It's hard to imagine the power pop of The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles' more rocking mid-1960s songs (such as "Day Tripper", "I Feel Fine", and "Your Bird Can Sing") without these songs--indeed, while Hendrix was an astonishing rhythm and blues guitarist in America, seeing the Yardbirds in London, particularly Jeff Beck's experiments with feedback and raga-styled solos, gave him the core ideas that formed his legendary first album, Are You Experienced, and his early live act to support it.

And yet, despite this influence, the Yardbirds were doomed to failure. Poor management, an exhausting touring schedule and poor chemistry among the group caused them to burnout and breakup in 1968. Jimmy Page, their last guitarist, having inherited their name through a series of twists of turns, and finding the Yardbirds contractually obligated to play a series of gigs in Scandanavia, quickly decided to form a group to fufill them. Initially dubbed "The New Yardbirds", they would achieve the breakthrough fame that always eluded the Yardbirds under their new name: Led Zeppelin.

Chris Dreja declined an invitation from Page to continue as bassist in Zeppelin, and successfully transitioned from a professional musician with the Yardbirds, to a professional photographer; he took the back cover photo of the band for Led Zeppelin's first album. Dreja's career has come full circle: today, he and McCarty tour small clubs and the nostalgia circuit as a reformed version of the Yardbirds.

Speaking of Dreja and McCarty, it's worth searching the used bookstores, or ordering from a site such as Bookfinder.com, 1983's The Yardbirds, written in a collaboration between journalist John Platt, along with McCarty and Dreja. It's simultaneously an accurate, but extremely humorous look at the history of the Yardbirds, perfectly written in a style that complements the Yardbirds music.

While it's much more droll than that 1983 Yardbirds biography, Clayson does a thorough, scholarly and workmanlike-job of documenting their history, and his well-illustrated book is recommended to anyone who doesn't know the history of this seminal group.