The Yardbirds - by Peter Stanfield (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The Yardbirds were trailblazers in the rapid development of pop music in Britain between 1963 and 1968. With members including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page, they helped to set the basic template of what has been known ever since as rock music and gave rise to one of the most commercially successful bands of all time: Led Zeppelin. Peter Stanfield situates the band in the rise of British R&B and the tumult of the psychedelic era. Obsessively detailed about both the band and 1960s pop culture, this is the book fans of the Yardbirds have always needed."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

One of the "Most Exciting Rock Books Released in 2025" at Ultimate Classic Rock - "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, The Wall Street Journal

The story of an iconic group, the advent of pop, and the birth of rock music in 1960s Britain.

The Yardbirds were trailblazers in the rapid development of pop music in Britain between 1963 and 1968. With members including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page, they helped to set the basic template of what has been known ever since as rock music and gave rise to one of the most commercially successful bands of all time: Led Zeppelin. Peter Stanfield situates the band in the rise of British R&B and the tumult of the psychedelic era. Obsessively detailed about both the band and 1960s pop culture, this is the book fans of the Yardbirds have always needed.

Review Quotes

"Speaking of Eric Clapton and the blues, here's something. . . . Stanfield's The Yardbirds: The Most Blueswailing Futuristic Way-Out Heavy Beat Sound has everything you'd need to know about the '60s group that also included, at various points, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page."

-- "Ultimate Classic Rock, "Most Exciting Rock Books Released in 2025""

"[Stanfield] gives this innovative group the critical attention (best described as obsessively researched and compulsively detailed) which they so richly deserve. . . . It is, as always, a vastly entertaining romp he takes us on. From the emergence and evolution of British blues through beat music and beyond, into the outer reaches of progressive or prog-rock (long before it even had a name) and then finally into a sonics explored by several founding members subsequent to their departure from the Yardbirds. And Stanfield's is the ideal narrative voice to tell us the behind-the-scenes story of a pop legend with several lives. . . . Fabulous pop/rock music history."--Donald Brackett "Critics at Large"

"The author is particularly good on what Kurt Cobain called 'territorial pissings'--in this case those of the '60s blues purists who did battle with the bandwagon-jumpers in endless arguments about 'authenticity.' Stanfield is also persuasive about the long arm of the Yardbirds' influence. David Bowie's 1973 covers album 'Pin-Ups' featured two Yardbirds numbers. . . . [This] reconsideration of the ambition of the Yardbirds is welcome. The band was 'without peer as a live attraction, ' and 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 "The Wall Street Journal"

"Four stars. 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"

"Traces the band's evolution from a blues-wailing unit to their foray into psychedelia and then to a more experimental sound after the departure of Clapton and the addition of guitarists Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. . . . Stanfield captures the emergence and evolution of 1960s British blues that will captivate classic rock fans."-- "Library Journal (starred review)"

"[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

"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 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"

"A much-needed account of one of the most important, least understood bands of the 1960s, brilliantly written and researched by Stanfield."--Peter Watts, author of "Denmark Street: London's Street of Sound"

"By using only contemporaneous media accounts as his foundational material, 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, editor of Ugly Things magazine

About the Author

Peter Stanfield is emeritus professor of film at the University of Kent. His publications include A Band with Built-In Hate: The Who from Pop Art to Punk and Pin-Ups 1972: Third Generation Rock 'n' Roll, both published by Reaktion Books.