If you're old enough to remember when the Yardbirds' "For Your Love" first hit the charts, you might also remember rumors of a cooperative venture between the US and UK. In order to lessen American teenagers' angst over JFK's assassination, the two governments supposedly agreed to expedite the wholesale export of British rock music to the States. However apocryphal this theory might be, it does seem coincidental that the invasion of the Brits did in fact begin within months of that sad day in Dallas.

The Yardbirds were part of an onslaught that included the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks, the Who, and the Dave Clark Five, each with their own distinctive sound and appearance. Other notable names in this first wave were the Animals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, the Zombies, the Searchers, the Troggs, the Pretty Things, Them, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Herman's Hermits, and of course the Swingin' Blue Jeans (I'm sure I've left out a few but these are the names I remember most). Alan Clayson captures the spirit of this important band in "The Yardbirds", published by Backbeat Books. The subtitle, "The Band That Launched Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page", is probably meant to draw those younger readers who might not know or care about the band's significant contribution to rock guitar history.

Clayson's attention to minutia is overwhelming (imagine Dickens as a fourteen year old writing a fanzine) and his style a bit labored: "The historian in me drank it all in. Details were eased from my memory bank and were laced with secondary research and further first-hand reminiscences when I wrote this book ..." This sentence has value, though, for he goes on to say that his purpose is to focus on the rest of the band as well, and not just the Big Three, who were in fact the most interesting characters. The others, lead singer Keith Relf, bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja, and drummer Jim McCarty, were local heroes. Like many English rockers, they met in or around school, and saw music as a way out of an ordinary life. Keith Relf had worked as an electrical engineer for Samwell-Smith's father, an irony given his death in 1976 by electrocution from an ungrounded guitar amplifier. Chris Dreja and Anthony "Top" Topham, a co-founder of the group, hung out after school at a music shop in Surbiton, examining the electric guitars. Topham's father had a large collection of imported blues records, which Dreja credits as an important influence on the group.