Eric Clapton has announced that he’s heading out onto the road for a US tour in September.

It’s a string of six dates, all in the Midwest. The tour starts in Detroit on September 6 and includes shows in Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul before winding up at the Kansas City T-Mobile Center on September 17.

Fellow blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan will be the special guest at all shows, while Clapton's band is set to include guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, drummer Sonny Emory, keyboardists Chris Stainton and Tim Carmon, bassist Nathan East, with the backing vocalists being Katie Kissoon and Sharon White.

Before then, the 80-year-old guitarist has a run of European gigs in April and May. He plays two dates at the Guildford G Live on April 20 and 21. Following those he heads out to the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Spain and Germany.

Clapton has one other UK date this year – at the Royal Sandringham Estate on August 23. Announcing the date a few weeks back, the promoter Giles Cooper of HeritageLive said: "Eric Clapton is one of the greatest musicians of all time. It’s a dream come true for all of us at HeritageLive Festivals to have him play at The Sandringham Estate for us next August. It’s going to be such a special and unique event - one of those gigs where you say in years to come, ‘I was there!’. We just can’t wait!"

With tickets for the US dates, the relevant dates are today (March 3) for artist pre-sale and March 5 for Live Nation pre-sale. General tickets go on sale March 6 at 10am local time. For more details click here.

Legendary folk singer Donovan knows a thing or two about great guitar players. In the ’60s he had Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck playing on his records. He also witnessed Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton performing at their peak.

Speaking to MusicRadar, Donovan discusses that period and his connection to those groundbreaking musicians.

“I loved Hendrix,” he says. “My friend Gypsy Dave and I were the first ones to say hello to Jimi when Chas Chandler, the bass player of The Animals, flew him in from America.

“And of course The Yardbirds had three super guitar players. One was called Jeff Beck, one was called Jimmy Page, and one was called Eric Clapton."

He continues: “Jimmy Page loved my music from day one. Jimmy was on [Donovan’s 1966 hit] Sunshine Superman, and one time when I visited him at his house in Windsor he showed me an EP of mine that was only released in France, and one of the songs on it was one I'd forgotten I'd written. It was called Every Man Has His Chain. Jimmy showed me that EP and he said, ‘Don, I’ve followed you from day one. I love your music, Don, and I will be there for you whenever you want me.’

“So Jimmy followed the unfolding Donovan story, and it made sense that at one point Jimmy would like his own band.”

When Page formed Led Zeppelin – originally under the name of The New Yardbirds – he enlisted another former session musician, John Paul Jones, who had worked with Donovan.

“JPJ – John Paul Jones – could put arrangements together,” Donovan says. “So Page said him, ‘Will you please join me and help me start a new band?’ These super session guys all wanted to do their own bands, but it’s not easy.

“I mean, who knows what was in Page in JP J’s brains when they were talking to each other about starting a band, but when Page asked JPJ he was begging him – because he knew JPJ was a talent beyond any other talent that anybody knew about.”

Donovan says of the three legendary guitarists who had played in The Yardbirds at various stages: “Clapton chose pure blues, and he hated when the volume went up. He actually said to Jimmy Page and Beck, ‘You're too fucking loud!’ Because he’s a purist.”

He also fondly recalls a connection with another iconic guitar hero – Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple.

“Ritchie called me up and said, ‘We just love your stuff. Do you mind if I record your song? The song was Lalena, which was a ballad, and when Deep Purple recorded it I was so honoured.”

Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Dolly Parton, Brian May, Nile Rodgers, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton are among the many artists paying tribute to a genuine rock ’n’ roll innovator in the new book Buddy Holly: Words Of Love.

With cover art by another Rolling Stone, Ronnie Wood, the hardback edition of Words Of Love is out now.

The concept for the book originated from The Who singer Roger Daltrey, who says: “Words Of Love is a perfect title for this stunning and definitive history of Buddy Holly. As well as being one of the great rock ’n’ roll pioneers, Buddy wrote and sang some of the most beautiful and enduring ballads about love.”

In the foreword, Paul McCartney writes: “The first time I ever heard Buddy Holly was when the record That’ll Be The Day came out. It sounded energetic. I thought it was a black band and we couldn’t figure out how they did it.

“It was Buddy Holly and the Crickets . He was playing the lead guitar, which we loved, but he was also singing it, which we loved, and he’d written it, which we loved. So on a number of levels he was very inspirational . He became a hero for us and gave us the idea to go and do it ourselves.

McCartney concludes: “He was a great hero to all of us, and because he wore glasses this even allowed John Lennon to wear his in public and not have to whip them off if there was a girl passing by!”

Elsewhere there are tributes from many other famous artists from various generations — from Cliff Richard and Van Morrison to Ed Sheeran and Sam Fender.

Mick Jagger says: “To English people Buddy Holly was an enormous inspiration. He was a songwriter, which Elvis wasn’t. And he wrote very simple songs, sort of lesson one in songwriting. Great songs, which had simple changes and nice melodies and changes of tempo and all that. You could learn from Buddy Holly how to write songs. He was a beautiful writer.”

Jagger’s bandmate Keith Richards adds: “Maybe it was the fact of doing Buddy’s song Not Fade Away that gave us that extra propagation to start writing our own stuff. I think Buddy’s inspiration was that he wrote his own songs, which influenced The Beatles incredibly, and it slowly dawned on us that it would be great if one of us could write some songs, and two of us would be fantastic.

“He had an influence on everybody. Everybody who is playing now and just coming up because of what they’ve listened to — it’s been handed on. Buddy passed it on via The Beatles, via us, everything he did.”

Brian May comments: “Buddy Holly was my absolute hero as a kid. Those first Crickets singles on 45 rpm discs with black labels, slipped into brown paper sleeves, were probably the most exciting acquisitions of my whole childhood . They’re still some of my most prized possessions.

"The moment when I learned of Buddy’s tragic death remains etched indelibly in my mind. In that movement of grief, I think something inside me decided that the world that Buddy Holly and the Crickets had carved out was where I wanted to be.”

And there is this testimony from Eric Clapton: “Buddy Holly made a very, very big impression on me. The first Fender I ever saw was the bass that the guy in Jerry Lee Lewis’ band was playing when they made the film clip for his song Great Balls Of Fire. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.

"The next thing you know, these guys in England were using it, and Buddy Holly was using a Sunburst. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It was like seeing an instrument from outer space and I said to myself, ‘That’s the future — that’s what I want.'”

Words Of Love: Buddy Holly is available now via Amazon

As backstories go it’s up there with the best: mercurially-gifted superstar guitarist with a passion for the blues falls hopelessly in love with the wife of his best friend, an ex-Beatle, then writes a song about her that goes on to become one of the greatest songs ever written. What’s more, it contains one of the killer guitar riffs of all time.

The song was Layla, the guitarist was Eric Clapton and he wrote it about his unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, wife of George Harrison.

Layla is Clapton’s masterpiece, a proclamation of love which unveils his agony and heartache at falling in love with the wife of his best friend. It’s also a song that, remains an exhilarating and timeless classic — 55 years since it was recorded.

Along with Clapton there were three other pivotal figures involved in the creation of Layla.

The first is drummer Jim Gordon, who is credited as Clapton’s co-writer on the song after he penned its beautifully evocative piano coda (Gordon was a troubled figure who ended his life in prison after murdering his mother in a psychotic episode).

The second is Duane Allman, whose inspired playing elevates this song to real heights. It was Allman who came up with and played the iconic riff.

Finally, there is producer Tom Dowd, the most unsung of them all.

Dowd had worked with artists such as John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin.

He had also worked with Cream and The Allman Brothers Band — which is how he knew exactly what Eric Clapton and Duane Allman were capable of.

Criteria Studios in Miami was the location for the recording of Layla, and the album from which it came, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.

The recording took place in autumn 1970, and for Clapton it was the beginning of a whole new chapter.

Ever since Cream disbanded in late 1968 and the short-lived Blind Faith imploded the following year, Clapton had strived to distance himself from the role of guitar hero.

He had ventured up to Woodstock in New York State to visit The Band and see if he could be a part of what they were doing.

"What I appreciated about The Band was that they were more concerned with songs and singing,” Clapton told Darrin Fox of Guitar Player magazine in 2001. “The guitar was put back into perspective as being [the] accompaniment. That suited me well, because I had gotten so tired of the virtuosity… long, boring guitar solos."

Clapton went on to tour small UK venues as guitarist with Delaney & Bonnie in late 1969.

Such anonymity and playing for the song was arguably the very last thing that Clapton fans wanted. But it suited him fine.

With the same ethos in mind, he assembled a new band, based around Delaney & Bonnie’s former rhythm section: Carl Radle on bass, Jim Gordon on drums and Bobby Whitlock on keyboards and vocals.

Clapton arrived at the name Derek And The Dominos and welcomed the fact that there was absolutely no mention of him in the band’s name.

This was the band that arrived at Criteria Studios in Miami in the summer of 1970.

On 26 August that year, Tom Dowd suggested that he, Clapton and the group attended an Allman Brothers Band concert at the Miami Beach Convention Centre.

“They were already playing when we got there and I could hear this amazing, wailing guitar from about half a mile away,” recalled Clapton in an Uncut interview, published in October 2006. “I sat on the grass in front of the stage and was mesmerised. After the show, I asked them back to the studio to hear what we’d done and I took to Duane straight away.”

Duane Allman became a guest member of Derek And The Dominos — and he and Clapton immediately gelled.

They were mutual fans, and when they plugged in at Criteria, creative sparks began to fly.

"There had to be some sort of telepathy going on because I've never seen spontaneous inspiration happen at that rate and level,” Tom Dowd told Guitar World magazine in 2012. “One of them would play something, and the other reacted instantaneously.

“Never once did either of them have to say, 'Could you play that again, please?'. It was like two hands in a glove. And they got tremendously off on playing with each other."

The recording of Layla took place on 9 September, 1970.

The song was partially inspired by a book Clapton had been given called The Story Of Layla And Manjun, a Persian story about being driven mad by falling in love with a beautiful, unavailable woman.

For Clapton, the woman in question was Pattie Boyd.

“I loved the name and I had the main body of a song that was obviously about Pattie,” he told Uncut magazine. “But I knew it needed something else. A motif.”

The song was originally conceived by Clapton as a ballad. But when Allman came up with the song’s signature guitar riff, everything changed.

Clapton recalled: “I realised we had something after Duane Allman came up with the riff… that was pretty much a direct lift from an Albert King song, As The Years Go Passing By, from the Stax album Born Under A Bad Sign.

“It’s a slow blues, and there’s a line that goes, ‘There is nothing I can do if you leave me here to cry’, and we used that.”

This soaring seven-note riff followed by five-notes on slide still sounds exhilarating over five decades on.

It’s a stratospheric launch into the song and a highlight throughout, with its effortlessly fluid hammer-ons and pull-offs.

The whole thing is underpinned by a chord sequence of Dm-Bb-C-Dm and as the last note of the riff tails off, the band shifts up into C#m7 for the verse.

Layla is a beautifully crafted song, with a deft and graceful chord structure.

“What will you do when you get lonely?” begins Clapton as the chords shift from C#m7 to G#7 and then ascend through C#m7-C-D-E-E7 for the line “No one waiting by your side”.

His voice has rarely sounded better, and there’s real grit and soulfulness to his timbre.

Another shining highlight of the song is the infectious, fluid groove of drummer Jim Gordon and bassist Carl Radle. It’s Gordon’s toms that accentuate the rhythmic inflections, although it’s the dynamic ascents and swoops of Radle’s walking bass line that really make this song fly.

One of the strengths of Layla is that it’s a surprisingly simple structure. There is no bridge and no middle eight.

It takes just 40 seconds for the first chorus to kick in and for that iconic riff to come soaring back in again.

In an interview with Guitar Player magazine in 1985, Clapton recalled that the first section of the song consisted of 16 tracks, of which six were guitar tracks. These included a rhythm part and three tracks of guitar harmonies played by Clapton. They also included a track of solos by Allman, fretted solos with bent notes in the verses and a slide solo during the outro. One of the tracks featured both Allman and Clapton playing duplicate solos.

According to Clapton, he and Allman used the same Fender Champ amplifier to record the song.

Clapton reportedly played a Strat on the Layla sessions. Allman used a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top, known, not too surprisingly, as the ‘Layla guitar’. This guitar would fetch $1.25 million at auction in 2019.

Part of what makes Layla such a classic song is the majestic piano coda which forms the second half of the song.

The piano was played by the band’s revered drummer Jim Gordon, a much in-demand LA session drummer.

The inclusion of this coda on the song happened by complete chance.

“The piano part was a pure accident,” Clapton told Uncut in 2006. “When the band left the studio, it turned out that, unknown to us, Jim would sneak back in and use the time to make his own record. Basically, he was poaching.

“One night, I went back to the studio to collect something and I caught him playing that piano riff. I think the deal we offered him was that we’d let him carry on using our studio time to make his record if we could have that tune for the LP.

“I don’t think he ever did finish his album, but the piano theme fitted what we were doing perfectly and now the song just doesn’t sound right without it.”

This piano coda is a hugely evocative piece of music, elevated further by some inspired slide playing from Duane Allman.

In 1990, the coda would be used to superb effect in Martin Scorcese’s film Goodfellas, the song’s beauty providing a contrast to the violence played out on screen.

While Jim Gordon was credited as the writer of this piano coda and the co-writer of Layla, two-time Grammy award winning singer-songwriter Rita Coolidge subsequently alleged that she co-wrote the piano coda part with Gordon, who was her boyfriend at the time, but said her contribution was never officially acknowledged.

Coolidge spoke of the composition in her 2016 autobiography Delta Lady: A Memoir, written with Michael Walker.

“One afternoon in 1970, Jim Gordon came over to my house in Hollywood, sat down at the piano, and played for me a chord progression he’d just composed… As we played with it, a second progression suddenly came to me, a countermelody in the key of G that ‘answered’ and resolved the tension of Jim’s chords and built to a dramatic crescendo that bridged the song’s beginning and ending… Jim and I ended up calling it Time (Don’t Let The World Get In Our Way) and taped a demo.”

In 1971, Coolidge was at a photo session after finishing her first album, when Layla came on the radio.

She recalled: “I was thinking, ‘Wait, I think I’ve heard that before…’ Suddenly, it dawned on me: the song on the radio was my song, except that I’d never recorded it. The veins must have been popping out on my neck. I cried, ‘That’s my music! That’s my music!’”

Coolidge got hold of a copy of the Layla album and checked the credits, but her name wasn’t listed on the track. “I was infuriated,” she said.

Coolidge’s account was subsequently supported by Derek And The Dominos’ keyboard player Bobby Whitlock.

“Jim took the melody from Rita’s song and didn’t give her credit for writing it,” he said in a 2011 interview on the Where’s Eric! website.

