"The author is particularly good on what Kurt Cobain called 'territorial pissings'—in this case those of the ’60s blues purists who did battle with the bandwagon-jumpers in endless arguments about 'authenticity.' Stanfield is also persuasive about the long arm of the Yardbirds’ influence. David Bowie’s 1973 covers album 'Pin-Ups' featured two Yardbirds numbers. . . . [This] reconsideration of the ambition of the Yardbirds is welcome. The band was 'without peer as a live attraction,' and Stanfield makes one want to step back in time into one of those packed clubs, so hot that, as one writer of the day put it, 'you could have boiled an egg.'"

Wesley Stace | The Wall Street Journal

"Traces the band’s evolution from a blues-wailing unit to their foray into psychedelia and then to a more experimental sound after the departure of Clapton and the addition of guitarists Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. . . . Stanfield captures the emergence and evolution of 1960s British blues that will captivate classic rock fans."

Library Journal (starred review)

“Four stars. Richly detailed, nuanced account of Britain’s trailblazing beat combo. . . . Via an artful sifting of the contemporary press, coupled with a well-tuned listening ear, author Stanfield’s evocative account unpicks the contradictions at the heart of the group.”

Mark Paytress | MOJO

"[Stanfield] gives this innovative group the critical attention (best described as obsessively researched and compulsively detailed) which they so richly deserve. . . . It is, as always, a vastly entertaining romp he takes us on. From the emergence and evolution of British blues through beat music and beyond, into the outer reaches of progressive or prog-rock (long before it even had a name) and then finally into a sonics explored by several founding members subsequent to their departure from the Yardbirds. And Stanfield’s is the ideal narrative voice to tell us the behind-the-scenes story of a pop legend with several lives. . . . Fabulous pop/rock music history."

Donald Brackett | Critics at Large

"A much-needed account of one of the most important, least understood bands of the 1960s, brilliantly written and researched by Stanfield."

Peter Watts, author of "Denmark Street: London's Street of Sound"

"By using only contemporaneous media accounts as his foundational material, Stanfield has constructed an authentic, richly evocative account of the Yardbirds’ transformative journey from youthful blues merchants to pioneering pop futurists, without the distorting filters of hindsight or revisionism. Exactingly researched, it’s the definitive biography of one of the sixties’ most innovative and influential rock groups, written with style, energy and luminous clarity."

Mike Stax, editor of Ugly Things magazine

"Not so much a biography of the Yardbirds as an earnest plea that their importance in the story of UK rock be fully recognised, and a righteous endorsement of their significance alongside a comprehensive history of the development of R&B in the UK during the early 1960s. As author Stanfield points out, the Yardbirds went from R&B to psychedelia and acid rock and wound up as precursors to heavy metal via Led Zeppelin, and in the course of this bumpy journey became the training ground for Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page—not a bad legacy by any means. Stanfield’s research has involved a comprehensive trawl through the cuttings of every UK music magazine and elsewhere not only for mentions of the Yardbirds but for the growth of R&B in general. The definitive Yardbirds book."

Chris Charlesworth, author of "Just Backdated – Melody Maker: Seven Years in the Seventies"

"[This book] contains a wealth of detail that brings clarity and focus to the often complex story of The Yardbirds."

Dave Lewis, Led Zeppelin author and chronicler