Who was The Yardbirds named after?
Towards the midpoint of the 1960s, the British invasion had been going through a bit of a metamorphosis. We had already seen The Beatles become one of the biggest names in pop music, but The Rolling Stones were signalling the focus on blues as the main cultural touchstone of rock and roll. And while Mick Jagger and Keith Richards could put a great tune together, no one could touch what The Yardbirds had done in their prime.
Outside of having the greatest blues repertoire at the time, The Yardbirds were set to be a breeding ground for young guitarists. Looking through every facet of their career, having Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck joining their ranks led them to give every other rock band a crash course in how a rock and roll guitar was supposed to sound, whether it was the psychedelic ‘Heart Full of Soul’ or the pop take on blues in ‘For Your Love’.
Even if they weren’t the most popular group in the world, their legacy is still firmly etched into the walls of rock and roll Valhalla. Aside from fine-tuning their guitarists, everyone from Alice Cooper to Aerosmith would count the group as a primary influence for them picking up guitars and crafting their own legacies once the 1970s kicked off.
Regardless of their pedigree as one of the biggest blues acts in the world, The Yardbirds were about far more than just laying into a blues groove and not straying from it for the rest of their careers. No, they were far more eclectic than their peers, since their name came from one of the most inventive players on the jazz circuit.
So, who was the original Yardbird?
When first putting their name together, original member Jim McCarty remembered that the name originated from the jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker. Despite being known as an icon of bebop, he was later christened with nicknames like ‘Yardbird’, Parker ‘Bird’, or Charlie ‘Bird’ by jazz pianist Jay McShann because of his reputation as a country boy seizing the opportunity to be a travelling musician.
But given his reputation for being a monster player, it’s not hard to see the connection between what Parker was doing every night compared to what his British acolytes were feeling. Any musician picks up the reputation of playing anywhere they can, so if they had been born a few decades later, there’s a good chance that The Yardbirds would be called something like ‘The Road Dogs’ these days.
But how did Charlie Parker influence The Yardbirds’ sound?
It’s unclear how much a jazz saxophonist would have influenced a group neck-deep in the blues, but there’s always overlap when it comes to great artists. Outside of their favourite acts, everyone is going to want to learn something new when they sit with their instrument, and in terms of their raw performance ability, every guitarist of The Yardbirds had the same kind of lyrical ability when they played as Parker had when he blew into his saxophone.
Since all great bebop was based on abnormal harmony for rock and roll, it’s hard not to see both Page and Beck as extensions of what Parker had been doing, taking the basics of rock and roll and using it as a basis to tackle any genre they saw fit across their discography. As much as Parker seems like a different world compared to The Yardbirds, he taught all those snot-nosed British guitarists how important it is to be fearless when flying off the handle, much like a certain kind of bird that you’ve probably picked up on by now.