Layla and the album which bears its name was a short-lived high point for Derek A d The Dominos. Clapton told Uncut magazine that he tried to get Allman to join the band permanently, but Duane told him “he had to be loyal to what he called ‘the family’”.

Clapton explained: “We went on tour and I don’t know how we got through it with the amount of drugs we were doing. That’s when it got out of control.

“It frightens me to think about it. It was cocaine and heroin, and it wore the band down and a hostility was released that hadn’t been there before.

“Whatever held us together got thrown out and the atmosphere was so bad you could cut it with a knife. My instinct in those scenes is just to get out. I went back home and stayed there and locked all the doors.”

Layla was released in March 1971 and then re-released in May 1972, when it reached No.7 in the UK Singles Chart and No.10 in the Billboard Hot 100.

The song was released again in 1982, when it reached No.4 in the UK.

That could have been the close of the Layla story, but for Clapton’s MTV Unplugged performance in 1992, when he reimagined the song as a slow and intimate acoustic shuffle. This would help make the subsequent Eric Clapton Unplugged album his biggest-selling album to date.

For Clapton, Layla remains a significant high point of his career.

“I’m very proud of the one album we made and that song,” he said of his time with Derek And The Dominos. “You never really get used to having ownership of something that powerful, and it still knocks me out every time I play it.”

In an interview with writer Mike Hrano in 2011, Clapton said he sometimes perceives the song from a third person perspective.

“It’s almost like I wasn't in that band,” he said. “It's just a band that I'm a fan of.

“Sometimes, my own music can be like that. When it's served its purpose [of] being good music, I don't associate myself with it any more. It's like someone else.”

Eric Clapton’s 1992 set for MTV Unplugged was one of the all-time great moments in acoustic guitar.

Rearranging his most-famous tracks, performing them on a pre-war Martin guitar, Clapton’s session would shift 26 million copies, pick up three Grammys and ultimately would become a seminal moment for the guitar brand.

It planted the seed for collaboration. Just three years later, Clapton and Martin teamed up for his first signature guitar, based on the vintage 1939 000-42 he played on Unplugged. The rest is history.

Now, Martin is celebrating that history, marking the 30th anniversary of its first Clapton signature models with a pair of Golden Era-inspired acoustics, the 000-EC and 000-42EC 30th Anniversary models.

Officially unveiled on Sunday, 30 March, to coincide with Clapton’s 80th birthday (many happy returns, Slowhand) these high-end acoustic guitars will surely soon be collector’s items. Martin is only making 300 of the 000-42EC 30th Anniversary. The more affordable but still super high-end 000-EC 30th Anniversary will be available until March 2026.

Both share the 000-14th fret body and the same dimensions as Clapton’s pre-war model. There’s the Authentic 1939 neck shape and the 1.69” nut width, the 24.9” scale length. But there are some fundamental differences.

Those with a five-figure guitar budget might want to first check out the 000-42EC 30th Anniversary before they’re all gone. Its $10,999 price tag is eye-watering but the spec would bring you to tears, too.

Here we have all the good stuff; solid Guatemalan rosewood on the back and sides, Adirondack spruce on top. Martin has given a lick of vintage gloss over Antique Toner, letting the wood – and those decorative abalone flourishes on the binding and the rosette do the talking.

That spruce top has scalloped X-pattern bracing just like they did in the Golden Era. This guitar is very easy on the eye. The twinkle of GE 42 Snowflake inlays in abalone on an ebony fingerboard is total class.

But as Martin says, this guitar’s true charm lies in how it plays and how it sounds, and it is designed to accommodate many different styles. “The scalloped Adirondack spruce Golden Era-inspired bracing enhances resonance and projection, ensuring this guitar fills any room with an unmistakably full-bodied sound,” says Martin.

Appropriately, these guitars leave the Martin factory strung with his signature acoustic guitar strings, Clapton’s Choice 12-54 phosphor bronze – and an extra set in the premium, embroidered Harptone guitar case the guitar ships with.

Each of the 000-42EC 30th Anniversary models has a hand-signed paper label, and there’s a certificate of authenticity too.

Now, if your budget does not extend that far, then the marginally less decorative 000-EC 30th Anniversary might be a better bet. At $4,999, however, it is hardly a runaround acoustic. This is serious stuff. The core recipe – its feel and its tone – is similar.

The mahogany neck joins the body with the compound dovetail joint, the X-bracing is scalloped, and so forth. But this has East Indian rosewood on the back and sides, with a solid spruce top, and Clapton’s signature is pre-printed on the label.

We have a regular gloss finish instead of the vintage tint, and the herringbone trim instead of abalone. Some might actually prefer that look. And besides, you still get a COA inside the case, and each guitar is numbered in sequence. Either way, these are special guitars for a special player. For more details, head over to Martin.

These Martins come hot on the heels of the Gibson Custom Shop's Murphy Lab replica of Clapton's “Disraeli Gears” 1958 Les Paul Custom, which was later owned by Albert Lee. It's really two signature guitars in one, and you'll find both Lee and Clapton's signatures on the electric guitar's second pickguard.

Gibson has had quite the week. On Tuesday, it was showing off the prowess of its Bozeman, Montana acoustic guitar Custom Shop with the launch of the Brian May SJ-200 12-String, and now it’s the Murphy Lab in Nashville’s turn to show off with a meticulous Murphy Lab replica of one of the most hallowed electric guitars in Eric Clapton history – his 1958 Les Paul Custom.

This Les Paul Custom bore the serial number 8 6320, was bought during Cream’s inaugural tour of the USA, and was used throughout the recording sessions for Disraeli Gears, before it was gifted to Albert Lee in 1979.

Clapton took it on tour with Delaney & Bonnie, appeared with it on a number of occasions during the late ‘60s and throughout the ‘70s, before giving it to Albert Lee in 1979.

And now, if you can stump up the asking price of £17,499/$19,999 and find one of just limited edition beauties, you can own it, too. Note: they’re only making 150 of ‘em.

Both Clapton and Lee were consulted on the build. The guitar arrives out of its custom Duck Brothers hard-shell guitar case bearing all the finish checking of the original, with hardware aged to match.

Judging from some archive pictures, Clapton had removed the pickguard and the pickup coverings, but these had been reinstated over the years and this comes setup in its original configuration.

It has a one-piece body carved from “ultra-light weight” mahogany – it will be interesting to put one of these on the scales. The multi-ply binding has been applied to the top of the body and even with that aged finish there is something special about a Custom's Ebony paint job and binding, inlays and gold hardware – they make it look like the guitar is wearing a tuxedo.

The neck is mahogany, described as a Medium C and matched to the original. It joins the body with a long neck tenon joint set with hide glue. The frets are Historic medium-jumbo, the nut nylon – the whole vibe is that this sounds and plays like the original (Clapton and Lee's chops are not included sadly).

That means, of course, we have three humbuckers at our disposal. The artists and Gibson have gone for Custombuckers to replicate the original’s PAF tone, which is par for the course for the Custom Shop’s Historic Reissue models – they have an Alnico III magnet, are unpotted and sound incredible – and they’re not cheap.

The Gibson Pickup Shop sells a pair for £529. That middle pickup is mounted with the screws orientated towards the neck as per the original, and all of them are hooked up to a hand-wired control loom featuring CTS 500K pots and paper-in-oil capacitors

There are Grover Milk Bottle tuners on the headstock. There’s and ABR-1 bridge and lightweight aluminium tailpiece.

Inside the case there’s a certificate of authenticity booklet, a guitar strap, a Gibson Custom switch plate medallion, and best of all a second pickguard signed by both Eric Clapton and Albert Lee.

You can check out more pictures and details over at Gibson.

Here’s a thought experiment. Picture the scene: Eric Clapton calls, he needs you as his sideman, which electric guitars from your collection do you take? For context, this is the early ‘90s. We’re in Clapton’s Fender Stratocaster era.

Well, the legendary Andy Fairweather Low got that call for real, and he took a guitar straight out of left-field, a Teisco Spectrum V – a full-stereo oddball electric with “bits of LEGO”. But in a recent interview for Guitarist magazine’s YouTube channel, Low admits that it didn’t go too well.

As it turns out, you need something with a little more gravitas when sharing the stage with Clapton.

“For a period with Eric, briefly, I used it on a couple of gigs, and then one night after the Albert Hall he said, ‘Put it away and get a proper guitar!’” recalls Low. “So it went by the wayside,”

Low’s affection for the Teisco Spectrum V remains undiminished. Little wonder. From the over-engineered tremolo system to its multi-coloured plastic switches, there’s nothing quite like it. It is a maverick’s guitar.

Eddie Van Halen was famously pictured with one on the cover of Guitar World, but it was Ry Cooder who was ultimately responsible for turning Low onto the brand. Cooder was playing one on TV and Low couldn’t take his eyes off it, and duly asked the legendary Who tech Alan Rogan to find him one when he was out in the US.

“He’s playing a Teisco Spectrum V, and I am drawn to it immediately,” says Low. “It’s got colours and knobs on and bits of LEGO. I am drawn to it.”

And he still is. It is the first guitar from Low’s collection that he shows Guitarist. You can tell the affection he has for it by the look on his face. Low says he has two of them, and he still plays it during his Christmas shows with Gary Brooker of Procul Harum.

Like most Spectrum V players, Low uses his in mono, but you do have the option of playing in stereo – the guitar is fitted with dual 1/4” output for sending to different guitar amplifiers, and two sets of three single-coil pickups.

“Teisco’s idea of stereo is that these three pickups go through one amp and these three go through another, and you’ve got a double lead that goes in there,” explains Low. “I never did that but I loved the look of it, and because I loved the look of it I loved playing it, too.”

Low is is one of the world’s great session players and sidemen. He has worked with the Who, Joe Satriani, Roger Waters, Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings and joined up with Clapton during the early ‘90s in time for Slowhand’s Unplugged acoustic guitar concert series.

You could call him a good luck charm. His appearance on Clapton’s 1994 tour de force of blues guitar covers, From The Cradle, helped secure the former Cream guitarist and Yardbird his first UK number one album. The luck worked both ways. Low says he could “get anything” from Gibson and Fender when he was playing with Clapton – “as soon as I left I could get bugger all!”

Teisco guitars notwithstanding, Low had the finesse required to play back-up. And as this Guitarist segment proves, he had the guitars, too, such as his Gibson Custom L-5. Even if the hollowbody jazz guitar is prone to feedback, it was Low’s dream instrument – and besides, he had a fix for the squealing.

“It’s filled up with foam,” says Low. “It would constantly feedback on an A. No matter what level you were.”

The level was crucial, he continues. Finding the Goldilocks volume, not too quiet, not too loud was the secret to his success when playing a supporting role onstage.

“Trying to find the right level as the second guitar player with Eric, you’ve got to be loud enough where the speakers are loading enough, but you can’t be too loud where he goes, ‘Can you turn down, Andy?’ Which [pauses] he didn’t do,” says Low. “But I was constantly working at being at the right level but that meant I never got the tone. I get the tone now because I am the only guitar player on the stage and I am as loud as I want to be.”

You can check out the full interview above and subscribe to the Guitarist YouTube channel here.

Andy Fairweather Low’s new solo album, The Invisible Bluesman, is available to pre-order and will be released on 7 February via The Last Music Company.

MTV have announced the release of Eric Clapton Unplugged… Over 30 Years Later, a newly expanded version of the guitarist’s classic live acoustic set from 1992.

This extended, remixed and remastered edition features exclusive content of Clapton discussing the inspiration behind specific songs and performances prior to his performance at Bray Studios in Windsor, England.

At one point, Clapton says of his approach to reworking landmark songs: “I wanted to do it as if it was brand new."

The 90-minute special will premiere in select US and UK theatres on 27 January and 28 January before it is available to stream on Paramount+ beginning 12 February in the US and globally.

During the intimate performance, Clapton delivered first-time acoustic arrangements of hits including Layla, Tears in Heaven.

He also paid homage to the blues music that influenced him, performing classics including Before You Accuse Me, originally recorded by Bo Diddley, and Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, originally recorded by Bessie Smith.

The subsequently released live album Unplugged was released in August 1992 and went on to sell over 26 million copies worldwide, thereby becoming the best-selling live album of all time.

Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that floated your boat this year.

Best of 2024: Their volatile genius burned fast and bright, but after three albums and two years of non-stop touring, Cream were finally brought down by blinkered management and a gig schedule that would have felled an ox.

The apex of that short but brilliant career was the 1967 album Disraeli Gears. Epic in scope, it fused the blues and jazz together in a searing, psychedelic blast of 100-watt Marshall tone.

Jack Bruce sadly passed sadly passed away in 2014 but two years before his death he gave a detailed account of the album’s making to Guitarist magazine. Here we collect those exclusive insights from Jack and poet Pete Brown – who wrote classic tracks such as Sunshine Of Your Love together – about the making of the album.

When Guitarist called up Jack Bruce to talk about Cream’s 1967 classic album Disraeli Gears, he leaves us in little doubt about the unique chemistry that fired an equally unique group. “I think that the whole band was kind of misunderstood by everybody, and it gave us a sort of an edge, you know,” the bass legend muses.

“I think Eric thought he was going to have this little blues trio and he would be sort of like Buddy Guy standing out the front. And then I thought: great, I can be a composer and get some songs out there. And I think Ginger just wanted to conquer the world, basically, like Genghis Khan or somebody. We had different ideas.

“Meanwhile, the management – the dire management of Robert Stigwood – was thinking, Let’s milk this for all it’s worth because it ain’t going to last. So let’s get them out there and make them play every toilet in the US for as long as they’ll last before they go barmy or kill each other…”

Listening to Bruce recalling the birth of Cream, you’d be forgiven for wondering how the greatest supergroup of the sixties – arguably of all time – lasted through the average week, let alone long enough to cut a masterpiece such as Disraeli Gears. Yet beneath Bruce’s wry recollections lies an intense and wholly justified pride in what the group achieved.

During Cream’s brief two-year lifespan, they had it all: in Eric Clapton a supremely talented guitarist whose only serious rival was Jimi Hendrix; in Jack Bruce a star bassist with the chops and vision of a jazz maestro; and in Ginger Baker a volatile but brilliant drummer capable of welding their contrasting talents together. Yet, initially, some doubted whether the band would produce anything more notable than a short-lived stream of cash.

Pete Brown, the visionary London poet who co-wrote some of Cream’s greatest tracks, including Sunshine Of Your Love and White Room, was the fourth key figure in the story of Disraeli Gears. Today, he agrees that the degree to which the band shook up rock music shocked cynics.

“Cream’s management thought it was going to be an all-star band that would fill the blues clubs, and maybe be a nice festival attraction. They never thought it would spread; they never thought it would get to America; they never thought we’d have hit songs. They had absolutely no bloody idea. And when you look at it, it’s a miracle that it happened.”

