Jim McCarty kept the flag flying and we all know how the careers of Clapton, Beck and Page panned out. 

        Written sympathetically with an obvious enthusiasm for The Yardbirds and the music they created, Stanfield’s book has 428 pages, 40 of which are reference notes, as befitting an academic, an index and, throughout, a selection of black and white illustrations from the author’s own collection. 

ROCK & ROLL HAll Of FAME, 2025

Time was when the America’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame sent out cassettes containing one song by the nominees for that particular year. These were superseded by CDs which, in turn, were superseded by links to MP3s. I’ve kept most of the cassettes and CDs I received, the earliest cassette 1992 which suggests I’ve been a voter for 33 years, no doubt longer than most. They also sent out brochures and I seem to have hung on to most of these too but this year it’s gone all-digital and instead of writing down my nominees on a perforated card at the back of the brochure and mailing it to an address in New York I’ve been invited to use a link that, once my credentials have been verified, will enable me to vote with my mouse for the first time.

My R&R HoF cassettes and CDs. 

That 1992 cassette contains music by that year’s nominees, among them The Yardbirds, Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Sam & Dave, Johnny Cash, Buffalo Springfield, David Bowie and Booker T. & The MGs. I can’t remember who I voted for, probably Yardbirds, Velvets, Hendrix, Cash and Bowie, and maybe Booker T. because I’ve always admired Steve Cropper’s guitar playing and back in the day was in a band that played ‘Time Is Tight’, albeit not nearly as in time or as tightly as the MGs. 

I have long considered resigning as a voter. I believe there are too many inductees with the result that standards are slipping, a bit like the House of Lords. Certain acts that deserve to be inducted, among them Richard Thompson and Slade, have been ignored despite letters of protest I included in my mailed ballots, a form of dissent no longer available to me – see above. And I’m getting too old to care or even know all I ought to know about some of the inductees. I have never owned records, either vinyl or CDs, by seven of the 14 acts nominated this year, which is not to say I don't know what they sound like, just that they’re not to my taste.  

        But here we go again. For this year’s ballot I am invited to pick up to seven of the following: Bad Company, Black Crowes, Mariah Carey, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Billy Idol, Joy Division/New Order, Cyndi Lauper, Maná, Oasis, Outkast, Phish, Soundgarden and White Stripes. 

        I think the words up to are pertinent here because seven is too many. I’ll vote for Bad Company, largely because I loved Free and the two surviving members of Free, singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke, deserve to in the HoF and are the only members of Bad Company who’ll show up anyway; sadly, guitarist Mick Ralphs is, I’m told, confined to a nursing home and bassist Boz Burrell died in 2006. 

        I’ll vote for Chubby Checker because his two great hits, ‘The Twist’ and ‘Let’s Twist Again’, were simply great records I’ve always loved, even if they were a tad gimmicky. 

        I’ll vote for Joe Cocker and not just because he’s a Yorkshireman, as am I, but because his sole number one UK hit was the best Beatles interpretation ever. 

        I’ll vote for Joy Division/New Order, for their music and to see whether or not Peter Hook will turn up and cause trouble. 

        I’ll vote for Oasis because they’re Brits and Slade fans, and also in the hope that they’ll disrupt proceedings too, but I guess that’s unlikely now that Noel and Liam have buried the hatchet in the interests of fiscal opportunity. 

        And I’ll vote for White Stripes because I like them. 

        That’s only six out of the seven. Unless any Just Backdated readers persuade me otherwise, those are all the names I’ll click with my mouse before April 21, the day voting ends. 

BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN

The promotional material for this film covering the first 14 months of Led Zeppelin’s stellar career suggests that their success was achieved “against all the odds” and that it is the “first officially sanctioned” film about the group. Neither statement is true. The second falsehood is easily rebutted by drawing attention to their 1976 movie The Song Remains The Same, their 2003 five-hour plus career retrospective 2-DVD package, and Celebration Day, the concert movie of their final appearance, when the reformed trio of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones performed with Jason Bonham, son of John, on drums, at London’s 02 in 2007. All three films were authorised by the group. The first falsehood is more nuanced but I would argue that the odds on achieving success were pretty short for a quartet that included two of the most experienced musicians on the 1960s London session circuit, one of whom had a keen eye for prevailing trends in rock music, and was managed by a Herculean, no-nonsense strongman who’d operated at the sharp end of the rock’n’roll trade for about seven years. 

        Quite why Page, Plant and Jones feel the need to tell these fibs is a bit of a mystery but mystery was always an essential commodity in Led Zeppelin’s bag of tricks. Let in too much light and you’re just another band, keep people guessing and you’re special, seems to have been mastermind Page’s mantra from day one; and, in his wisdom, which has never been in short supply, Page has prudently given the nod to a film that explains how they got where they did, but not what they did when they got there.  

