组建
早期的The YardBirds是一支典型的现场型乐队，Clapton一直被人们津津乐道的现场吉他演奏就是在The YardBirds最早进行演出的俱乐部Crawdaddy里开始成形的。在那里他们遇到了Rolling Stones的前经纪人Giorgio Gomelsky，并请他掌管乐队事务。这位交际广泛、善于理财，并且精通音乐艺术的经纪人给乐队早期客观上的发展带来了许多好处。
这期间乐队成员们努力使各自的技巧臻于完美，并不断完善着队员间的配合与默契以在潜移默化中确立乐队风格。这里有必要誊出笔墨来讲一下本不该被乐队三位著名吉它手的光芒遮掩的其他四位成员的音乐造诣。

谢幕
1966年12月22日，The YardBirds首次录制完成没有Beck参与的两首单"You Stole My Love"和"L.S.D."。1967年春天，乐队推出单曲"Little Games"。7月，推出以这首单曲命名的乐队最后一张专辑《Little Games》。
《Little Games》包括十首曲目，是The YardBirds最为出色的一张专辑，每一支歌曲都可令现今被用泛滥的轰炸机般嘶鸣遮掩底虚的音乐细节的另类摇滚侵淫得麻木不仁的耳朵悚然而惊。在"Glimpses”和“Tinker，Tailor， Soldier，Sailor"两首作品中，Page都运用了"拉吉它"的手法，特别在"Glimpses"中这种蜂鸣般持续而充满焦灼感的声效隐藏在其它乐器的鸣奏之后，加上Keith Relf对一首诗机械冰冷的诵读，将整部音乐营造为一个辉煌的幻觉景象。熟悉Zeppelin音乐家的人一定可以从由Page独奏的曲目"White Summer"中找到似曾相识的感觉，的确，Zepplin的两首经典曲目"Black Mountain Side"与"Over The Hills And Far Away"即分别由"White Summer"中的两段主玩具旋律改编而成。同Jimi Hendrix一样，Page的吉它声里荡漾的亦是隶属灵魂世界的超自然气息。这张专辑里，我们还可以听到同名歌曲中回肠荡气的弦乐；"I Remember The Night"扑面而至压抑而低缓的爵士风格；"Little Soldier Boy"里McCatry急促紧张的军鼓声明；以及"Drinking Muddy Water"中乐队对自己根源的R&B风格炉火纯青的回归。
"Little Games"既是The YardBirds的顶点，亦是终点。1968年7月，乐队举行了他们的最后一次演出。随后除Page之外的三名成员先后离队，形只影单的Page刚组建Led Zeppelin时曾以"The New Yardbirds"为队名，可见他对The YardBirds的留恋。总之，这只稚鸟终于结束了它传奇的飞行，在摇滚史上留下了永难磨灭的五彩斑斓的身姿。
"几乎没有任何乐队能够象The Yardbirds一样具有如此错综复杂且令人难以记怀的经历"。这是1992年The YardBirds入摇滚名人堂时主持人说的话，也许还该加上几句：对各种乐器，特别是吉它的技术性重塑，配器上交响乐般的繁鞠与精妙，鼻祖身份的噪音摇滚实践，等等。The YardBirds开启了多种摇滚乐风的大门——迷幻摇滚、艺术摇滚及绵延不绝的英伦吉它音乐。The YardBirds最伟大之外在于从未间断的充满灵性的自我否认和勇于开拓，及从对音乐不染尘埃的执着与认真态度上体现出对艺术宗教般的忠贞不渝。在这支从未游离现在被视为"过时"的R&B风格的60年代乐队身上，我们几乎可以找到90年代英伦摇滚乐中缺少的所有东西。

乐队介绍是每个乐队贴吧必不可少的，做一下搬运工。另请吧主 @YardbirdRY 把另几个帖子里的广告黄土删除一下。

随后除Page之外的三名成员先后离队，形只影单的Page刚组建Led Zeppelin时曾以"The New Yardbirds"为队名，可见他对The YardBirds的留恋。
我觉得这里不太对吧，wikipedia上好像是说The New Yardbirds是Page为完成The Yardbirds剩下的合约而组建的……我英语不好，勿喷
Jimmy Page and Chris Dreja, with a tour scheduled for the Autumn in Scandinavia, saw the break-up as an opportunity to put a new lineup together with Page as producer and Grant as manager. Procol Harum's B.J. Wilson, Paul Francis, and session man Clem Cattini, who'd guested on more than a few Yardbirds tracks under Most's supervision, were considered as drummers. Young vocalist and composer Terry Reid was asked to replace Relf but declined because of a new recording contract with Most and recommended the then-unknown Robert Plant.Plant, in turn, recommended his childhood friend John Bonham on drums.Dreja bowed out to pursue a career as a rock photographer and bassist/keyboardist/arranger John Paul Jones—who, like Cattini, had worked with Page on countless sessions, including several with The Yardbirds—was recruited.Rehearsals began in August; in early September, Page's revised Yardbirds embarked on the Scandinavian tour after which the group returned to England to produce an album, still billed as The Yardbirds as late as October 1968.
While Page's new roster still played a few songs from the Yardbirds' canon—usually "Train Kept A-Rollin'," "Dazed and Confused," or "For Your Love"—a name (and identity) change was in order as the Autumn of 1968 drew to a close. This may have been motivated, at least in part, by a cease-and-desist order from Dreja, who claimed that he maintained legal rights to the "Yardbirds" name;other reports indicate it was Page's desire to wipe the slate clean.Whatever the reason, the band restyled itself "Led Zeppelin", a term believed to have been coined, originally, by Keith Moon in reference to the supergroup that had performed on "Beck's Bolero". Moon had quipped that a Beck/Jones/Hopkins/Moon/Page lineup would go down "like a lead zeppelin." The spelling of "lead" was changed to avoid confusion over its pronunciation. This effectively closed the books on the Yardbirds—at least by name—for the next 24 years

睡不着把这贴子翻出来又看了一遍，对其中的内容又产生了一些疑问，比如文中提到Clapton在乐队录制第一张唱片前就已离队，但我在听Five Live Yardbirds时很清楚的听到乐队成员介绍时主音吉他手不是姐夫贝壳而是“Eric 'Slowhand' Clapton”，跟文中说的不一样啊？

文中关于Clapton的一些地方写得明显不对。Clapton是在1965年二月才离队的，之前已录制了Five Live Yardbirds,For Your Love,Having A Rave Up三张专辑（录制Five Live Yardbirds时Beck根本没加入Yardbirds）

乐队的主音吉他碉堡，
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一支被誉为贫民甲壳虫的乐队，badfinger.虽然命运凄惨多折，优秀的作品却保留了下来。如果你也喜欢badfinger，贴吧欢迎您的到来～
　　　--来自badfinger吧务组。