Chris Dreja, a rhythm guitarist and later bassist who co-founded The Yardbirds, remained with the legendary British band for its entire original run and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with them, has died. He was 79.
His sister-in-law, Muriel Levy, announced the news on social media but did not did not provide a date or cause of death, other than to say he “passed away after years of health problems.” See her post below.
Dreja co-founded The Yardbirds in 1963, playing rhythm guitar alongside lead axman Tom Topham, singer Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarthy and bassist Paul Samwell-Smith. The group would go on to feature three of the most celebrated guitarists in rock history in Eric Clapton, who replaced Topham in 1993; Jeff Beck, who took over for Clapton in 1965; and future Led Zeppelin heavyweight Jimmy Page, who joined in 1966, when Samwell-Smith left.
The group scored big with its 1965 U.S. debut album For Your Love, whose title track hit the Top 10 in America and the UK. Later that year came the LP Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds, and the band scored another two-continent smash with “Heart Full of Soul.” The album also featured their take on Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man,” which made the U.S. Top 20 and remains a regular on classic rock radio, along with several of the band’s hit singles. The disc’s double-sided single “Evil Hearted You”/”Still I’m Sad” hit No, 3 in the UK.
The Yardbirds’ next U.S. release was Over Under Sideways Down, which spawned two more hit singles with “Shapes of Things” (No. 11 U.S., No. 3 UK) and the title track (No. 13 U.S., No. 10 UK). That disc and Having a Rave Up both made Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
The Yardbirds Greatest Hits arrived in 1967 and became the band’s highest-charting LP in the U.S., reaching No. 28. The group’s final album, Little Games, arrived during the Summer of Love but wasn’t a hit on either side of the pond. By then Dreja had replaced Samwell-Smith on bass.
Born on November 11, 1945, in Surrey, England, Dreja met Topham during their school days, and they began to play in bands together. They would coalesce as The Yardbirds in 1963 as Relf, McCarthy and Samwell-Smith joined up. Dreja, McCarthy and Relf would remain with the original group for its entire lifespan from 1963 until its split in July 1968.
Dreja and McCarthy revived the band in 1992, which Dreja staying until 2013 and McCarthy continuing with The Yardbirds to this day. Relf died in 1976. After the breakuo Page considered naming his nascent band The New Yardbirds but settled on Led Zeppelin.
Dreja was invited to join the new band but instead pursued a career in photography. We would shoot the back-cover pic of the group on its game-changing 1969 debut album.
Dreja went on to co-found Box of Frogs with McCarthy and Samwell-Smith in the early 1980s. The quartet, fronted by John Fiddler, released its eponymous debut in 1984, scoring an FM hit in the U.S. with “Back Where I Started,” which featured Beck on guitar.
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