        Becoming Led Zeppelin lets in a bit of that light in making clear that once the starting pistol sounded, Led Zeppelin set off at a furious pace, leaving little to chance. Realising at their first rehearsal in August 1968 that his group had something pretty special when they played together, and that this was their strongest card, Page established a rigorous work ethic from the outset and the others were happy to follow his lead. They made the road their home and recorded their first two LPs in the space of eight months, much of the second while on tour in America. Page and manager Peter Grant were quick to recognise that the kind of music they performed was more likely to find a receptive audience in America, which just happened to be where the biggest returns could be made, not that anyone mentions this.

        But before all this happens Becoming Led Zeppelin takes us back to the childhoods of the four boys. Baby boomers all, all bar Plant were raised in families that encouraged their musical ambitions and Jones’ family, the Baldwins, were professional musicians themselves. It was a black and white world but all the families were sufficiently affluent to own cameras and the kiddie pictures offer a sentimental touch not generally associated with Led Zeppelin; even the hardest of rockers were infants once. It would have been nice to include Grant, a virtual fifth member, in this anecdotal dip into the past but he’s ignored, as he is during almost all of what follows. 

        Next, we move on to influences, with each member allotted a few minutes to say how they were inspired by Lonnie Donegan (Page), Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Richard (Plant), bass players in general (Jones) and James Brown and Gene Krupa (Bonham). That old footage of 13-year-old Page skiffling away on a guitar twice his size on TV in 1957 is still presciently charming, and I enjoyed the footage of their heroes, so a nod here to whoever researched the old clips. 

        The preparatory years are also fun: Page and Jones as dapper young professionals on the studio circuit – they both played on Shirley Bassey’s 007 theme ‘Goldfinger’, arranged by Jones, amongst many other notable records – before the former is invited to join The Yardbirds and express himself at last; Plant in and out of various experimental outfits in the Midlands, one of which includes Bonham who is torn between drumming and the family building business. 

       When the four find one another they really were special. Much of the footage of early Led Zeppelin in the film has been seen before but there’s some new stuff and even familiar material has been enhanced. Here we have Page, his long black hair obscuring his features, conjuring up shards of jagged chords on the rather shabby looking, custom-painted Telecaster gifted to him by his pal Jeff Beck; a maestro on lightning fast solos, slides and the scraping of the violin. We see Jones running on the spot as he feverishly plucks the strings of the Fender Jazz Bass he used for years, its long neck swaying dangerously close to Plant on stages much smaller than those we grew accustomed to seeing Zep play on later in their career. The young Plant, at 20, is much thinner than he is today, a shaman in the making, trading vocal shrieks with Page’s bent notes, his curly hair bouncing, forever on the move. And at the back there’s Bonham, tumbling into his drums, grinning as he maintains a steady rhythm with Jones yet always looking to accentuate whatever Page is playing or Plant singing with a roll or a crash or an explosion everywhere. “I fell in love with his right foot,” says Jones at one point. 

        Led Zeppelin were truly fantastic, full of energy, in the early days but the suggestion that they toured America before the UK because they were ignored at home is open to question. The press in the UK didn’t ignore them – the earliest ever feature appeared in Melody Maker, written by Chris Welch after Page visited the office without prior warning, and I even wrote about them in the Bradford Telegraph & Argus before I joined MM. They chose to tour the US first simply because Page and Grant saw greater opportunities there and it was therefore advantageous to do so. Rolling Stone in the US may have been dismissive but that was really an exception. By and large, they were loved wherever they went, as the rapturous fans in their audiences – many of them female – seen in the film testify. 

        The present day interviews are candid and occasionally revealing with screen time shared impartially. His silver hair held back in a ponytail, Page looks dignified and, as ever, is the most enthused, contented and diplomatic, his pride in Led Zeppelin undimmed. Jones, traditionally the most reticent member of the group, looks the youngest, his hair trim, his features eager. He has plenty to say, which is refreshing, and he comes across as very likeable, modest too, almost as if 12 years in Led Zeppelin was just another session date in his work sheet. “Led Zeppelin? A silly name,” he says. “But we were stuck with it.” Plant, craggy, his golden hair turned to bronze and tumbling everywhere, is the most droll, the slight grin and twinkle in his eye suggesting there may have been times when he’s looked upon Led Zeppelin as a youthful folly. “My family wanted me to be a chartered accountant,” he says, tongue firmly in cheek. Of his first plane flight to the US he expresses astonishment at being served a meal on a plate with real cutlery that in different circumstances he might consider stealing. Bonham is represented by a hitherto unheard interview he did around 1970 that acts as a voice over, and he too seems to be in a state of perpetual wonder at all that happened to Led Zeppelin in such a short space of time. His wife Pat warned him on more than one occasion not to get mixed up with “that Planty”. 

        The emphasis, though, is on the music, and Becoming Led Zeppelin features heaps of terrific footage from America and the UK, some hitherto unseen, at last by me, though at just over two hours, it is pretty long and could have been trimmed, especially during the final half hour. If its intention is to find new fans in the 21st Century, it’ll probably succeed, especially as it stops long before Led Zeppelin reached their apogee two or three years later and dutifully ignores the stairway to indulgence and subsequent mischief that led indirectly to their demise.