Top Topham
Encyclopedia
Anthony "Top" Topham is an English
musician
, and artist
. He is best known as a blues
guitarist
, and also for being the first lead guitarist of The Yardbirds
. Topham left the band before they achieved mainstream popularity, and was replaced by Eric Clapton
, the first of three lead guitarists from the Yardbirds to gain an international reputation (the other two being Jeff Beck
and Jimmy Page
).
Aside from his musical career, Topham also works as an interior designer and painter
.
, visited the Railway Hotel in Norbiton
. The hotel's entertainment featured traditional jazz music in the upstairs lounge, and allowed budding musicians to play during the breaks. There, he and Dreja met singer and harmonica player Keith Relf
, bassist Paul Samwell-Smith
, and drummer Jim McCarty
and decided to form The Yardbirds, with Topham as lead guitarist. Two weeks later they played their first gig at the Eel Pie Island
, supporting the Cyril Davies
All-Star
Two months after the formation of the Yardbirds, Giorgio Gomelsky
offered them the residency at the Crawdaddy Club
and became their manager. As the Yardbirds had to turn professional, Topham faced parental disapproval coupled with the anxiety of abandoning his art studies. He could not devote himself to the Yardbirds full-time and he left. His replacement was a fellow art student from the same secondary school, Eric Clapton
.
Topham recalls, "I was only 15 then, three or four years younger than the rest, and there was no way my parents would let me go out five or six nights a week to play music, even though I was already bringing home double what my father was earning. I was going on to Epsom Art School and they wanted me to take it seriously. Eric Clapton was the obvious person to replace me. Later on I didn't regret leaving because they'd moved away from the blues music that I was interested in. Even if I'd stayed with them to become professional I think I would have left later for the same reasons Eric left."
He went on to Art College where he formed bands with his friend Duster Bennett
. He joined Winston G and the Wicked (later renamed The Fox), playing alongside Marc Bolan
.
After a final gig with Winston G at London's Roundhouse
, Topham revived his association with Bennett, recording a live album
with him. This led to an introduction to Mike Vernon
and his Blue Horizon
label. Topham became a session musician
for Blue Horizon, playing with Peter Green
and Christine McVie
.
Topham recorded a solo album
for Blue Horizon, Ascension Heights. While Bennett was touring with John Mayall
in 1970, Topham fell seriously ill and had to abandon the music industry again.
Upon his recovery two years later, he entered the fine arts business but a chance meeting with Jim McCarty, led Topham to return to the blues in 1988. The Topham-McCarty Band was formed and played for two years until Topham decided in July 1990 to pursue country blues
. He sessioned on 12-string guitar for the track "Broken Waltz Time" on the Bill Morrissey
album, Night Train (Philo Records). Later, Topham and Jim McCarty teamed again up for Pete Brown
's double album
, Rattlesnake Guitar (Coast-to-Coast Records).
In the 2000s, Topham guested with the latest edition of the Yardbirds under the co-leadership of McCarty and Dreja, and performed with John Idan in sporadic concerts of his own. He also played alongside eminent boogie-woogie
pianist Bob Hall.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
. He is best known as a blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
, and also for being the first lead guitarist of The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
. Topham left the band before they achieved mainstream popularity, and was replaced by Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, the first of three lead guitarists from the Yardbirds to gain an international reputation (the other two being Jeff Beck
Jeff Beck
Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...
and Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
).
Aside from his musical career, Topham also works as an interior designer and painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
.
Biography
In May 1963, Topham and his friend at secondary school, Chris DrejaChris Dreja
Chris Dreja was the rhythm guitarist, and later bassist, in the 1960s British band, The Yardbirds.-Early life:...
, visited the Railway Hotel in Norbiton
Norbiton
Norbiton is a place in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, London. It lies approximately east of Kingston upon Thames's town centre, and from Charing Cross. Its main landmarks include Kingston Hospital and Kingsmeadow football stadium, which is currently used for the home matches of both...
. The hotel's entertainment featured traditional jazz music in the upstairs lounge, and allowed budding musicians to play during the breaks. There, he and Dreja met singer and harmonica player Keith Relf
Keith Relf
Keith William Relf , was a musician best known as the lead singer and harmonica player of The Yardbirds. After the Yardbirds broke up Relf formed the acoustic duo Together, with fellow Yardbird Jim McCarty, followed by Renaissance, which also featured his sister, singer Jane Relf, then hard rock...
, bassist Paul Samwell-Smith
Paul Samwell-Smith
Paul Samwell-Smith is best known as a founding member and bassist of the 1960s English band, The Yardbirds, a group that spawned such noteworthy musicians as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page...
, and drummer Jim McCarty
Jim McCarty
Jim McCarty is an English musician, best known as the drummer for The Yardbirds and Renaissance.-Early life:...
and decided to form The Yardbirds, with Topham as lead guitarist. Two weeks later they played their first gig at the Eel Pie Island
Eel Pie Island
Eel Pie Island is an island in the River Thames in England at Twickenham, in the Borough of Richmond upon Thames, London. It is situated on the Tideway and can be reached only by footbridge or boat...
, supporting the Cyril Davies
Cyril Davies
Cyril Davies was one of the first British blues harmonica players and blues musician.-Biography:Born at St Mildred's, 15 Hawthorn Drive, Willowbank, Denham, Buckinghamshire, near London, he was the son of William Albert Davies, a labourer, and his wife Margaret Mary...