Power trio

In the end, the mouthwatering prospect of what Jack Bruce could add to the band’s music overcame Baker’s objections. In March 1966 the trio met secretly for a first rehearsal at Ginger’s house in Neasden. As Clapton later noted, whatever tension existed between them “all just turned to magic” as soon as they started to play.

Jack Bruce was convinced that they had all the ingredients they needed to forge a new sound. “I did have grandiose conversations with Eric at the very beginning of the band, trying to come up with a kind of musical philosophy,” Bruce recalls.

“Eric was really into the blues and he knew a lot of stuff that I didn’t know. So I was being a bit presumptuous by saying, I love the blues, but I’d want to take it a step further and use the language of the blues as a way to write music for us.

“Eric understood, but he probably thought I was getting a lot on myself to say something like that,” Bruce reflects. “But I was always like that anyway, when I was young. I always thought I could really change the world through music.”

Pete Brown argues that despite Clapton’s abundant talent and ferocious chops, working with jazz-trained players such as Bruce and Baker helped take his playing to another level.

“The one thing they never did, which I’m sure they got from [Alexis Korner band leader] Graham Bond, was that they didn’t put Eric down,” he adds. “They didn’t say, 'You don’t know enough about chords, or, You don’t know enough about jazz to play with us.' What they did say was: 'You’re a terrific player with terrific feeling, and if you play with us then this thing will happen – the magic will come.'” And it did.

Cream’s first album, Fresh Cream, was released in December 1966, reaching number six in the British charts and a single, I Feel Free, was picked up by ATCO – a subsidiary of US label Atlantic Records.

Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic, was influential and had Helped launch the careers of Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. A way to break into America beckoned, although as Jack Bruce ruefully recalls: “It’s very important to remember that Cream were originally signed to Atlantic as a rider on the Bee Gees contract.”

Nine chaotic dates at the RKO Theater in New York followed in March 1967, plus one day at Atlantic Studios, where they recorded a Buddy Guy track, Hey Lawdy Mama, that would later evolve into Strange Brew. The next time Cream returned to New York, a month later, it would be to record Disraeli Gears.

Midnight express 

When the band returned to London, Jack Bruce and Pete Brown met up to write. With studio dates for Disraeli Gears just days away, the pressure was on to deliver new material. “They were milking us for every penny, so we never had any time to rest, or write, or live,” Jack Bruce explains.

“So Pete and me had to come up with some material for what was to be the next record. But we didn’t know what it was going to be. We were just desperately trying to find time to write songs, which usually entailed staying up all night in between gigs.”

Jack Bruce had already worked with Brown on earlier Cream hits, such as the single I Feel Free, for which Bruce scored out the song’s pop-rock melody on paper like a composer, while Brown provided the epic poetry of the lyrics.

“I don’t know why they needed me, because Jack and Ginger are both very, very intelligent people – and Eric too, though Eric wasn’t writing, hardly,” Brown reflects. “But then, I suppose I had a lot of chops as a writer by then. I as a well-known poet, and I wrote and practised a lot.” Bruce and Brown resumed their writing partnership as preparations for Disraeli Gears hit full swing, with songs written in the small hours and road-tested at gigs.

“Basically you’d come up with a song, then go into the studio and see if the guys liked it,” Jack Bruce recalls. “And if they did, it would go straight into the live act.”

Working on Sunshine

This high-intensity approach was how Cream’s most famous track, Sunshine Of Your Love, came about, Bruce explains.

“Pete and me were doing an all-night session at my place in Hampstead, at the flat, and we hadn’t really come up with anything,” he recalls. “And I picked up my double bass, which was lying there, and played the riff of Sunshine. Pete looked out the window and it was getting near dawn so he wrote, It’s getting near dawn. So there we had the first part, which is the part where the riff is, and we had the words of that. But we didn’t have a song. So we took it into rehearsal and Eric came up with the turnaround. Pete wrote the words for that and we had a song.”

“Later on our writing became more complex,” Pete Brown says. “But in that period of time it was a question of getting good alternatives: stuff that Jack felt happy singing. He had to feel good about the sounds of the words. “Sunshine Of Your Love really is a song about being on the road,” he adds, “coming home after you’ve done a gig and arguing with your girlfriend, who’s going to be in a receptive mood to have a nice little scene after you’ve been doing your hard work. It’s a gig song.”

Some may be surprised by how workmanlike the writing process was, with gigs and deadlines driving the creativity more than the band’s experiences. As Pete Brown explains, even the more tripped-out tracks on Disraeli Gears, such as She Walks Like A Bearded Rainbow, were not actually inspired by drugs.

“I remember this very psychedelic person saying to me when Disraeli Gears came out, Ah, that lyric, So many fantastic colours, on SWLABR. You must have been tripping when you wrote that,” and I said “No actually, it’s a completely sexual image to me. It’s about sensuality, and the colours that come to mind when you’re having great sex.”

Return to New York 

When May came around, the band were exhausted, but otherwise ready to cut the album. Although Bruce and Brown had done the lion’s share of the songwriting, Clapton had teamed up with Australian artist Martin Sharp to write Tales Of Brave Ulysses, which became a pillar of Cream’s live set. Sharp also designed the striking cover art for Disraeli Gears, highlighting what a melting-pot of sixties counterculture the album was.

When the band got to New York to record at Atlantic’s studio there, they were joined by two studio professionals who would further shape the sound of Disraeli Gears – producer Felix Pappalardi, who would later play bass in Mountain, and crack sound engineer Tom Dowd. With just one week of studio time in which to cut the album, their contributions would prove vital.

“The philosophy at Atlantic Studios was not, Let’s have this really great song or, Let’s have this riff,” Jack Bruce says. “It was, Let’s make a record. Tom Dowd was one of the all-time geniuses of recording and that’s what you had to do: you had to convince him that what you had was a proper record.”

Dowd and Pappalardi took the band’s gig-focused song arrangements and helped sculpt them into something that was more complex and satisfying for album listeners.

“When we played Sunshine Of Your Love live, before we went in the studio, it was much more of a straight-ahead rock feel,” Bruce recalls. “But Tom Dowd came up with an idea. He said, Why don’t you play it like in those Westerns where the Indians’ drums go: Boom boom boom. So Ginger tried that. Then it gave it a new life.”

Brewing up trouble 

The move to Atlantic Studios saw Cream’s music evolve rapidly – it introduced record label politics. Bruce was dismayed to find that Clapton was viewed as the band leader by Atlantic executives, which influenced how another famous track from the album, Strange Brew, was recorded.

“The way that came about was quite strange because we had already made a recording of a blues song called Hey Lawdy Mama,” Bruce recalls. “But then Felix Pappalardi was told there had been an executive decision that Eric had to front the band and I was going to be the bass-player guy who stood in the background quietly.

"So all of my material was sort of ‘non grata’, and they had to come up with a song for Eric to sing. So Felix took Lawdy Mama home and came back the next day with Strange Brew, which he had co-written with his wife, Gail. So that was how that came about. I was well pissed off, because the bass part that I had didn’t fit the new structure of this new song, although it was used.

"It still pisses me off because it sounds like the bass is playing the wrong tune throughout – which it wasn’t for the original thing. It was very much against my wishes, but I had absolutely no power in the band, in the studio – because Ahmet Ertegun was more or less in love with Eric. He thought Eric should be the frontman.”

The intervention by Atlantic executives was a reminder that, despite the obvious vision and talent of the band, Atlantic still had their eye on commercial hits driven by the fan-appeal of the band’s star guitarist. Nonetheless, when the week’s recording ended, it was clear to anyone with functioning ears that the band had cut a game-changing rock album.

Hitting top gear

When Disraeli Gears went on sale in late 1967, it was a hit in Britain – reaching number five in the charts – and an even bigger success in the States, where it went to number four. This prompted a punishing round of touring in America that signalled the beginning of the end for the band.

“It was enjoyable until they broke the band’s spirit by putting us on the one-nighters for seven months without anybody to help us,” Jack Bruce recalls. “That was what destroyed us – that and the lack of PA.”

The band cut two more albums at a breakneck pace in 1968 – Wheels Of Fire and their aptly named final recording, Goodbye. When Cream played their last British gigs at The Royal Albert Hall on 26 November everyone in the band was exhausted and ready to move on.

Disraeli Gears had undoubtedly been the highwater mark of the band’s astonishing two-year career. Looking back, what does Bruce feel about the album now? “I think you always would like another go,” he concludes, philosophically. “You’re never quite happy about it. There’s definitely things that could be changed and obviously you only hear the mistakes. But once it’s finished, it’s finished.”

• “It was very much against my wishes but at that moment I had absolutely no power in the band, in the studio” – Cream and the troubled birth of Strange Brew

Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that floated your boat this year.

Best of 2024: As cross-cultural high points go in post-war austerity Britain, the American Folk Blues Festival tours that started in 1962 took some beating. Seemingly out of nowhere, iconic blues artists of the age such as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson fetched up on these shores to enlighten and dazzle.

The media loved it. In 1964, Granada Television released a special documentary, watched by 12 million people, and filmed on the platform at Wilbraham Road railway station in suburban Whalley Range, Manchester. Muddy Waters performed, sporting a trilby and Telecaster, and surrounded by a large group of fans. Another highlight of the event was Sister Rosetta Tharpe. After stepping gracefully along the puddle-strewn platform, Tharpe strapped her beloved white ‘61 Les Paul SG Custom over her long fur coat and launched into the first number of her set.

“Didn’t it rain children? Didn’t it rain?” she sang in her powerful, low tones as the audience roared its approval. Singing a gospel tale about Noah’s flood to the sodden audience on a suburban Manchester branch line was an irony not lost on the audience. Tharpe’s sheer power and electricity bowled the crowd over. “She staggered everybody,” recalled one fan.

The American Folk Blues Festival became an annual event and on Thursday, 25 February, 1965, 200 miles due south, a similar epiphany took place at the Marquee club, 90 Wardour Street in Soho, London. On the bill that night was Buddy Guy, a guitarist who had made a name for himself playing with blues icons such as Muddy Waters. Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson.

Buddy Guy was a pioneer of the use of distortion and feedback in the blues and his playing was unlike anyone else around. His style was dynamic, fearless and utterly enthralling. He would search for the highest squalling notes, all delivered with impeccable feel and emotion.

As he stepped out on stage at the Marquee that evening, the audience included guitar luminaries of the British blues explosion, such as Eric Clapton. He was all too familiar with Buddy’s talent having heard him on records by Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Willie Dixon. "Guy’s playing just stood out in the mix, because of the originality and vitality of his playing, recalled Clapton in 2005, as he and BB King inducted Buddy Guy into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Clapton went on to describe the impact of Buddy’s performance at the Marquee back in 1965. “In the flesh, he was earth shattering,” recalled Clapton. “His style on every level was fantastic. Doing all the things we would later come to associate with Jimi Hendrix, playing with his teeth, his feet, and behind his head. He brought the house crashing down.”

Clapton recalled that Buddy gave a “thundering performance, delivering the blues with finesse and passion in a way I had never heard before”. It also set Clapton to thinking that a trio was a pretty good line-up for a band.

“All in all, everything about that night was deeply profound for me," Clapton added. "The blues was clearly alive and well and it looked good too, for as well as being the real thing, musically Buddy was a star. His suit, his hair, his moves, his sunburst Strat, everything was sharp and perfect. He was for me what Elvis probably was for most other people.”

Like all the iconic blues musicians, George ‘Buddy’ Guy came up the hard way. Born in 1936 in Lettsworth, Louisiana, he was one of five children in a family of sharecroppers and began learning the guitar by playing a two-string diddley bow that he made. He later gravitated to a Harmony acoustic and in the mid-1950s was playing with bands in Baton Rouge.

In September 1957, he moved to Chicago and soon earned a reputation as a uniquely gifted player, falling under the electric crossover influence of Muddy Waters.

Buddy signed to legendary blues label Chess Records in 1958 but his career there never really flourished. The label’s founder Leonard Chess allegedly described Buddy’s style as “just making noise”, according to a piece by Greg Prato in 2012 in Rolling Stone and the label attempted instead to promote him performing R&B ballads, jazz instrumentals, soul and novelty dance tunes.

But Buddy was also working as a session guitarist with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson among many others. And he was soon in demand.

Buddy’s first electric guitar was a Les Paul Goldtop, but this was stolen in 1957 from a club in Chicago, as he recalled in an interview with Reverb you can watch above. When it came to getting a replacement instrument, it wasn’t a Les Paul he went for, but a Stratocaster. It was an unorthodox choice for the blues. At that point Strats were more associated with country music. But Guy knew within seconds of trying the Strat that this was the guitar for him.

“Man, that guitar: you could hit a note on that guitar and hold it until next week,” he recalled about his first Strat, in the Reverb interview. “People look at you and ask, ‘Is that you still playing?’ Because it still looks like it’s holding that sound too long.”

This was the guitar he was playing at the Marquee club in 1965 and for Clapton and others in the audience such as Jeff Beck, his choice of a Strat was a revelation. That gig was still fresh in Clapton’s mind in 2013, when Guitar Center presented Clapton with the Fender Custom Eric Clapton ‘Brownie’ tribute Stratocaster.

“I heard Buddy Guy on an album called Folk Festival of the Blues where he was the new kid on the block playing with Muddy and Howling Wolf and they’re all singing and he just launched into this solo that killed everybody dead. And then I went to see him play and I thought, ‘This is the sound’. And funnily enough, I saw [Steve] Winwood using [a Strat], just about the time he was about to leave Spencer Davis. And Hendrix.”

Guy reflected to Reverb on he influenced players like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck to use Strats. “They said they didn’t know a Strat could do that,” Guy added. “Eric and them laugh now every time I get in the room, saying, ‘Man, we didn’t know a Strat could play the blues until we saw how you did it’.”

Clapton sought out Strats with maple necks but most of the models in the UK at the time had rosewood necks.

“It wasn’t until I went through the States on tour that I started picking them up in pawn shops for a song. I’d buy four or five at a time.”

For Jeff Beck, the impact of seeing Guy at the Marquee in 1965 had a similarly profound effect.

“Buddy Guy just hit the spot for me,” Beck told Don Wilcock, author of the biography Damn Right I Got The Blues. “It’s his youthful vigour, sort of manic stuff and comedy. He has a lot of very exquisite timing and is delightfully out of key sometimes. That’s what I find so charming. It’s just a hair sharp. It wouldn’t be right, had it been dead on the note. From there on, I was like a junkie. I would go around looking for other people to share the same stuff. I was bringing it up to Eric and Jimmy – ‘Have you heard this stuff!?'”

