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I’ll Give You Everything and More

Replacing Top Topham

The Yardbirds are now safely ensconced in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. They have been recognized as one of the innovative groups in rock history. Their music, primarily through their creative guitar sound, was groundbreaking and extended the limits of rock and modern blues.

Still, no matter what their musical legacy, it is the trio of guitarists who played lead for the group that has given them lasting fame. Rolling Stone ranks Eric Clapton #4, Jimmy Page #9, and Jeff Beck #14 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. No other band in rock history can brag that they produced three Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarists.

Original Members Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty still tour and record as the Yardbirds with a rotating cast of musicians. Live at B. B. King Blues Club is an excellent example of the latest incarnation of the Yardbirds. Dreja and McCarty were joined by lead guitarist Ben King, vocalist John Idan, and harpist Billy Miskimmon for a live broadcast on XM Satellite Radio. The nineteen-track show is a combination of old classics and new material. While it is a new group for the most part, they bring energy to “Heart Full of Soul,” “Shapes of Things,” “Over Under Sideways Down,” and “For Your Love.”

While the classic Yardbirds are remembered for Clapton, Page, and Beck, they actually had four lead guitarists during the 1960s. Many people forget that it was Top Topham who was the group’s first guitarist.

“Yardbirds” can be defined as hoboes hanging around a railway yard waiting for a train to take them to their next location. They would hide themselves on the train without paying and travel from location to location. These out-of-work hoboes would provide the name for one of the classic rock groups of the sixties.

Keith Relf and Paul Samwell-Smith were playing together in the Metropolitan Blues Band in 1962. A year later, the band took in singer/harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, and lead guitarist Top Topham from another Richmond band called Suburbiton R&B. Smith and McCarty had played together while in school. The newly formed group changed their name to the Yardbirds. One of their earliest gigs was backing traditional blues legend Cyril Davies at Eel Pie Island.

They quickly moved on to the legendary Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, Surrey, England. When the Rolling Stones left their gig as the resident band at the club, the Yardbirds replaced them.

The main problem for the band at this time was the age of Top Topham. He was fifteen when the band was formed, and as their popularity increased, they were playing five to six nights a week. Topham was a promising art student, and his parents frowned on his nighttime activities. The rest of the group members were several years older than Topham, and his parents were pressuring him to leave the group despite him earning more than both of them.

Topham finally gave in to their pressure and left the band in the fall of 1963. His replacement was another art student named Eric Clapton.

Clapton had been a member of several groups, but the Yardbirds were a more serious affair as they were already getting well-paying gigs. Clapton quickly integrated himself into the group as the lead guitarist and helped the band’s reputation as a blues/rock band to grow. Their and Clapton’s dream job would occur two months after Clapton’s debut.

Sonny Boy Williamson II was planning to tour Great Britain, and like many American blues artists who traveled to Europe, he was looking for backing bands. The Animals and the Yardbirds would both serve in that capacity at various stops on the tour.

Aleck Ford was born sometime near the turn of the twentieth century. The exact date of his birth has never been determined. Early in life he took his stepfather’s last name of Miller and so performed as Aleck Miller until the early forties. He was beginning to become popular, so he changed his name to Sonny Boy Williamson to cash in on the reputation of the Delta bluesman of the same name. He always claimed that he was the first Sonny Boy, but music history has added II to his name to distinguish him from the accepted original.

He had attended a Yardbirds concert when in London for the American Folk Blues Festival tour. After the tour ended, he stayed on for a series of small club dates. When he brought his stage act to the Crawdaddy Club on December 8, 1963, the Yardbirds were on hand to provide the instrumental backing.

The early Yardbirds with Eric Clapton were only too happy to back Sonny Boy Williamson when he toured England. Author’s collection

The resultant album, Sonny Boy Williamson and the Yardbirds, was originally intended to be a Sonny Boy Williamson release, but it would go down in history as some of the earliest Yardbird and Eric Clapton music ever recorded.

This was a traditional blues album consisting of nine Sonny Boy Williamson compositions. It also featured a developing Eric Clapton, There were no fuzz tones, wah-wah pedals, or feedback. It was just one of the future best guitarists in history learning his craft.

Sonny Boy Williamson was not in good health and would pass away less than two years later. Still, there are flashes of brilliance. “Pontiac Blues” is sixties Delta blues at its near best. “Mister Downchild” features some nice harp playing by Sonny Boy, but it is Clapton’s guitar playing that sells the track. “Do the Western” also finds Clapton in blues mode.

The real treat from this club date did not surface for decades. In 1993, the Yardbirds’ four-CD box set Train Kept A-Rollin’: The Complete Giorgio Gomelsky Productions was released on the Charly label. It included not only extra tracks by Williamson but also the six-song set by the Yardbirds that had been recorded prior to Williamson’s set. This set is also included on the box set The Yardbirds Story: The Complete Recordings 1963–1967.

At this stage of their career, the Yardbirds relied on blues standards for their live performances. This suited Clapton just fine, as he was a blues purist in 1963. They played “Smokestack Lightning,” “You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover,” “Let It Rock,” “I Wish You Would,” “Who Do You Love,” plus Keith Relf’s “Honey in Your Hips.” Even though he had only been with the group for two months, it is Clapton’s guitar that is the centerpiece of these recordings. Now almost fifty years after the fact, his talent was readily apparent, and it would quickly come to the forefront as the centerpiece of a group that had taken the first steps toward induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.