All-Star
Two months after the formation of the Yardbirds, Giorgio Gomelsky
Giorgio Gomelsky
Giorgio Gomelsky is a filmmaker, impresario, music manager, songwriter and record producer. He owned the Crawdaddy Club where The Rolling Stones were house band, and he was involved with their early management. He hired The Yardbirds as a replacement and managed them. He was also their...
offered them the residency at the Crawdaddy Club
Crawdaddy Club
The Crawdaddy Club was a 1960s music venue in Richmond, Surrey, England. Several other seminal British blues and rhythm and blues acts also played there....
and became their manager. As the Yardbirds had to turn professional, Topham faced parental disapproval coupled with the anxiety of abandoning his art studies. He could not devote himself to the Yardbirds full-time and he left. His replacement was a fellow art student from the same secondary school, Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
.
Topham recalls, "I was only 15 then, three or four years younger than the rest, and there was no way my parents would let me go out five or six nights a week to play music, even though I was already bringing home double what my father was earning. I was going on to Epsom Art School and they wanted me to take it seriously. Eric Clapton was the obvious person to replace me. Later on I didn't regret leaving because they'd moved away from the blues music that I was interested in. Even if I'd stayed with them to become professional I think I would have left later for the same reasons Eric left."
He went on to Art College where he formed bands with his friend Duster Bennett
Duster Bennett
Anthony "Duster" Bennett was a British blues singer and musician. Based around London, his first album Smiling Like I'm Happy saw him playing as a one-man band, playing a bass drum with his foot and blowing a harmonica on a rack while strumming a 1952 Les Paul Goldtop guitar given to him in 1968...
. He joined Winston G and the Wicked (later renamed The Fox), playing alongside Marc Bolan
Marc Bolan
Marc Bolan was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and poet. He is best known as the founder, frontman, lead singer & guitarist for T. Rex, but also a successful solo artist...
.
After a final gig with Winston G at London's Roundhouse
Roundhouse
A roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables...
, Topham revived his association with Bennett, recording a live album
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...
with him. This led to an introduction to Mike Vernon
Mike Vernon (producer)
Mike Vernon is an English record producer. He produced albums for British blues artists and groups during the late 1960s, working with the Bluesbreakers, David Bowie, Duster Bennett, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, John Mayall, Christine McVie and...
and his Blue Horizon
Blue Horizon
Blue Horizon was a British blues record label founded by Mike Vernon in the mid 1960s.Its roots lay in Vernon's mail order label Purdah Records, which released just four 7" singles; including "Flapjacks" by Stone's Masonry ; and another by John Mayall and Eric Clapton "Bernard Jenkins", and...
label. Topham became a session musician
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
for Blue Horizon, playing with Peter Green
Peter Green (musician)
Peter Green is a British blues-rock guitarist and the founder of the band Fleetwood Mac...
and Christine McVie
Christine McVie
Christine McVie is an English rock singer, keyboardist, and songwriter. Her primary fame came as a member of the British/American rock band Fleetwood Mac, though she has also released three solo albums...
.
Topham recorded a solo album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
for Blue Horizon, Ascension Heights. While Bennett was touring with John Mayall
John Mayall
John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...
in 1970, Topham fell seriously ill and had to abandon the music industry again.
Upon his recovery two years later, he entered the fine arts business but a chance meeting with Jim McCarty, led Topham to return to the blues in 1988. The Topham-McCarty Band was formed and played for two years until Topham decided in July 1990 to pursue country blues
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
. He sessioned on 12-string guitar for the track "Broken Waltz Time" on the Bill Morrissey
Bill Morrissey
Bill Morrissey was an American folk singer/songwriter from New Hampshire. Many of his songs reflect the harsh realities of life in crumbling New England mill towns.-Career:Morrissey was born in Hartford, Connecticut...
album, Night Train (Philo Records). Later, Topham and Jim McCarty teamed again up for Pete Brown
Pete Brown
Peter Ronald Brown is an English performance poet and lyricist.Best known for his collaborations with Jack Bruce, Brown also worked with The Battered Ornaments, formed his own group Pete Brown & Piblokto!, and worked with Graham Bond and Phil Ryan. Brown also writes film scores and formed a film...
's double album
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....
, Rattlesnake Guitar (Coast-to-Coast Records).
In the 2000s, Topham guested with the latest edition of the Yardbirds under the co-leadership of McCarty and Dreja, and performed with John Idan in sporadic concerts of his own. He also played alongside eminent boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
pianist Bob Hall.
Discography
- 2008 — The Complete Blue HorizonBlue HorizonBlue Horizon was a British blues record label founded by Mike Vernon in the mid 1960s.Its roots lay in Vernon's mail order label Purdah Records, which released just four 7" singles; including "Flapjacks" by Stone's Masonry ; and another by John Mayall and Eric Clapton "Bernard Jenkins", and...
Sessions — Top Topham - producer : Mike VernonMike Vernon (producer)Mike Vernon is an English record producer. He produced albums for British blues artists and groups during the late 1960s, working with the Bluesbreakers, David Bowie, Duster Bennett, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, John Mayall, Christine McVie and...