Jimmy Page too was bowled over by Buddy Guy’s playing. "Jeff Beck and myself, we were still probably teenagers when we heard Buddy Guy,” recalled Page on The Late Show with David Letterman in December 2012. “I remember being with Jeff and playing the vinyl which was called Folk Festival Of The Blues, where Buddy Guy is really young on it and he’s playing with Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, etc, and he sings two songs on it and just the whole delivery, and the passion, and the drama… the guitar is just out of this world.”

Despite his fearsome reputation as a player, until 1967 Buddy Guy was having to work as a tow truck driver in the daytime while playing clubs at night. But by the end of the decade, his fortunes were changing. In March 1969, he was invited to play at the so-called Supershow, in Staines, Middlesex, alongside Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Jack Bruce, Stephen Stills, Buddy Miles, Glen Campbell and others.

In 1972, he established the Checkerboard Lounge with LC Thurman, a blues club in Chicago’s South Side. He left the partnership in 1985 and in 1989 opened Buddy Guy’s Legends club, a venue that is still thriving today.

Guy’s career received a significant boost during the blues boom of the late eighties and early nineties, and in 1990 and 1991, Clapton invited him to be part of 24 Nights, a live album compiled from 42 concerts at London’ Royal Albert Hall. Guy went on to sign a deal with Silvertone Records and recorded his album Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues, in 1991. This was his break into the mainstream market and from that point on, Buddy Guy’s stature on the world stage was elevated.

In 2006, he appeared onstage with the Rolling Stones at the Beacon Theatre in New York, a performance so effortlessly impressive that at the end of the song, Keith Richards, handed over his black Guild Starfire to Guy as a tribute and gift.

Buddy Guy is now the last, living American blues legend. When Clapton and BB King inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2005, their induction speeches were both reverential and heartfelt. When Buddy Guy himself stepped onto the podium to accept the honour, he was clearly moved.

“Look at this,” grinned Guy as he looked over to his left where BB King and Eric Clapton were standing. “To be standing here and [having to] pick up a guitar and get between these two guys and play… man, you’ve got to be me to know how I feel tonight. This is no small task.”

As he ended his acceptance speech, he left the assembled artist and music industry dignitaries in the audience with one last parting thought. “If you don’t think you got the blues,” he grinned, “just keep livin’.”

• "He showed me some things that Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson had taught him – he knew those people": Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf and their legendary blues legacy

Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that floated your boat this year.

Back in 1990, Guitarist magazine caught up with The Who guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend, who was characteristically frank and revealing. Here, we look back at this classic interview.

Best of 2024: What originally influenced you to become a player and a writer?

"My father had played the guitar when he was young and my uncle Jack had worked for Kalamazoo, before the war, developing guitar pickups. So there was a kind of family thing about the guitar, although it was considered something of an anomaly then.

"My father was in a dance band and I wanted to do what he did, play the saxophone, but I couldn't blow a note so he suggested the guitar. Chromatic harmonica was actually my first instrument and I got very good at it - not quite Stevie Wonder, but very good. Then I hit eleven and decided I did want to try the guitar, so my grandmother bought me one.

"Then I started to examine what was happening, listening to Elvis Presley like all my friends. But to be honest I never really liked him, and also I think Scotty Moore was an aberration - it's not my idea of great playing.

"I think he was someone from another era who'd been drafted into rock and roll; he was competent but not brilliant. I know that's sacrilege to many people and I wouldn't want to slight him as an individual or as a player, because he's cited as a seminal influence by so many people, but for me it was more the sound of Nancy Whiskey."

Do you mean Freight Train?

"Yes, the sound of strumming guitars; such a glorious sound. And I like flamenco music and used to listen to a lot of that, and that's really where my style was born.

"I got my guitar for Christmas but I didn't learn it. Instead I bought myself a banjo, because in my class at school we had quite a good trad band, we even had a tuba player - and [The Who's bassist] John Entwistle was on trumpet. We were all very left-wing, or they were – I didn't know what politics was about. And they were always disappearing into sleeping bags with girls.

"So I picked up the banjo. And the players I looked at were the guys who played with Acker Bilk, Ken Colyer and Kenny Ball. English banjo players really were a law unto themselves – you don't find that kind of brisk banjo playing on the original Louis Armstrong or Bix Beiderbecke records.

"But Acker Bilk's banjo had this very vital, bright sound. He used a G banjo with along scale and played it with lots of flourishes, and I copied that, until I went back to playing guitar a couple of years later.

"I didn't start to collect records and listen to guitar players properly until I went to art school, when I'd already been playing for five years. So my style was already formed and that's why I think it's so unique. I did start copying Chet Atkins when I was eighteen and I can do quite a good impersonation – not quite as good as Mark Knopfler, but I could give him a run for his money on Lambeth Walk, for example.

"But they're not in my blood, they're things that I learned but rapidly got tired of, and I became interested in the intuitive style that seemed to be R&B - like Jimmy Reed, who just played two shapes, but it was the depth in those two shapes that created the poetry."

Was your songwriting developing at the same time as all that?

"Yes, listening to R&B and to other players, and the creative process, were all part of the same thing. Prior to that I'd just been playing for amusement, not really accepting any challenges.

"In a way I regret not having had a formal beginning, because there are walls that I come up against, particularly in these days of players who are so brilliantly expressive and can play so fast. I can play much faster now than I used to, but I'm always ahead of my fingers, my vocabulary is limited and I can't read very well. So I wish I'd taken a more formal route."

Wouldn't that have changed the way you evolved as a musician?

"No. I think it might have structured my songwriting a bit better; I look back and see wasted songs because I was working so intuitively. There were lots of really lucky songs, like Won't Get Fooled Again or Behind Blue Eyes, which came out perfectly, but not through any understanding of song structure.

"Computers have since helped me a lot there - it's a bit like having always suffered from hay fever and then finding that your computer will analyse the pollen count. Analysis is a lost art, and to replace it with intuition is asking too much of intuition. Intuitive players and composers should have all their armoury before they start relying on intuition. That's when they'll make quantum jumps.

"Look at somebody like Prince. He has that armoury, he can write an orchestral score, sit at a piano and read a part, knock out a fairly good version of the Moonlight Sonata or study Gershwin if he likes. Then you've got this impetuous, imp-like character grafting all this intuitive waif-like feel - and you come up with that kind of magical quality."

So where does blues, rock 'n' roll and country fit into that?

"I think people are now looking at blues, rock and roll, country and folk music as a separate strain. But it's not, it's just that those four categories are the most disciplined forms of music that exist, with rock 'n' roll probably the most disciplined of the lot."

Because you're bound by certain limits?

"Yes, and they're very strict. A lot of them have now become rules which you break at your peril - people who broke the rock 'n' roll rules in the seventies are still smarting from the response."

But didn't bands like The Who push those boundaries and merge the feel of rock 'n' roll with true pop?

"The interesting thing is that rock 'n' roll was denied to The Who in a way. The Who were more a pop band than a rock band. Some people get confused when they read the history of The Who, or hear me talking about 'rock'.

"When I talk about rock I'm talking about the ideology that lay behind the emergence of new pop in the sixties - British pop. And I include in that people like The Beatles. That unleashed something which I'm very proud of, because it happened here and it came from us! I talk with Paul McCartney about when it all started, and it's fascinating to feel that you were the beginning of a movement that has outlasted Cubism!

"A lot of people will find that statement unbelievably pretentious, but the fact is that rock 'n' roll itself lasted as long as the pundits said it would - a couple of years. I mean, Elvis only made one rock 'n' roll album!

"Then there were a couple of albums from Bill Haley and one from Eddie Cochran. Buddy Holly isn't really rock 'n' roll at all, but you'd concede one album. And Jerry Lee Lewis said it - they were buried by the emergence of bands like The Beatles, who actually took the song form back to its romantic and sentimental post-war origins."

You mean the set middle eight and everything like that?

"That's right, much more melody involved, lyrics about love and sentimentality rather than about sex. And very few code words for sex, which rock 'n' roll was full of. We really didn't understand then – I don't think The Beatles understood better than anybody else what was really going on.

"We were quite naive and I think it produced a very innocent and refreshing form of music. And where the guitar fits into all this is as the symbol, the anchor, the only continuous line through that period and probably out to the present day.

"People occasionally try to revive the saxophone: the saxophone is the symbol of the eighties - bullshit! Even today, people hold saxophones like guitars! I'm not claiming superiority for the guitar, I'm just talking about what's been imposed."

The feedback and other noises that you extracted from your guitar, were these conscious efforts to do something new, or did you happen to turn your amp up too loudly one day and create it entirely by accident?

"No, I'm afraid I was an arty little sod and I was actually experimenting. I was at art school, surrounded by real intellectuals, people that were experimenting all the time. I was greatly impressed by all this and wanted to please these people.

"A lot of it was posing, trying to drag something out of the band that it was resisting - this is pre-Keith Moon. And as I got louder, John got louder by inventing the 4 x 12 speaker cabinet, which he did with somebody up at Marshall. Then I got a 4 x 12 cabinet and put it on a chair, so then he invented the 8 x 12 cabinet, to get louder than me, and then I invented the stack by getting two 4 x 12s and stacking them up.

"Marshall were outraged, and one day somebody from Marshall came and they were nagging me about the fact that the top cabinet was shifting and was going to fall off and get damaged, and I just said, 'So what?' and knocked it over! There was a tremendous kind of arrogance.

"I haven't actually shown up at any of Jim Marshall's anniversaries or anything because firstly I feel a bit guilty about the way we treated their products, but also because I never see anywhere that what they actually did was rip off the circuit of a Fender Bassman amplifier. I remember them doing it. I remember the amplifier in the shop, on the counter, This is the one we're copying. But of course, there was a revolution in the way that they built the stuff and the actual sound that it produced.

"Our experimentations were all to do with our irritation with the audience, who heckled if you played a rhythm and blues song that they didn't know. You'd get blokes in the back with their pints of beer shouting, 'What's all this rubbish? Play some Shane Fenton!' And we just got louder as a result. Then the squeaks and farts did start to occur in the feedback, but by that time I was already well along the path.

"When I broke my first guitar, I'd actually watched a guy called Malcolm Cecil, at Ealing Tech, where I was at High School, beat me to the punch. He went on to co-produce Innervisions for Stevie Wonder and he was bass player with the Johnny Scott Quintet.

"A girl in my class went out with the flautist and she invited Malcolm Cecil to come and give a talk. Halfway through the talk he started to get carried away, saying,' There are lots of different ways you can play the bass; you can play it like this, or like that'.

"And then he started to bang it. Somebody had been doing something on the stage with a saw, and it was still there, and he picked it up and said, You can even saw at the bass, and he started to saw through his strings and we all stood up and cheered! It made a fantastic noise, and the fact that he was sacrificing his strings! And he just carried on sawing, right through the strings and through the belly of the bass!

"The whole college was full of it, so that wall had been broken and it seemed perfect, natural for me, a couple of months later, to find myself doing the same thing. I saw myself as an R&B/ jazz musician, and also as an artist.

"I thought The Who would last about a year and I'd end up back in experimental music pursuing a career very much like Brian Eno, who, believe it or not, I was a primal influence on, from a lecture I did at Winchester when he was in the audience.

"It shows that radical experimentation really is worth pursuing. Because even though it might feel stupid and pretentious, if you do discover something new, it's your property and you're identified with it for ever.

"Other people stumbled on feedback at the same time as me. Jeff Beck was using it when Roger [Daltrey] went to see The Tridents rehearsing. He said, 'There's a shit-hot guitar player down the road and he's making sounds like you'. Then later, when we supported The Kinks, Dave Davies was adamant: 'I invented it, it wasn't John Lennon and it wasn't you!'

"I worshipped The Kinks and never let a bad word about them pass my lips, so I conceded. But I believe it was something people were discovering all over London. These big amps that Marshall were turning out – you couldn't stop the guitars feeding back!"

But you did try to turn it into something musical, didn't you?

"Oh yeah, you can hear it on the records. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, the solo, on the note A I would flick a harmonic, get it feeding back and then go 'dit-dit-dit-dar-dar' with the switch. And by standing at certain angles I could get incredible sounds out of it, some of which were just characteristics of the Rickenbacker body, which I stuffed with paper.

"You could control it and it could be very musical - certainly that sort of thing where you hit an open A chord and then take your fingers off the strings... the A string is still banging away but you're hearing the finger-off harmonics in the feedback.

"Then the vibrating A starts to stimulate harmonics in other strings and it's just an extraordinary sound, like an enormous plane. It's a wonderful, optimistic sound and that was something that happened because I was posing - I'd put my arms out, let go of the chord then find that the resulting noise was better."

Is it correct that The Kinks' single You Really Got Me influenced you to write Can't Explain to attract the attention of the Kinks' Producer?

"That's right. I had two songs, one called Talking Generation, which became My Generation, and Can't Explain. We picked Can't Explain as the first song to play him and I re-did the original demo with staccato chords. Listening to it, it's a craftsman-like pop record of the time and a lot of people's favourite Who record. Shel Talmy was producing a particular kind of sound in the studio, a particular kind of arrangement."

So you were into home demos even then?

"Yes, I actually started with tape recorders before I started with guitars. As well as the trad band, John Entwistle and I were also in a rock band. One of the guys had a tape recorder and we used to have such fun with it doing spoof radio shows and stuff like that, and I set my heart on getting one.

"My mum and dad had a junk shop, in which I worked, and inevitably a tape recorder came in – it was a Grundig or something. I couldn't dub on it, but I rapidly realised that all I needed was another tape machine and I'd be able to.

"It was Kit Lambert who set me up with a studio of my own. He was The Who's manager and he pushed me all the way. I had a flat above my folks' and I set a studio up in one of the rooms. He bought me two machines and although those demos are a little brittle-sounding they were the first things I ever did and they sound really good."

Did you regret you weren't The Who's singer?

"No, not really. There were actually periods when Roger left the group for several weeks and I was The Who's singer. Robert Plant talks about the fact that when he first saw us I was the singer. He came to see us three nights in a row and offered himself for the job, as did Steve Gibbons when he came to see us and Roger wasn't there. Obviously none of them thought I was any good!"

If asked what songs Pete Townshend writes, many people would say, aggressive songs. But some of them are really gentle...

"Well, everybody has different shades, some of which don't get seen by the public. But anybody who cares to go further can find that stuff. I find myself whining about how record companies put everybody into boxes, but we put ourselves into a box.

"If you've got something to say I think it's best to specialise, but when you are the product, you end up lumbered with the specialisation. It's not like running a factory and saying, We'll start by concentrating on the garden gates and then move on to the rest of the furniture. You say, I'm a garden gate.

"But then, when you've successfully sold yourself as that and you say, 'Oh, by the way, I'm not just a garden gate', people say, 'Oh shut up'. They don't want to know. There's only room for one garden gate and that's The Who."

When everybody else was after guitar hero status, you turned around and played a one-note solo on I Can See For Miles. Was that Townshend the anti-hero?

