The Yardbirds

Richly detailed, nuanced account of Britain’s trailblazing beat combo . . . Via an artful sifting of the contemporary press, coupled with a well-tuned listening ear, author Stanfield’s evocative account unpicks the contradictions at the heart of the group. -- Mark Paytress * Mojo *
The Yardbirds draws heavily on primary sources, reviews and interviews from the national and regional press of the day . . . [Stanfield's] reconsideration of the ambition of the Yardbirds is welcome. The band was 'without peer as a live attraction,' and Mr. Stanfield makes one want to step back in time into one of those packed clubs, so hot that, as one writer of the day put it, 'you could have boiled an egg.' -- Wesley Stace * Wall Street Journal *
A much-needed account of one of the most important, least understood bands of the 1960s, brilliantly written and researched by Peter Stanfield. * Peter Watts, author of Denmark Street: London's Street of Sound *
[This book] contains a wealth of detail that brings clarity and focus to the often complex story of The Yardbirds. * Dave Lewis, Led Zeppelin author and chronicler *
By using only contemporaneous media accounts as his foundational material, Peter Stanfield has constructed an authentic, richly evocative account of the Yardbirds’ transformative journey from youthful blues merchants to pioneering pop futurists, without the distorting filters of hindsight or revisionism. Exactingly researched, it’s the definitive biography of one of the sixties’ most innovative and influential rock groups, written with style, energy and luminous clarity. * Mike Stax, Ugly Things magazine *
Not so much a biography of the Yardbirds as an earnest plea that their importance in the story of UK rock be fully recognised, and a righteous endorsement of their significance alongside a comprehensive history of the development of R&B in the UK during the early 1960s. 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 of every UK music magazine and elsewhere not only for mentions of the Yardbirds but for the growth of R&B in general. The definitive Yardbirds book. * Chris Charlesworth, author of Just Backdated – Melody Maker: Seven Years in the Seventies *