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The Yardbirds

THE YARDBIRDS

YEAR

1992

INDUCTED BY

The Edge (U2)

CATEGORY

Performers

Short-lived but influential, the Yardbirds blazed a trail for new genres and gave some of rock’s best guitarists their start.

They started as a blues cover band, but their rave ups and innovations in feedback and distortion shaped such diverse genres as psychedelic rock, prog rock and punk.

Chris Dreja

Chris Dreja

Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck

Jim McCarty

Jim McCarty

Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page

Keith Relf

Keith Relf

Paul Samwell-Smith

Paul Samwell-Smith

HALL OF FAME
ESSAY

By Michael Hill

They were the progenitors of psychedelic pop.

Their sound inspired young Americans to pick up guitars and head for the garage. They launched the careers of three of rock’s most celebrated guitarists —Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page — and set the stage, halfway through the Sixties, for the album-oriented hard rock of the Seventies.

But in 1964 at London’s Marquee Club, kicking off the live recording of their British debut album, they were introduced as “the most blueswailing Yardbirds.”

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Class of 1992
In a million garages, young men were hunched over Les Paul copies, trying to find any stray semitone that Beck, Clapton, or Page hadn't used.
The Edge
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