"Well, maybe. I'm sure it was a kind of defence mechanism. You have to remember that I knew Jimmy Page – Led Zeppelin weren't formed then but I'd seen him in various bands and if anything his playing slowed down as he got older! He was an extraordinary player, arrogant, flash...

"And Eric [Clapton], with the Yardbirds, used to play absolutely beautifully and he'd only been playing a year! And Jeff Beck, who always had that guitar quality of making the guitar sound like a voice. That was the kind of marketplace I was in, and although I hadn't been belted round the chops by Jimi Hendrix yet, I definitely didn't want to be competing with those players."

You say you were belted round the chops by Jimi Hendrix.

"It's very difficult now, just listening to records, to understand what all the fuss was about. He was such a visual performer There was something else, other than music, going on. Hendrix was a great player, but he wasn't really creative. He was dealing in other people's ideas, old blues things and tricks that were either borrowed from Eric – that Marshall kind of style – or the pyrotechnic things that he had caught off watching me.

"He used to follow the band around, watching, and then he suddenly appeared on stage doing all this stuff. But it was something else that made it extraordinary; he was just an extraordinary man. Talk to the women who came in contract with him - he literally enchanted them. And he was a pretty unremarkable kind of gnarled-looking guy, but he was a real enchanter.

"The thing that really stunned Eric and me was the way he took what we did and made it better. And I really started to try to play. I thought I'd never, ever be as great as he is but there's certainly no reason now why I shouldn't try. In fact I remember saying to Eric, I'm going to play him off the stage one day. But what Eric did was even more peculiar, he said, Well, I'm going to pretend that I am Jimi Hendrix!"

What statements were you making by smashing your guitars?

"The guitar smashing was basically marketing. I knew it was going to work, but I had to use real guitars and that was because I am primarily a musician and I wanted it to be real. I'm also an artist, and I'm not afraid to claim that what I do is art.

"But it couldn't be phoney, there had to be a kind of act of vengeance against the consumer society that was telling people like you and me that we had to have a Fender with those funny little Phillips screws on, otherwise we weren't real people. And I did the paper round for three years to buy my first real guitar!

"I lent it to John Entwistle one day and it was pinched and his mother gave me three quid! I think I swore then that I would never get attached to another instrument as long as I lived.

"When Rickenbacker made me a Signature model, a couple of guys in the factory weren't too happy about it – they felt it was a kind of jibe. But I don't have romantic misconceptions about musical instruments – they're just wood, probably far more useful as pulp than anything else.

"There are actually a couple of instruments that I would miss, and in fact a weird thing happened to the J-200 that I've had for a long time. Half way through Iron Man [Townshend's musical] it got wet here in the studio and exploded, and it was almost like the guitar getting back at me – the only guitar I really cared about dying on me!

"In The Witches of Eastwick, Jack Nicholson smashes up a Mercedes 600 saloon. I saved up for about five years for one of those once, and I thought, smashing it up in a movie! It could have been any car and it would have been just as effective."

Have you ever smashed a guitar off stage, in anger?

"Oh yes, quite a lot - once the principle is there..."

Is Eric Clapton’s solo in Cream’s version of Crossroads the greatest live blues-rock solo ever recorded?

Here, we pose the question - and bust a few myths in the process.

Robert Johnson’s Delta blues masterpiece, originally titled Cross Road Blues, was recorded by Cream at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium on 10 March 1968, and featured on the trio’s platinum-selling double album Wheels Of Fire.

This electrifying live version of Crossroads stands out for its break-neck tempo, the memorable open-position riff that Clapton devised, and a speedy turnaround lick that he refers to and refines throughout.

Jack Bruce’s bass playing is fierce, adventurous, and downright terrifying, while Ginger Baker pounds the skins as only he can, holding down the tempo and tying the three competing titans together. However, the track’s crowning glory is unquestionably Clapton’s solo - performed in two fabulous but deeply contrasting parts.

Robert Johnson recorded two takes of Cross Road Blues in 1936, two years prior to his death, aged just 27, with one released the following year and the other on a 1961 compilation.

The song’s legend is that of a man selling his soul to the devil in return for unworldly musical ability. The more likely truth is that when Johnson left the Robinsonville, Mississippi area where he was living, having already gained a few ideas from blues contemporary Son House, he stayed with Isiah ‘Ike’ Zimmerman in

Hazelhurst, Mississippi, from whom he picked up another, different set of techniques.

When Johnson returned to Robinsville a year later his playing was transformed, leading to the ‘devil’ myth.

Equally, there are various myths surrounding the Cream version of Crossroads.

Where was it actually recorded? Which guitar did Eric play? And was the final version a clever edit, as has been proposed?

In order to get to the bottom of this triple conundrum we spoke to Italian author and teacher Edoardo Genzolini, whose excellent book, Cream: Clapton, Bruce & Baker Sitting On Top Of The World: February-March 1968 (Schiffer Publishing LTD, 2023), is a nerd’s paradise.

We asked Edoardo why, considering there’s so much live footage of Cream, that there’s no film of this legendary performance?

“No, the only footage we have from when Cream played in San Francisco is in Tony Palmer's 1968 documentary, All My Loving,” he confirms. “According to Tony's journal, he and his BBC crew filmed Cream on 16mm at Winterland on Saturday, 2 March, and Saturday, 9 March. The 9 March shows were also professionally recorded for an official live release, and songs from that night such as Sleepy Time Time, Sunshine Of Your Love and NSU, appeared respectively on the later releases, Live Cream, Live Cream Volume II, and the box set Those Were The Days.”

Sadly, while Cream did play Crossroads on Palmer’s recorded performances (the band played a punishing two shows a night), it was the subsequent evening’s first set on 10 March that spawned the version we know and love, and no known film of that show exists.

“It does!” you may scream. “I’ve seen it!” Unfortunately, what you’ve almost certainly seen is a later Royal Albert Hall performance (Clapton wearing shorter hair and no moustache) with the Wheels Of Fire ‘Fillmore’ soundtrack cleverly edited beneath it.

Look around and you can find the original Albert Hall version; same video but a far scrappier Crossroads.

Another confusion surrounds whether the definitive Crossroads was recorded at San Francisco’s Winterland or Fillmore Auditorium. The fact is that Cream played both venues between 7-10 March.

As Genzolini explains, “The wording ‘Live at the Fillmore’ on Wheels Of Fire’s sleeve is mostly correct and applies to all the live songs except Traintime, which is from Winterland, 8 March. And, as sound engineer Bill Halverson reports in my book, ‘That string of shows had been booked for four nights at Fillmore. Bill Graham overbooked it, but Winterland [a much larger venue] was available, so we had to do Thursday 7 March at Fillmore, tear everything down, go Friday and Saturday at Winterland, tear it all down again and go back to Fillmore for Sunday 10 March.’”

As for which guitar Clapton played, the aforementioned Royal Albert Hall edited version, and many other mis-statings in magazine articles and websites, have it as Clapton’s red 1964 Gibson ES-335. However, all the photographic evidence - and Genzolini himself has unearthed many never before seen shots - shows that it was Eric’s psychedelically painted 1964 Gibson ‘Fool’ SG.

Genzolini explains: “The dozens upon dozens of photos I have discovered unarguably support this information: photos taken by the late Jim Marshall [not to be confused with the maker of Clapton’s 100-watt amps] from 10 March clearly show the band playing a venue that’s unquestionably the Fillmore. Also the black and white negatives of Frank M. Stapleton from the Fillmore show display a sequence of songs that’s easily recognisable by Clapton's finger positions on the fretboard, and which match the official setlist of 10 March from the Atlantic Records logs.”

So there’s little doubt the only guitar he had on this leg of the show was the fabled SG.

Genzolini concurs: “Eric played the ‘Fool SG until 12 April, the first of a three-night residence at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia. On 13 April, he bought a Gibson Firebird I at the local Music City store and played the rest of the tour with that guitar.”

And for our final diversion from the music, despite various music historians claiming Crossroads to be an edited, overdubbed or shortened version, the evidence reveals it to be a straight take - exactly as heard on Wheels Of Fire.

Genzolini again: “[Fillmore promoter] Bill Graham's recording on reel-to-reel from the first set of 10 March, preserved at Wolfgang's Vault [a website dedicated to vintage posters, nostalgia and archive recordings], as well as an audience recording of the complete 10 March sets, proves it to be unedited.”

Wolfgang’s Vault itself underscores this view, saying, “Many have claimed Clapton's blistering solo is a result of studio overdubbing, but here it is on this raw two-track recording, fully intact, exactly as it went down, proving that one of the most blazing guitar solos of all time was indeed done spontaneously, live on stage.”

But back to the music - and Clapton’s solo. The first part, a tasteful 24-bar, mostly major pentatonic workout that was pretty quick by 1968 standards, is both perfectly paced and superbly executed.

Eric begins down at the 2nd fret, fourth string, and climbs up the fretboard until he climaxes with a B.B. King-style flurry between 9th and 12th frets. He finishes off with a neat sliding blues lick that takes him back to his 5th fret, pentatonic ‘home’.

It’s a gloriously wholesome 24 bars with a clear beginning, middle and end; a succinct story that, even on its own, represents a stunning moment in blues-rock. This clearly deliberate, if not necessarily conscious tactic, keeps Eric’s powder dry and ready for his second, rather more unfettered outburst.

Here, Clapton takes the roof off with a 36-bar break that starts with unison bends and double-stops, building inexorably to a frenzied climax with a final reworking of his turnaround lick. All this action takes place between the 15th and 18th frets. Among the techniques employed are hammer-ons, pull-offs, Eric’s trademark bends and vibrato, various forms of double-stops and much more. It’s on-the-spot composing of the highest order.

While analysing Crossroads musically is all well and good, it misses the point that here is a band of supreme equals, improvising at the ultimate peak of its powers. And remember, Clapton had yet to turn 23 years old and this recording, which still stands as a shining monument to blues-rock, was made 56 years ago!

Until their brief reunion in 2005, Cream’s 1968 ‘farewell’ tour which culminated on 26 November at London’s Royal Albert Hall, would be the last time the trio played together as a unit.

Clapton himself never liked his playing on Crossroads. “I actually have about zero tolerance for most of my old material, especially Crossroads,” he told MusicRadar in 2004. “The popularity of that song with Cream has always been mystifying to me.”

What annoys Eric is that during his second break he found himself playing over the wrong beat. While to most of us this creates an exciting tension that Clapton expertly releases as he finds his way back into time, it leaves the guitarist bemused at our adulation of his mis-step.

As Clapton told Mojo magazine: “Most of that solo is on the wrong beat... Instead of playing on the two and four, I’m playing on the one and three and thinking, ‘that’s the off beat’... No wonder people think it’s so good - because it’s wrong!"

Back to Edoardo Genzolini: “It undoubtedly is one of the best solos ever conceived for its lyricism, and its recognisable structure building up to a unique climax,” he says. “And what makes it one of the best is the fact that it was captured live on stage. It was clearly a good night for Cream, and we are lucky that [engineer] Bill Halverson and [Cream producer] Felix Pappalardi were there to record it.”

Wolfgang’s Vault’s agrees: “This is a blistering performance, in which Clapton, Bruce, and Baker all seem to be soloing simultaneously. Crossroads is a dazzling display of their fury and bravado when Cream was at the pinnacle of their powers.”

Whether or not we’ve convinced you that Crossroads is indeed the finest live blues performance on record, let’s leave the final word to another legendary six-stringer, the unashamed Clapton fan Edward Van Halen who called it simply, “one of the best live recorded songs ever.”

That’ll do for us!

A fascinating letter written by John Lennon has been unearthed, inviting Eric Clapton to join a ‘supergroup’ that would, in Lennon’s words “bring the balls back in rock 'n’ roll.”

It’s expected to fetch up to £150,000 when it’s auctioned off next week. International Autograph Auctions Europe SL, which is holding the online sale, has described it as “one of the rarest forms of Lennon’s personal communications available.”

The Lennon letter is dated 29 September 1971 - shortly after the release of the Imagine album and the Lennons’ move to New York. In it, the ex-Beatle proposes a group that would include Klaus Voormann on bass, Jim Keltner on drums, Nicky Hopkins on piano and Clapton as lead guitarist.

“You must know by now that Yoko and I rate your music and yourself very highly. You also know the music we have been making and hope to make,” Lennon writes, before referring to the recent Concert For Bangladesh, which took place in New York in August 1971.

“After missing the Bangladesh concert we began to feel more and more like going on the road, but not the way I used to with the Beatles,” he added. “I consider Klaus, Jim, Nicky, Phil, Yoko, you could make the kind of sound that could bring back the balls in rock ’n’ roll.”

“I know I can bring out something great in you… I hope to bring out the same kind of greatness in all of us,” he writes. “No one will be asked to do anything they don’t want to… no contracts. We’re not asking for your name… it’s your mind we want.”

Lennon had been a huge admirer of Clapton for a while. The pair had played together at the Rolling Stones’ Rock N’ Roll Circus in December 1968, and when George Harrison briefly quit The Beatles the following month during the fraught Let It Be sessions, it was Lennon who immediately suggested roping Clapton in as a replacement.

After the Beatles split, the ex Cream man went on to back Lennon on his Cold Turkey single and played live with a version of the Plastic Ono Band at a UNICEF fundraiser in late 1969.

There is no more detail in the letter about the project Lennon had in mind, and it’s not known how (or even whether) Clapton replied. The guitarist might well have had his fill of supergroups by then, having already passed through Cream and Blind Faith.

He was also battling heroin addiction and as well as struggling with his attraction to Patti Boyd, then married to George Harrison. There’s a hint Lennon knew about this when he writes: “Both of us have been thru the same kind of shit/pain that I know you've had - and I know we could help each other in that area.” Lennon himself had his own on/off relationship with heroin during the late '60s/early 70s.

In the event the group never happened, and Lennon turned his attention to combining activism with songwriting on his next album, Some Time In New York City. But the Clapton letter provides a fascinating ‘what-if’, a road not taken for two of rock’s most iconic names.

Jim Dunlop has honoured Eric Clapton with a gold-plated signature Cry Baby wah pedal that looks like it came straight off Auric Goldfinger’s pedalboard.

Heck, the EC95G Eric Clapton looks like it has been made out of the shin of C3-PO, the sort of thing you should stockpile in case of economic collapse (hey, it is a limited edition, and you know how these pedals tend to accrue value). It is also that rarest of things: a wah pedal of great aesthetic beauty.

But let’s face it, Clapton is worth it. If anyone can rock a gold-plated Cry Baby it’s Slowhand. As Dunlop notes, Clapton was one of the the first players to inaugurate the wah pedal on record.

This was a time when guitar effects pedal culture was in its infancy. Players such as Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend and Keith Richards helped draw a new generation of players’ attention to the floor show.

