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YOU WONT BELIEVE: 2 - What They Never Told You

“I suppose I felt that I deserved it for the amount of seriousness that I’d put into it. My head was huge!” “Clapton is God” graffiti made him a guitar legend when he was barely 20 – he says he was far from uncomfortable with the adulation at the time

Speaking to Guitar World in 1994, Eric Clapton said that at the time – though he would grow more humble over the decades – he was “unbearably arrogant”

Guitar World

“Many names are familiar; a lot of material isn’t. An evening in with the lava lamp beckons”: Middle Earth: The Soundtrack Of London’s Legendary Psychedelic Club 1967–1969

Middle Earth: The Soundtrack Of London’s Legendary Psychedelic Club features David Bowie, Family Brian Auger, Denny Laine, Yardbirds, Deviants, The Who and more

Louder

“Jimmy was still playing the Telecasters that he played in the Yardbirds. I laid it on him and said, ‘Try this out.’ I gave him a good deal, about 1,200 bucks”: How one of rock's most storied Les Pauls changed hands from one guitar hero to another

Page had known Joe Walsh, then a budding guitar hero with the James Gang, since his pre-Zeppelin days with the Yardbirds. And Walsh had a proposition for him

Guitar World

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“A 10cc reunion? It’s a hard no to that, I’m afraid”: Why Graham Gouldman is one of Britain’s greatest songwriters – even if people don’t know it

The former 10cc man has written for The Yardbirds, The Hollies and more – and now he’s taking his songs on the road

Louder

“Somebody will get mad at me, but it’s the closest thing to Beck, Clapton and Page. What was in the water we were all drinking?” Billy Corgan names himself and two other ’90s guitar gods as the ‘metal Yardbirds’

The Smashing Pumpkins frontman shared near-identical early experiences with two other players close to his local area, but they all ended up going down different avenues – not unlike the Yardbird legends

Guitar World

‘We took them back to the good times: when it started’ – the inside story of Becoming Led Zeppelin

INTERVIEW: Stevie Chick talks to the filmmakers who persuaded the hard rock giants to revisit their early days and open their archives

The Independent UK

“Stevie Ray Vaughan was a little worse for wear. He was eating KFC out of a box and then ate the box as well”: Jeff Beck’s wild tales of Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen and Frank Zappa

Sharing the stage with Page, giving Hendrix a guitar, being mistaken for Jagger – these were some of Jeff Beck‘s most memorable friendships

Louder

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“The McLaughlin Strat was stolen after Beck absentmindedly left it in an open-top hot rod”: The highlights of the Jeff Beck guitar auction – from the story of Seymour Duncan’s Tele-Gib hybrid to his legendary Oxblood Gibson Les Paul

Christie’s Jeff Beck Auction offers a revealing look at numerous iconic instruments from the guitar hero’s entire career – from the Yardbirds to Johnny Depp

Guitar World

“Our best friends were drug dealers. We identified with them because we felt like outcasts, menaces to society”: The chaotic story of Aerosmith’s early years

The birth of American rock’s original Crazy Gang

Louder

“I bumped into Eric in a club and I thought we were going to get into a fight! But he went, ‘Hello, man!’ and gave me a big hug”: Jeff Beck took the Yardbirds in a new direction, but the constant Eric Clapton comparisons took years to shake

In the first stages of his career, Beck's relationship with Clapton was just as much (if not more) defined by Clapton's already-legendary reputation than it was by the man himself

Guitar World

‘John Belushi always used to try to get off with my ex-wife. I’d say: ‘John, I can hear you, you fat git’”: Ronnie Wood’s wild tales of Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan and Axl Rose

Living with Hendrix? Jamming with Dylan? Giving Axl relationship advice? Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has done it all

Louder

“Jimmy Page allowed Eric to unleash the power he had”: How Eric Clapton helped reinvent the blues with The Bluesbreakers’ landmark Beano album

The epic story of John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers’ 1966 blues rock milestone Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton

Louder

"I remember Jimmy yelling at us and calling us hooligans": Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Jeff Beck and the chaotic session that sowed the seeds for Led Zeppelin

In a small London studio, two Yardbirds, one member of The Who and a pair of passing session maestros united to record a spontaneous instrumental track. Things would never be the same again.

