Top Topham, Yardbirds co-founder and the band’s original lead guitarist – obituary

Top Topham, who has died aged 75, was a founding member of the Yardbirds, and their first lead guitarist; he formed the band with Keith Relf, Paul Samwell-Smith, Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty in London in May 1963 but left, still aged only 16, a few months later. His replacement was Eric Clapton, his old schoolmate, who was succeeded in turn by Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

Anthony Topham was born on July 3 1947 in Southall, west London; his father John was an artist while his mother Daphne worked for the Home Office. He attended Hollyfield School in Surbiton, where Clapton and Topham’s good friend Chris Dreja were also pupils; all three played concerts in the school hall at various junctures.

In May 1963 Topham and Dreja went to a gig at the Railway Hotel in nearby Norbiton. The venue leaned heavily towards trad jazz but allowed up-and-coming blues musicians to play in the interval. Up on stage that night were the singer and harmonica player Relf, bassist Samwell-Smith, and drummer McCarty, and the five young men decided to form a band.

Calling themselves the Blue-Sounds, they played Kingston School of Art supporting Cyril Davies, the local blues hero, but soon changed their name to the Yardbirds, inspired by the “rail yard hobos” in Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road, and by Charlie Parker’s nickname, which was usually shortened to “Bird”. They took over from the Rolling Stones as house band at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, playing songs by the likes of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley.

But as he was only 16 Topham’s parents were unhappy at the six late nights a week in smoky clubs – even though he was already earning twice what his father was making – and in October 1963 Topham quit. Many years later he reflected: “If I had stayed, I think I would have been pushing, like Eric Clapton did, to keep the blues as the focus.” (Clapton left in 1965 as the Yardbirds became more pop-orientated.)

Topham went on to art college, where he played in bands with his friend Duster Bennett, and later joined a mod/soul band, Winston G and the Wicked, before rejoining Bennett and recording a live album with him.

He became a session musician for the Blue Horizon label, playing alongside Peter Green and Christine Perfect, the former Chicken Shack vocalist who would shortly marry the bassist John McVie and go on to join Fleetwood Mac.

In 1968, the Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page was in the process of forming a band which at that point he planned to call the New Yardbirds. He sent Topham a telegram asking if he would be interested in joining as second guitarist, but Topham turned him down, busy as he was recording his own album, Ascension Heights, and about to go on tour with Christine Perfect. Page went on to form his band, which was eventually named Led Zeppelin.

In 1970, Topham fell ill and exited the music industry once more. He was out of action for two years, after which he began working as a successful artist and interior designer.

Then in 1988 the blues called him back. He bumped into his old Yardbirds bandmate Jim McCarty and they formed the Topham-McCarty Band, playing together for two years. Topham also worked as a session musician, then in 1997 rejoined McCarty for the track Drifting, on the album Rattlesnake Guitar: The Music of Peter Green.

He joined the Yardbirds’ occasional reunions, and spent two years from 2013 as an official member of the band – but said he had never regretted his early departure. “They produced three or four really good records and wrote some really interesting material, some very beautiful songs,” he told Guitar magazine in 2011. “I can’t say that I ever loved the music particularly. If I’m going to be absolutely honest, it wasn’t my kind of band.”

Top Topham became a member of Subud, a spiritual movement that originated in Indonesia in the 1920s and has its roots in Sufism, changing his name to Sanderson Rasjid. He is survived by three daughters and seven sons.

Top Topham, born July 3 1947, died January 23 2023