Ironically, Richards’ use of the Maestro FZ-1 fuzz pedal on (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction was one of the few occasions in his career where he found looked to the floor for a new sound. But in one riff he helped popularise the effect.

Clapton and Hendrix did something similar for wah. There is a strange magic with seminal recordings, for those moments where we hear these electric guitar sounds for the very first time.

Even now, early Cream classic and wah-workout White Room retains its Promethean power. For many, it’s a toss-up between White Room and Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) for the title of greatest wah track ever recorded.

Clapton famously used a Vox V846 on White Room. But he has long been a champion of Dunlop’s Cry Baby, and has a long-standing relationship with the company dating back to the mid ‘80s.

“In 1986, Mr. Clapton first started working with the late Jim Dunlop Sr., and he became one of our first and most important Cry Baby artists,” says Dunlop. “We are honoured that our company’s relationship with the legendary guitar player continues to this day. With this special limited edition Eric Clapton Cry Baby Wah, we’re paying tribute to Mr Clapton’s 60-year legacy.”

Longtime Clapton fans will recognise this era well. Back then he was rocking the Miami Vice look on the cover of August. Appropriately so. Hey, when in Miami, do as the Miamians; he tracked the album right there in the Sunshine State, with Tom Down and Phil Collins in the control room.

And longtime Cry Baby fans will recognise the sounds of this new Clapton signature model. The gold-playing and “EC” on the rubber treadle is something different to look at, but the circuit is based on the GCB95 Cry Baby Standard Wah.

Now, you can pick up a GCB95 for £/$99 and Eric Clapton wah is not a cheap date at £349/$299. But this is A) Gold and B) supports Clapton’s Crossroads addiction recovery centre. And it's a limited edition.

For more details, head over to Jim Dunlop.

When it comes to playing the real thing, he’s frequently acclaimed as one of the greatest of all time - one graffiti-favouring fan even referred to him as ‘God’ at one point - but it seems that Eric Clapton has no truck with playing air guitar.

Speaking to Metal Hammer, comedian and British National Treasure Frank Skinner was asked about the time he spoke to Clapton on one of his TV chat shows.

"I asked him if he played air guitar,” recalls Skinner. “He said, ‘Why would I when I can play real guitar?’ It was like, Eric… you don’t understand. Air guitar isn’t to be dismissed like that - in a world where very few people you meet believe in the unseen, air guitar is the last vestige of belief.”

We can only agree: the playing of an air guitar is a simple, healthy pleasure that can give great succour in these relentlessly dark times.

But hang on, because a clip from Skinner’s chat show offers evidence of a slightly different conversation, in which Clapton says that he has played air guitar, but a long time ago.

“Before I got a guitar I did [play air guitar],” said Clapton. “Before my grandparents bought me my first guitar, I did play air guitar before. And I was actually caught one day, on my knees in front of the mirror in my front room, by a friend walking by looking through the window, and I was miming Gene Vincent. It took me days to get over that.”

Perhaps, then, it’s actually this unresolved childhood trauma that prevents Clapton from picking up the air guitar these days. Or maybe we’re just overthinking it.

Elsewhere in the Metal Hammer interview, Skinner reveals that he’s become a born-again metalhead thanks to his son, who’s now 12, and hails the “inspirational” Judas Priest.

Asked which bands he’d banish to Room 101, meanwhile, Skinner says: “Probably The Darkness. Queen were borderline for me - they were to rock music what Showaddywaddy were to ‘50s rock’n’roll. I don’t like comedy heavy metal - my son won’t even watch Spinal Tap because he’s worried it’ll take the piss out the music too much.”

It’s been confirmed that Martin Scorsese will direct a concert film in tribute to Robbie Robertson of the Band.

The concert itself - entitled Life Is A Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson - took place last night (17 October) at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles and featured an array of Robertson’s friends and collaborators, including Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Daniel Lanois, Bruce Hornsby, Margo Price, Allison Russell, Mavis Staples, Don Was, Elvis Costello and Lucinda Williams.

Scorsese, of course, directed The Last Waltz, the famed concert film centred around the Band’s supposed ‘farewell’ performance at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in November 1976. That was a similarly star-studded affair that came to be seen in retrospect as the end of an era – the long '60s and the decade's attendant counter culture. Few at the time could have foreseen that all those involved - Robertson, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and indeed the Band, who resumed touring in 1983 - would have many more decades of music-making ahead of them.

After The Last Waltz, Scorsese and Robertson enjoyed a long and fruitful working relationship. The musician scored a succession of Scorsese’s feature films, including Raging Bull, Casino, The Wolf Of Wall Street, The Irishman and Killers Of The Flower Moon, which was completed before his death in August 2023, aged 80.

The veteran director is clearly on something of a roll regarding music-related projects at present. It was announced earlier this week that he is producing a new Beatles documentary, Beatles ‘64, that is set to be screened by Disney+ at the end of next month.

According to its official description, the new doc will “capture the electrifying moment of The Beatles’ first visit to America” over 60 years ago.

It adds: “Featuring never-before-seen footage of the band and the legions of young fans who helped fuel their ascendance, the film gives a rare glimpse into when The Beatles became the most influential and beloved band of all time."

On 19 October, multi-million selling rock band Foreigner will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. The band was formed by guitarist Mick Jones in 1976, but he’d already had a taste of the big time 10 years earlier as backing musician for Johnny Hallyday, the singer known as ‘The French Elvis’. And that was how Mick got to see Jimi Hendrix on stage and got to know the man offstage.

In an interview with Outlaw magazine in 2019, Mick recalled: “Johnny Hallyday was doing a tour and we needed musicians to back him up, so we were out one night at a club in London, The Cromwellian, where [British jazz/rock star] Brian Auger was playing. Jimi got up to jam with him and he just tore the place apart.

"He was extraordinary. He had this charisma about him before he even picked up his guitar. And when he played a blues, it was unbelievable. I’d never heard or seen anything like it and nor had anybody else. So that evening, they did the deal in the club to take The Jimi Hendrix Experience to France for a month’s tour, opening for Johnny.”

As Mick remembered it, Johnny Hallyday’s fans were completely bemused by Hendrix’s performances.

"Those people didn’t know what hit them!” he laughed. “They were sitting there aghast. I’d watch Jimi every night from the side of the stage, and I was amazed. You had Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and all these great guitar players, but Jimi blew everybody’s socks off!”

Mick also recalled how different Hendrix was offstage. “He was beautiful,” Mick said. “Kind of shy offstage, very mellow and warm. He was on his own little planet, but we had a lot of fun together.”

Fans can thank Candice Night for convincing husband Ritchie Blackmore to sit down in his private tavern in front of a camera and share some of the great rock stories he's been telling his inner circle for decades. "Candice here is always asking me to write these stories down and they're kind of private, and sometimes silly," says Blackmore in the video below. "I would never write a book but I have stories I will tell my friends when I'm in the bar drinking, like now."

In the latest of these stories, he looks back on meeting Eric Clapton when Deep Purple supported Cream in 1968. Things were so cordial Clapton even gifted Blackmore a toy wooden duck on his birthday during the tour, but years later an incident in an Australian hotel was less warm. 

"Another time, we were in a hotel, I think it was Melbourne, Australia. What happened was, I knew that Eric was with his band in that hotel," remembers Blackmore. "We'd had three days there where we'd been woken up very early with hammering – the usual nonsense that goes on in hotels. We were so sick of it we actually threatened the front desk, 'If you wake us up again tomorrow we will bring all our amplification into a room and play at 3 o'clock in the morning, and see how your patrons like hearing this noise.

"Which we did," confirms the guitarist. "The next day of course the hammering started as per usual, they took no notice of what we said, so we went ahead and brought in some Marshalls, stacked them, and my friend actually started playing the guitar – he started playing some bad blues actually. And what happened was, as soon as he started playing we were so loud we got a bang on the door and it was Eric's security…"

They were not amused – and neither it seems was Eric Clapton, who trying to sleep and was much closer to the cacophony than Blackmore could have anticipated. 

"Believe it or not, Eric was in the next room to where we were," remembers Blackmore. "I thought Eric was on another floor way away from where we were. And that was embarrassing, so we stopped playing."

Another awkward encounter further underscored Blackmore's embarrassment.

"The next day we had some words with his security and I said, 'I'm really sorry, I didn't realise we were next door… that was embarrassing, especially to think that Eric might have thought it was me making this racket on the guitar. I was in there having a drink, but I wasn't playing. That doesn't get me off the hook – it was really my idea to make all this noise."

But it wasn't all bad news – Blackmore's hotel protest tactic would soon come in use again.

"When we came back to England we noticed in the hotel that we stayed in there was a chalkboard, and written up on this chalkboard was, 'There will be, at 7 o'clock in the morning, a fire drill' and we went, here we go again – we're going to hear noises. So we said, 'If you do that, we will bring our amplifiers in and we'll start bashing away, doing what we did in Australia. And luckily enough one of the guys behind the desk said, 'What a minute – we've just read about this in the paper. These guys will do that.' So they changed the time of the fire drill to a respectable 1 o'clock in the afternoon. So our reputation preceded us."

The Deep Purple and Rainbow legend is clearly an admirer of Clapton, and as well as revealing in the video above how he ended up buying one of the blues great's old Strats that he later used for the recording of Deep Purple's Emmaretta, Blackmore also explains he's more recently corresponded with Slowhand regarding myopathy arthritis that Blackmore suffers from. Clapton revealed in 2016 that he experiences nerve damage that has affected his guitar-playing abilities.  

Check out Ritchie Blackmore's official YouTube channel for more videos. 

• The 1977 Rainbow gig when Ritchie Blackmore played one of his greatest performances – after two long nights in a police cell

After five decades in the music industry, vocalist, musician and songwriter Paul Carrack has a new album of hits and a new tour to celebrate. Both showcase his lengthy career providing unmistakable vocals on much-loved classics and playing with some of music’s biggest names.

From playing with Roxy Music, providing keys and vocals for Squeeze and fronting Mike and the Mechanics' ‘80s hits - through to behind-the-scenes session work for Eric Clapton, The Pretenders and The Smiths, among many others - Carrack really has done it all.

50 years after his first single - the ever memorable How Long, by Ace - we caught up with the man with the liquid voice in his home studio as prepared to head out on the road one more time. 

Tell us about the new tour. Where are you playing?

“We’re off all over the place. About 20-odd shows. We’re at the Royal Albert Hall in October. I’ve played there with bands several times, and headlined it myself about three times. Most notably, last year.

“I play with the SWR Big Band, based in Germany, which is always a bit of an event. They're a great band - they've got Grammys coming out of their ears - and they were desperate to play at the Albert Hall. So I did the first set with them and the second set was with my regular rock and roll band and plus up in the gods we had The Funky Voices Choir. They came on for the The Living Years and How Long. It was quite a night, I gotta say it myself.”

Tell us about your band. Who are you playing with?

“It's the band that I've had for about 20 years now. Whenever I made a solo album I would have to put a band together. I'm based in London and so the band would usually comprise people I knew from the London scene - whoever was available and was willing to come down a peg or two in their lifestyle for a few weeks and slug it out with me on the road!

“But then I made a connection with a band from my hometown, Sheffield, which arose via a tenuous connection with my support for Sheffield Wednesday. And it’s been a great move because they’ve made a band leader out of me and we have a lot of fun and there's no drama.” 

So the only ego in the band these days is yours?

“That's right. I'm allowed one wobbler per tour. I try to keep it to that.”

And there's a new album, too. It’s amazing that you’re celebrating 50 years in the music industry.

“That's not true. It's more than that…  It's been 50 years since How Long with Ace, which was recorded in 1974. I was 23 in 1974 but from leaving school at 15 I was out there gigging, struggling, living a proper hand-to-mouth existence. I probably weighed about half what I weigh now!

“But we thought we needed to mark the anniversary for How Long. So it’s been a great excuse to put together a compilation of stuff that I've done over all these years.”

And how’s that voice these days? Sounding better than ever?

“We’ve done some festivals this year and it's been great. But there's always that constant fear. If you get a cold on the road. Oh my God, that's when the drama comes in. But I take care of myself. I don't have any fun. I go to bed early.

“One thing I love about going on the road and playing with other people is that I don’t have to worry about singing. It's great. Touring as part of a band is like going on holiday!”

So what first got you into music?

“It’s all I’ve ever loved - music and football. I had a musical gene which I think came from my father's side of the family. I've never had any tuition whatsoever. Never had any musical education. I've learned by ear. I just used to love any kind of music.

“I started out playing a set of made up drums in the attic, playing along to records, and, along the way taught myself to play keys and guitar. So I'm kind of limited in some aspects theory wise and technique wise. But instead, I have good ears and good musical instinct, and that's how I've bluffed my way through all these years.”

What did you excel at first? Was it your vocals or keyboards?

“When I was a kid, people said I had a nice voice, but when I was in bands I started out on drums. But I wanted to join this local soul band in Sheffield and they needed keys, so I persuaded my mum to sign the HP agreement to get a crappy little Selmer Capri, which was a cheap version of the Vox Continental. I couldn't couldn't spring to the Continental, so I got this thing. Somebody showed me a few chords and took it from there.

“I used to listen to records trying to figure out ‘How do they do that?’ and I bought that Billy Preston album The Most Exciting Organ Ever. He's always been my favourite. I just spent the time trying to figure it out. But I didn't sing in bands, literally until How Long with Ace. That was the first time I sang on a record.” 

I was looking at the chart placing for How Long I was amazed that it only got to number 20. How did you feel about getting to number 20 back then?

“It was alright! Yeah, definitely. I remember, we were on our way to a gig, in the transit, and we got a play on Emperor Rosko's Round Table on Radio 1. They played the new releases and a jury would give their verdict. And that week it was The Three Degrees judging. So we pulled over into the hard shoulder and Rosko says ‘Guys, what do you think of that?’ and they say ‘Not strong enough’. We were absolutely gutted. So when it got to number 20 we were delighted. And it did a lot better in the States. [US Billboard number 3]”

Everyone presumes it’s a song about infidelity. What’s your take?

“It’s open to interpretation of course, but the reason I wrote it was because… Well, we were in a band. We were together. We were playing in pubs around London and we started getting better gigs in some nightclubs up and down the country. Things were going OK. But you always have pals who are doing rather better than you.

“They had a recording contract and tours supporting major artists… all that. And they borrowed our bass player for a few gigs. And during the course of him playing with them they tried to persuade him to leave us and join them. I think if he took the bait he could have got a steady 30 quid a week. But he didn't. He stuck with us.

“But I was sufficiently annoyed about the whole thing that I wrote the song. It’s the one and only time I've written a song about a bass player…”

And after that, how does one land a gig in Roxy Music, I wonder?

“I think what happened was that Ace had How Long become a really big hit in the States, so we lived in the States for a while. But when we came back to the UK things had changed. Music had gone punk and new wave. And well, that was it. It was all over. 