Louder

“One of our first and most important Cry Baby artists”: Eric Clapton was one of the Cry Baby’s earliest champions – now he’s been awarded a gold signature version of his favorite wah pedal

The special edition wah will help raise funds for Clapton’s Crossroads Centre

Guitar World

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Jeff Beck's Guitar Collection Up For Auction At Christie's

Legendary guitarist Jeff Beck's iconic collection of guitars, including a 1954 Gibson Les Paul, up for auction at Christie's. Don't miss this opportunity t...

The Independent UK

Jeff Beck was one of rock's greatest guitarists. Now his instruments are up for auction

Instruments owned by the late Jeff Beck, one of rock's greatest guitarists, are going up for auction

Guitar World

“I might have done better in the Bluesbreakers than in the Yardbirds, but I certainly wouldn't have had the same kind of free rein to experiment”: Jeff Beck on his relationship with Eric Clapton, jamming with Hendrix, and turning down John Mayall

In a 2010 chat with GW, the always creatively restless virtuoso discusses his love of John McLaughlin, what he sought out to do when venturing into the world of classical music, and the musical icon he wished he had had the chance to collaborate with

Guitar World

“The Yardbirds had no need to worry about Clapton’s departure – they had Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page onboard”: The history of the ’60s British blues boom –the movement that carried a tidal wave of guitar heroes across the Atlantic

With the death of John Mayall in July, we lost one of the architects of the '60s blues boom that transformed Britain’s music scene and restored America’s blues guitar pioneers to their rightful place. Here's how a grassroots scene changed the world

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Louder

"Like a starving lion in a chicken coop": The Yardbirds stretch out on the raw and thrilling The Ultimate Live At The BBC

Undervalued pioneers The Yardbirds rock the corporation on 90-track collection

Louder

"If you were playing with two other rock bands, you wanted to be the band that people remembered when they walked out": How Aerosmith got their wings and flew

With their label ready to drop them after a so-so first album, Aerosmith clung on, dreamed on, and recorded a second that gave them lift-off: Get Your Wings

Guitar World

“He said, ‘Caleb, I like what you're doing. I've got all this work lined up for Jimmy Page, but he doesn't want to do it anymore’”: How Elton John and Hall & Oates guitarist Caleb Quaye inherited the Led Zeppelin legend’s studio work

Jimmy Page decided to quit his lucrative career as a session guitarist in favor of joining the Yardbirds, and Quaye was right on time to take his spot

Louder

"I was very green and it was a tentative start, but we knew we had something":The complicated birth of Led Zeppelin

How the most creatively fertile era in the history of British Music produced the most important hard rock band of all time, Led Zeppelin

Louder

"I stood right at the front and watched. There was hardly anyone there": Behind the scenes at Led Zeppelin's first UK show, told by the people who saw it

When people turned up to a Newcastle ballroom, they expected to see The New Yardbirds. Instead, they saw the future of rock'n'roll

Guitar World

“This shadowy cut features what could be perhaps Page’s last great guitar solo”: Jimmy Page’s 10 greatest guitar solos – that weren’t in Led Zeppelin

Page had a wealth of fine leads in his sprawling pre- and post-Zeppelin career – and some of these are Firm favorites…

Guitar World

“Jeff was the ultimate ‘tinkerer’, always changing the look, feel and sound of his guitars”: Up close with the Gibson Custom Shop reissue of Jeff Beck’s ‘YardBurst’ 1959 Les Paul Standard

We take a closer look at another stunner from the Murphy Lab that celebrates a pivotal moment in rock history, and one of its greatest ever players

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