The Yardbirds: The Most Blueswailing Futuristic Way-Out Heavy Beat Sound

＂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.

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.