“So I started to hang out with what we used to call session guys. Guys who could play and would work a lot of the recording sessions. There’s not such a scene now. But I held these guys in very high esteem, and I wanted to learn from them. These aren’t household names but Alan Spenner - a fantastic bass player - Neil Hubbard on guitar. Guys who could really play in the way that I aspired to, and some of those guys had worked on Brian Ferry's solo stuff.

“So while I was hanging out with these guys they got Roxy back together to make the album, Manifesto. And I got rolled in to come along and play on those sessions. I played on a few tracks and I really enjoyed it. So I played on the next album Flesh and Blood and some of those tracks went on the next, Avalon, as well.

“I enjoyed it a lot, and then they asked me to go on a tour with them. I went on tour across Europe. I was used to being dressed in very sort of boring denim and plaid but this was something else. To play in front of these sorts of pop audiences. It was quite a life…”

You mentioned the advent of punk and new wave. Roxy were very much moving with the times on Manifesto and Flesh and Blood. 

“Yeah, they had a couple of keyboards. The Prophet-5 was a big thing, so there was quite a lot of Prophet-5 there. And a Solina String Ensemble. And the Wurly [Wurlitzer electric piano]. Which I still use. I love the Wurly. But I was brought in by these session guys and they were always a bit sniffy… Probably a very wrong word to use there. Let’s say they were snobby - yes, snobby - about synthesizers.

“Synthesizers weren’t what they wanted to do, and I kind of adopted a little bit of that bullshit attitude. With Roxy with Eno there was that very electronic stuff, but I didn't know anything about that. I'm just really an organ and piano kind of guy, but I was willing to try.

“I’ve got a lot of time for Brian [Ferry]. I think Brian had got into his solo thing anyway, and that was a bit more sort of groovy and souly so he took Roxy in that direction.

There were a lot of prog and rock players that pushed against synthesisers and stuck with piano and Hammond. Were you one of those?

“Yeah, there were people who hated synthesizers. I worked a lot with Nick Lowe during the eighties. He wouldn't have him in the place. He said that when he was working with Elvis [Costello] and Steve Nieve would be fiddling about trying to get the sounds, he said it would make him physically ill.”

I think there was a feeling that the spiky experimental Roxy had gone. They’d got a little too slick at this point. 

“Yes, there you go. I'm not taking the blame for it! I was there to help and support and that was the way it was going.”

And after Roxy you were with Squeeze. And I’m not sure how many people know that it’s you singing the lead on Tempted. Not Difford. Not Tilbrook.

“Well, there’s actually a lot going on. I sing the first verse and the chorus. Then Glenn [Tilbrook] sings the first part of the second verse and it’s Elvis [Costello] doing the bit that goes ‘The people keep on grindin’, ain't wishin’ I was well’. That's not Chris. That's Elvis. And then I take over again and do the rest of the song.”

But I’m intrigued. How come you end up doing the main vocal?

“Well, it was Elvis's idea. I had joined the band… Well, I didn't even know I was joining the band, to be honest with you. This was about a week before they started recording the album East Side Story, and Jools [Holland] had left, and they tried a few people and nothing had caught the selectors’ eye, so to speak.

“Now, Jake Riviera - who founded Stiff Records - and Elvis Costello had taken Squeeze under their wing because not only had Jools left but they’d split from their manager, Miles Copeland. So Jake was managing them and I knew Jake from when he was a roadie. And Jake says to them ‘What about Paul Carrack? He’s back in town. He’s been playing with Roxy Music…’

“So I went down. I didn’t know much about Squeeze. I knew the singles. And I liked Jake. But they played me all this new stuff and I was knocked out. It was high tempo, loads of chords, melodies, and they asked me if I wanted to come in and work on it. Or I think they said ‘join the band’. But I thought it was going to just play on the album, and that would be it.

“So anyway, I played on the album and they'd already recorded a version of Tempted with Dave Edmunds producing but it was very different. And we were messing about in the studio one day and we started doing Tempted in that groovy style. I'm soloing away, playing the Hammond and Elvis comes running in and says, ‘Let's put this down!’ So we recorded it like that and he said, ‘I tell you what, Paul, you should sing it’.

And were Difford and Tilbrook in the room?

“Yeah, we were all in the room and we recorded all at once and, yeah, they were very supportive. I don't know if I'd have been so pleased if I'd written that song and they suggested somebody else sing it because I think it's one of their best.”

It’s great that when they re-recorded it for Spot The Difference in 2010 that they didn’t replace your vocal. They got you back again.

“And they said that I could use that version for myself. That’s the version that’s on the new compilation.”

Tempted is another one with a surprising chart placing. Number 41 - surely the most evil chart placing of all…

“Well, it was probably too long. Probably something as silly as that. You had to be three and a bit minutes, and it's probably four minutes or something like that. But it was a bit of a breakthrough in the States for them. It got a lot of airplay, for sure.

And needless to say, that's your Hammond on the track.

“And piano, too.”

And so how do you transition from Squeeze to Mike and the Mechanics? Were you doing solo stuff at this point?

“It's all a bit messy. Music had gone punk and new wave and I'm writing little soulful lovey dovey ditties. So I started just meandering about playing sessions here and there. I did the Squeeze thing and I loved it and I was there for about a year and I was quite comfortable just playing keys.

“But people were saying, ‘Well, it's a great gig, but you know, if you're gonna be a singer-songwriter…’ I didn’t want to try and muscle in on their songwriting because it was very different to my own stuff, which is very simple. And their stuff was more interesting and exciting basically! But more importantly, it was their identity. 

“So I was in a bit of a comfort zone really, and people were encouraging me to step out and have a go myself. So I started to work with Nick Lowe and did two or three albums with Nick for him and one album for me called Suburban Voodoo which had a top 40 song on it, I Need You, so that was great fun.

“We did loads of bus tours of America. We were opening for people like Tom Petty and that, but it became a bit of a burden for Nick to keep it all going. So that fizzled out. That's when, out of the blue, I got a call from BA Robertson. He tracked me down because he wanted me to sing a demo for him of a song that he was pitching to a movie. So I went along and did it for free, and after the session he said, ‘By the way, I'm writing songs with Mike Rutherford from Genesis. They've recorded a load of tracks without vocals in Montserrat…’ So I went down to a studio near Guildford. And they put on this backing track of this song - Silent Running. A very simple three-chord job. And they had no lyrics except ‘Can you hear me? Can you hear me running?’

“So I go in and just blues away, whatever, and they must have been impressed. BA went away and wrote this mad apocalyptic lyric about guns and ammunition and I went back the following week and we cut the track.

“I just came in as a designated singer and when that album came out a few months later, I’d kind of forgotten about it. But Mike had quite a profile and the power of Genesis kind of set it up, so it did quite well. And soon he put the band together to go on tour. And that was the beginning of that.

“Soon we're getting UK number ones. US number ones. Living Years was number two for two weeks running. We thought it was bound to be number one the next week. But we were held off the top by Gene Pitney and Marc Almond.”

What people might not know is that you played on the first Smiths album

“It was an organ and piano kind of thing. That came about because I knew John Porter. John was producing the Smiths, and he just got me to go down there after the pubs were closed. [Paul plays on Reel Around the Fountain, You've Got Everything Now and I Don't Owe You Anything]

“I think I got about 50 quid for that.”

Tell us about your studio at home

“I was encouraged to do this by my good friend, Pete Van Hook. I've lived in this house now for about 35 years, and one of the first things I did was to convert the garage into a demo studio. I had a little eight-track, one-inch tape, that I used to do my demos on. And, then I pushed the boat out and got a 16-track machine. That served me well, then I got dragged kicking and screaming into digital because I was frightened to death of it. But I realised that it was a great move because it's obviously so useful for writing.

“I started with a program called Studio Vision and that was working all great and then they suddenly pulled the plug on that, and I was in a mad panic. ‘I can’t learn another program!’. But I was advised to go for Pro Tools which is what I did. I have my own way of working - I’m really doing ‘tip of the iceberg’ stuff - but it’s a really useful tool. I've made a lot of albums just playing everything myself and programming.

You must have worked out which microphone suits your voice best by now?

“Well, I've got a few mics and I've always tended to go for what was the most decent, expensive mic, so I have a Neumann M49 which is a classic. But I've also found that I like working with cheaper mics, especially if it's on rock and roll, because they just sit in the track. I have a Shure SM7b - the one all the podcasters use - and that’s great. 

“I’ve also had a mic sitting in the bass drum for years - an Electro Voice RE20. That’s great for vocals, too.”

What sort of keyboards have you got at home with you?

"I've got a Yamaha Baby Grand - a C7 - and a Hammond B3. I bought it when I was on tour with Squeeze. We were in Chicago, and I went round to this massive warehouse where this guy did all the organs for all the churches around Chicago. I mean, he had tons of them. He said, ‘What are you playing?’ and I said, ‘Rock ‘n’ roll’ and he just picked me one out. It’s a beautiful thing. I think I paid $3,000 for it. It cost me more than that to ship it over! That one’s in the studio and it never moves.

“I’ve got a great guy - Drawbar Dave - who looks after it. The thing with Hammonds is they’re tricky to fix. It takes expertise and the guys are getting older… There's so many parts so if you’ve got an issue they can spend hours. But Drawbar Dave is younger and he knows his stuff. I was introduced to him by Steve Winwood’s engineer, James Towler. 

“And I've got a [Hammond] C3 - a chopped C3 - which I've spent a lot of money getting up to scratch and I use live. I ditched the Leslie because we don't use amps on stage, it’s all modellers. I’ve got a Fractal FM3 and the guitarist has one. And the bass player goes through a [Tech 21] Sansamp. 

“So it's pretty quiet out there! When we're all on in-ears the only sound you can hear is the drums. But the sound guy loves it because he's got so much control.

“Keyboard wise, I use a Yamaha CP1 and just one little string unit that I have on a foot pedal.

“These days we can do what we call ‘flyaways’. We can go and do a festival somewhere. Everything fits in four small cases. You can check it in as excess baggage, we take our Fractals and we turn up and we’re good to go.” 

You’ve worked with so many people over the years. Is there anybody that you've never played with that you would like to?

“Not really, no. I want to concentrate on doing my own thing. There's loads of people I admire. I did the Eric [Clapton] thing, which was fantastic and right up my street, because basically, the music is simple. It's all down to the feel. I can sit in that bluesy situation.

“I had played on several of his albums. Pilgrim and others. I played a few tracks here and there. And I've done a few charity shows which were usually put together by Gary Brooker of Procol Harum. He would get some faces together and some support. But about 10 years ago Eric called me up because his regular organ player couldn't make it and he asked me to go out on the road with him. And I did more or less all of his touring for about 10 years.

“I didn't do this year because I had a tour in place and I was playing at the Albert Hall and that clashed with Eric's situation.

“So no, I've got enough on. I want to get more recordings in the musical bank. And I've got my touring, so it would just be greedy to want any more.”

Paul Carrack’s How Long - Has This Been Going On? Greatest Hits is available to stream now. For the latest tour dates, check out his website.

A visibly emotional Eric Clapton has shared a tribute to John Mayall, who passed away on 22 July at the age of 90. Clapton was once part of Mayall's Bluesbreakers and recorded the seminal 'Beano' album in 1966 that would go on to inspire generations of blues-rock guitarists.

Clapton's personal video eulogy credits his friend Mayall with opening the door to his career as a musician. "I want to say thank you chiefly for rescuing me from oblivion and god knows what when I was a young man around the age of 18/19 when I decided that I was going to quit music," began Clapton.  "He found me and took me into his home and asked me to join his band. And I stayed with him and I learned all that I really have to draw on today in terms of technique and desire to play the kind of music I love to play.

"I did all my research in his home – in his record collection," continued Clapton. "From the Chicago blues that he was such an expert on, and I played with his band for a couple of years with Hughie [Flint, drums] and John [McVie, bass], and it was a fantastic experience. He taught me it was ok to play the music you wanted to play without dressing it up or making anyone else like it – whether it mattered if they like it or not. To listen to myself, my inner motivations and he was my mentor and a surrogate father.

In the candid video below Clapton also reveals his regrets about the way he acted offstage during his time playing with Mayall. 

"He taught me all I really know and gave me the courage and enthusiasm to express myself without fear or without limit. And all I gave him in return was how much fun it was to drink and womanise when he was already a family man. And I wished to make amends for that and I did that while he was alive, and I have obviously since learned that is not the best way to carry on. 

"I shall miss him, I shall miss him but I hope to see him on the other side," Clapton concluded. "Thank you John, I love you – I'll see you soon but not yet. Not yet, as they say in the Gladiator movie. God bless, thank you. 

The legendary guitarist joined the Bluesbreakers in April 1965 and quite a few months later, returning in October before going on to record their Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton album the following year that would be dubbed 'The Beano Album' due to the guitarist reading a Beano comic on the cover. 

Clapton would leave the band in July 1966 to pursue his idea for a trio alongside bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker that would become Cream. 

• The story of Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton and Peter Green

 Between 1965 and 1967, Eric Clapton and Peter Green blew through John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and lit the fuse of the British boom. This is the true story of the greatest handover in blues history…

It is May 1966, and the Decca Studios are quaking. Work stops. Employees wince. In the canteen, the seismic shudder rattles teacups and prompts angry objections. Little do the complainants realise that this racket is history being made.

Had anyone been brave enough to enter the studio and fight through the wall of sound, they would have found a 21-year-old Eric Clapton at the eye of the storm, toting a Les Paul, driving a Marshall into the red, tracking the songs that would light the fuse of the blues boom on an album officially titled Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton, but would become known to all as ‘Beano’. “Nobody had witnessed someone coming into the studio, setting up their guitar and amp, and playing at that volume,” the album’s producer, Mike Vernon, recalls.

Perhaps Clapton’s primal scream was understandable. By the time he came to record Beano, the precocious guitarist already had plenty to get out of his system. A troubled young man with a tangled family background, his eye-popping ability had seen him deified in the Yardbirds, but by March 1965, he was despairing of the pop direction taken by the R&B combo and hungry to play the blues. “We had completely sold out,” he wrote in his memoirs. “By then, I was a pretty grizzled and discontent individual.”

New directions 

While Clapton retreated into the Oxfordshire countryside to lick his wounds, another pivotal figure was eyeing his progress. Older and wiser, with a gruff authority and a scholarly appreciation of American blues, John Mayall had moved from Manchester to London in 1963 at the suggestion of scene figurehead Alexis Korner. Mayall’s band – the Bluesbreakers – were well-respected, but his 1965 debut album was too purist to compete with the prevailing R&B-lite, sold poorly, and saw him dropped from the Decca label.

