July 20, 2009

Mod-A-Day: Yardbirds

There are only a few things one needs to know about the Yardirds. They were hands down the best of the blues-rock bands of the sixties, and they were the birthplace of three of the greatest rock guitarists -- Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page -- and one of the criminally underrated singers of all time, Keith Relf. Relf always lived in the shadow of the band's phenomenal guitartists and never was able to get out from under that before he died young in the mid-70s the victim of electrocution from playing an improperly grounded guitar. The track here is just one of dozens and dozens of fabulous blues songs turned into hip-shakin rock and roll numbers. "Dust my Broom" was recorded for the BBC in 1966 with Jeff Beck on guitar at the time.

Yardbirds -- Dust My Broom