While the Yardbirds are rightly famed for having kickstarted the careers of three British guitar legends – Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page – the band was far more than a mere nursery for six-string superstars.
Their freewheeling mid-song interludes (dubbed “rave-ups”), deft combination of blues and harder-edged sensibilities, and willingness to engage with non-mainstream ideas such as Gregorian chant exerted a powerful influence on their mid-'60s contemporaries and presaged many developments in the worlds of experimental and heavy rock.
