As esteemed music journalist, Lillian Roxon, pointed out in herRock Encyclopedia (Grosset& Dunlap, 1971) that ‘in late 1963/early 1964, when the English ‘scene’ was having its birth pangs, The Yardbirds followed The Rolling Stones into the ‘Crawdaddy Club’ (by day the somewhat staid Richmond Cricket Club) as house band.’ This is the root of the legend.
The Rolling Stones had been signed by Dick Rowe to Decca Records, they’d appeared on ABC-TV’sThank Your Lucky Stars pop show, and by September 1963, their debut single, ‘Come On’, had charted and climbed as high as a UK number 21. Suddenly, they were moving up and out. Suddenly, they were too big to play small venues anymore.
So, there seemed to be a natural progression, a kind of inevitability about the rise of The Yardbirds from that point on. As Roxon says, ‘like the early Stones, they (The Yardbirds) used standard material – Bo Diddley, Isley Brothers, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson – always remaining more faithful to the original than the improvisational/variation-prone Stones. This was important at a time when the concept of original material was not as overworked as it was to become in 1967-69. Also, man for man, The Yardbirds were better instrumentalists than The Stones were then.’
Although there had been school-age rock ‘n’ roll groups for the soon-to-be members, such as The Strollers and the Country Gentlemen, the original Yardbirds came out of a parent group called The Metropolis Blues Quartet – sometimes referred to as The Metropolitan Blues Quartet (MBQ). Keith listened to the Modern Jazz Quartet, abbreviated as the MJQ. Formed at the Kingston Art School, it featured Chris Dreja (born in Surbiton on 11 November 1945) on rhythm guitar, Paul ‘Sam’ Samwell-Smith (born in Brentford on 8 May 1943) on bass, Jim McCarty (born in Liverpool on 25 July 1943, but grew up in Teddington) on drums and Keith Relf (born in Richmond, Surrey, on 22 March 1943) doing vocals. They were joined by a very straight-looking crew-cut Eric Clapton, who played lead guitar, and they became The Yardbirds. At that time, the mods – or ‘modernists’ – followed The Who, The Action and The Small Faces, but the more discerning blues purist mods also steered their Vespa and Lambretta scooters towards the ‘Crawdaddy’ to catch The Yardbirds. And although The Yardbirds may well have been better musicians in the 1963-64 period, The Rolling Stones were arguably more charismatic performers, as a result of which their rival fan- factions used to fight it out, rather bitterly at times.
There was also Anthony ‘Top’ Topham (born on 3 July 1947 in Southall) in that formative lineup. His father had a collection of r&b records, which Chris and ‘Top’ were permitted to listen to. ‘I went ballistic when I heard the electric sounds of Jimmy Reed,’ Chris told biographer Alan Clayson, ‘it wasn’t regimented. It was pure emotion, feel. That was probably what shaped me forever – and partly what shaped The Yardbirds, too.’ Topham became written into The Yardbirds legend by quitting – in October 1963 – before they ever got to record, returning to college, and thereby making way for Eric Clapton (born on 30 March 1945), who had been playing with a rival r&b group called The Roosters.
A feature inThe Daily Mail on 2 March 1964 claimed the Crawdaddy ‘should be called the southern equivalent of Liverpool’s Cavern. The Rolling Stones started their career there, but now they’ve moved on to higher things. T