Mayall recognised that the Bluesbreakers lacked a guitarist to channel the hard, lean, electrified attack of Chicago players such as Freddie King. And so, on 28 March 1965, he gathered his rhythm section around a jukebox in Nottingham, played the Yardbirds’ necktingling B-side Got To Hurry, and suggested they hire the ousted guitarist. “Eric was the first guitarist I heard,” remembers the bandleader, “who had it.”

“I was very grateful that someone saw my worth,” picks up Clapton, “and my thinking was that maybe would be able to steer the band towards Chicago blues, instead of the sort of jazz blues they were currently playing.”

Joining the lineup in April 1965, Clapton’s days were spent absorbing Mayall’s extensive vinyl collection in the bandleader’s attic. “Modern Chicago blues became my new Mecca,” he remembers. “It was a tough electric sound, spearheaded by people like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker.”

By night, for a flat weekly fee of £35, Clapton stepped out with the Bluesbreakers to play shows that left a crater in the London club scene. Aware that his new recruit was the group’s selling point, the wily Mayall had chosen material to suit, with cuts such as Freddie King’s instrumental Hideaway offering a showcase for Clapton’s molten phrasing and perfectly weighted touch. “When Eric felt like playing,” reflects Mayall, “You really took notice.”

Trailblazer

When the lineup descended on Decca Studios the following May, the Beano sessions were the perfect fusion of material and performance. Scan the track listing and you found a run of covers that confirmed Mayall’s fathoms-deep blues knowledge, spiced with a fistful of the bandleader’s originals. 

There was Hideaway, of course – Clapton tearing through its three-minute duration with peerless soul and swagger – then there was the smack-in-the-mouth lick of Mayall’s own Little Girl, and the swooped bends and thrilling double-time break of Otis Rush’s All Your Love.

Memphis Slim’s Steppin’ Out was closer to a swagger, while Mayall’s slow-blues, Have You Heard, achieved lift-off when Clapton’s combustible solo entered the fray. No less powerful was the Mayall-Clapton co-write, Double Crossing Time. “One of the greatest blues guitar solos ever,” says Joe Bonamassa, who described Beano as the “template and universal language” for his 2012 album Driving Towards The Daylight. “The fire he puts into that solo is unbelievable.” 

“No doubt about it, Beano was a trailblazer,” says Mayall. “It’s Eric’s first stab at notoriety. When he felt the spirit, he was untouchable. It was a novelty back then for British musicians to be playing guitar like that.”

Les Paul resurgence 

Another line in the sand was Clapton’s choice of guitar. In his early years, instruments had come and gone, from the Kay Red Devil of childhood to the ‘63 Telecaster of the Yardbirds era. But his interest in the Les Paul had been piqued by the sleeve of Freddie King’s Let’s Dance Away And Hide Away, and he didn’t hesitate upon spotting a ’59 to ’60 Cherry Sunburst example in the Lew Davis music shop. The price tag was just £120: testament to the discontinued Les Paul’s rock-bottom popularity compared to semi-hollow models.

The Chicago bluesman could also take indirect credit for Clapton’s feted Beano tone. “It had really come about by accident,” the British guitarist wrote of that honeyed roar. “I was trying to emulate the sharp, thin sound that Freddie King got out of his Gibson Les Paul, and I ended up with something quite different, a sound, which was a lot fatter than Freddie’s. What I would do was use the bridge pickup with all of the bass turned up, so the sound was very thick and on the edge of distortion.”

Another critical factor was Clapton’s amp. In this department, too, the guitarist had floundered, dabbling with a Vox in the Yardbirds, but finding the combo “too toppy”. 

The answer came from the music shop run by one Jim Marshall, and a deceptively small 1962 45-watt 2x12 combo. “I thought the solution was to get an amp and play it as loud as it would go until it was about to burst,” says Clapton. “When I was doing that album, it was obvious that if you mic’d the amp too close it’d sound awful, so you had to put it a long way away and get the room sound of that amp breaking up.”

With the guitarist refusing to put the Marshall in an isolation room, it fell to producer Mike Vernon to help tame that shattering volume, his schemes including turning the combo to face the wall and draping a piano cover over the top. The guitarist, meanwhile, devised his own method to manage that power. 

“I’d hit a note, hold it and give it some vibrato with my fingers, until it sustained and then the distortion would turn into feedback. It was all of these things, plus the distortion, that created what I suppose you’d call ‘my sound’.”

Enter Greeny

By the summer of 1966, that sound was everywhere, as Beano led the charge for Britain’s nascent blues movement, and sparked the apocryphal ‘Clapton Is God’ graffiti across London.

“The fact is,” he said, “that through my playing, people were being exposed to another kind of music, which was new to them, and I was getting all the credit, as if I had invented the blues.”

Perhaps not, but Clapton dragged it overground. Perhaps not, but Clapton dragged it overground. Released in July, Beano climbed to No 6 in the charts and made stars of the Bluesbreakers – but by then, their trophy guitarist had made other plans. Inspired by seeing Buddy Guy front a trio at The Marquee, Clapton had been jamming in secret with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce since March 1966, and that summer he left for Cream. 

“I had the unenviable task of explaining myself to John,” he says. “He was upset that I was jumping off the train just as it was beginning to gather speed.” 

Mayall himself has always downplayed the impact of Clapton’s exit. Whether or not the bandleader felt betrayed, it doubtless softened the blow that he had another extraordinary young guitarist in the wings.

“Peter Green was the next in line,” Mayall shrugged in 2012. “That was a no-brainer.”

Peter Green. The name might not enjoy the same international recognition as Eric Clapton amongst fairweather music fans, but to blues aficionados, he occupies the same rarified heights. Born in Bethnal Green in 1946, and inspired by Stateside titans such as Buddy Guy, Freddie King, Otis Rush and BB King, Green had knocked about London playing bass in midtable outfits including Peter B’s Looners, until an epiphany brought him back to six strings. 

“I decided to go back on lead guitar after seeing Eric Clapton,” Green remembered in 1998. remembers. “I’d seen him with the Bluesbreakers and his whole concentration was on his guitar. He had a Les Paul, his fingers were marvellous. The guy knew how to do a bit of evil, I guess.”

In August 1965, Green saw his chance to do more than spectate, as an increasingly egocentric Clapton blew off his Bluesbreakers gig to tour Greece with a motley bunch of musicians known as The Glands. “I was so unreliable, so irresponsible,” admitted Clapton. “I would sometimes just not show up at gigs and that’s how Peter Green was asked to play with John.”

Hard road to travel 

While a flailing Mayall turned in desperation to a series of stand-in guitarists, Green did his best to undermine them. “Peter had pestered John to employ him,” remembers Clapton, “often turning up at gigs and shouting from the audience that he was much better than whoever was playing that night. 

"Though I barely knew him, I got the impression that here was a real Turk, a strong, confident person who knew exactly what he wanted. Most importantly, he was a phenomenal player with a great tone.”

“Peter had a hard job,” says Tom Huissen, the Dutch fan whose bootlegs of the Green-era lineup were released in 2015. "He had to replace Eric, who was ‘God’ in those days. But after a couple of concerts, that whole idea was gone, because he was so amazing. 

"What I remember about those concerts is that nobody was calling for Eric. They accepted Peter straight away. The way he played – it’s just phenomenal."

The fans weren’t the only ones with early reservations. As Mike Vernon admits, when the new Bluesbreakers lineup pitched up at Decca Studios in October 1966 to record A Hard Road, he struggled to believe this 19-year-old nonentity could fill Clapton’s hallowed shoes. “I noticed an amplifier I had never seen before,” recalls the producer, “so I said to John, ‘Where’s Eric Clapton?’ Mayall says: ‘He’s not with us anymore, but don’t worry, we’ve got someone better’.

I said, ‘Wait a minute, you’ve got someone better? Than Eric Clapton?’ John said, ‘He might not be better now, but you wait, in a couple of years, he’s going to be the best’. Then he introduced me to Peter Green.”

In more recent times, Green has brushed off his contribution to the album. “I’m only Eric Clapton’s replacement, I’m not Eric Clapton,” he insisted in a 1998 interview with Guitarist. “I didn’t really know what I was doing on the guitar. I was very lucky to get anything remotely any good. I used to dash around on stepping stones, that’s what I used to call it.”

It’s hard to square that assessment with A Hard Road. The moment Green unleashed a tight, biting solo on the opening title track, any sense of Clapton’s loss evaporated, and from his soulful runs on Someday After A While (You’ll Be Sorry) to his fruity showboating on Freddie King’s The Stumble, this was a masterclass of phrasing and touch. 

As the standout track, Green’s self-penned The Supernatural was spookily brilliant, the guitarist conjuring ten-second sustained notes that seemed somehow right next to you and worlds away.

Phase two

Green’s inimitable tone came from some off-kilter tools. During Clapton’s hiatus, the guitarist had auditioned using a Harmony Meteor; by the time he came aboard for A Hard Road, he was armed with a ’59 Les Paul whose quirks became legendary. 

“I stumbled across one when I was looking for something more powerful than my Meteor,” Green recalled. “I went into Selmer’s in Charing Cross Road and tried [a Les Paul]. It was only £110 and it sounded lovely and the colour was really good. But the neck was like a tree. 

"It was very different from Eric’s, which was slim. I’ve never seen another guitar with such an old-fashioned neck. But I couldn’t consider a Telecaster for some reason, and I didn’t want a Strat. Mine [LP] was a funny old fuddy-duddy, sweet old thing.”

The defining feature of Green’s ’59 lay in the electronics: the neck pickup had been removed, then replaced backwards. Combined with a Marshall amp, 4x12 cabinet, studio plate reverb and his position stood near the speakers, tracks such as The Supernatural had an out-of-phase quality and a sense of distance that was spellbinding. 

Faced with such raw soul, it’s not hard to understand why BB King considered Green’s “the sweetest tone I ever heard”, or Walter Trout’s opinion that he was “the British blues guy who astounded me most in his heyday.”

The defining feature of Green’s ’59 lay in the electronics: the neck pickup had been removed, then replaced backwards. Combined with a Marshall amp, 4x12 cabinet, studio plate reverb and his position stood near the speakers, tracks such as The Supernatural had an out-of-phase quality and a sense of distance that was spellbinding. 

Faced with such raw soul, it’s not hard to understand why BB King considered Green’s “the sweetest tone I ever heard”, or Walter Trout’s opinion that he was “the British blues guy who astounded me most in his heyday.”

Legacy

But no heyday lasts forever, and on its release in February 1967, A Hard Road proved a case of history repeating. The album gave Mayall another chart hit, reaching No 8, but once again, the bandleader found himself deserted by his star player, as Green left that same summer to form Fleetwood Mac with Breakers alumni Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. 

“Do I ever wish I’d had longer working with Peter?” Mayall pondered. “No. You can’t think in terms like that.” Post-1967, the principals in this story enjoyed mixed fortunes. Clapton went from Cream to a solo career that thrives to this day. Green’s early flush of success with Fleetwood Mac was derailed by mental health issues, and though he later reemerged with the Splinter Group, many argue his touch never quite recovered. 

Buoyed by the pair’s all-star patronage, the Gibson Les Paul was reintroduced in 1968, becoming the choice of bluesleaning rockers from Jimmy Page to Paul Kossoff.

Mayall, as ever, rolled on, snapping up future Rolling Stone Mick Taylor and recording Crusade. As for Beano and A Hard Road, the bold, ballsy, utterly British guitar playing on those two seminal albums kick-started the rise of a heavier, hairier brand of blues as the 70s loomed into view. 

“If you want to know where it all began, in terms of both the '60s blues boom and the heavy rock we got into,” says legendary Black Sabbath guitarist, Tony Iommi, “it goes back to John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers…”

• Eric Clapton interview: "I actually have about zero tolerance for most of my old material. Especially Crossroads"

Although Eric Clapton came to prominence as a lead guitar player through the 1960s, many of his biggest hits have featured some great chord work.

Clapton is a player who has proudly moved between different styles. His musical career has taken him from blues to pop, reggae, country and back again as we hone in four key chords from the career of old Slowhand himself to help you mine some inspiration for yourself.

D

Usually, there wouldn’t be much special about a D chord, but this D chord is a little different. This D chord is featured in the track Sunshine Of Your Love. It’s a D major triad, spread out over the E, A and G strings (With the D string muted). 

Think of this as a two string power chord with the major third added at the top. This is a great way to add a major flavour to a power chord riff without resorting to full barre chords.

E/G#

Inversions are a great way to unlock additional tones and voicings from chords that you might use everyday. This E/G# is one of the chords from the track Tears In Heaven that was a moving highlight of Clapton's iconic 1992 MTV Unplugged performance.

What we have here is just an E major triad, but the root is on the B string, the 5th on the G and the major third on the low E. This inversion, coupled with the pitch gap between the low G# and the other notes, gives this E major triad a new identity.

The 10 essential songs beginner guitar players can learn now

G 

Clapton has dabbled with some reggae stylings over the years, one of his most prominent ventures into this style was his cover of the Bob Dylan classic Knockin’ On Heaven's Door. 

This G Major triad is a great example of a shortened major barre chord that can be used in a reggae-style track. Although this is just a simple major triad, it’s use in this context is very effective. It also frees up sonic space in the spectrum for other instruments in the mix.

G6

This opening chord from the track Wonderful Tonight has a slightly jazzy undertone. We don’t tend to see the 6th interval added to major chords in most rock and pop music.

The G major triad is played on the D, G and B strings, as if you were taking it from a regular 6 string barre chord, and the 6 interval is added on top as the open high E string.

• Eric Clapton and the song he said he'd never play live again: “I got at least 150 letters a day directly from people who were dealing with their own grief... and not really having the tools to deal with it"

Few bands are able to articulate the complexity, depth and range of human emotions quite in the same way as the Tedeschi Trucks Band. They’re the kind of group who seem to have infinite layers of dynamics to explore, with all kinds of subtle builds to bridge into the soaring rootsy hooks and spellbinding bluesy magick they typify. 

Fronted by singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi, with husband and slide guitar maverick Derek Trucks adding his inimitable sense of flair, the band formed after the pair met while she was opening for The Allman Brothers, the legendary southern rock band her future husband had been playing in. After briefly performing together as Soul Stew Revival, which saw their respective bands merged into together, the Tedeschi Trucks Band was born in 2010 and the pair have never looked back.

This year Tedeschi is being awarded her own signature Telecaster through Fender, based on the early 90s green American Standard model that was immortalised on the cover of her 1998 Just Won’t Burn album and, for reasons she goes on to explain, has never been far from her side ever since. To have her name on an artist model is a huge honour, she tells MusicRadar, though as we learn from this conversation with the husky-voiced blues star, her career has been full of unexpected yet welcome surprises.

“Having a signature Fender guitar really is a dream come true,” she beams, video conferencing MusicRadar from the Florida home she shares with her husband and family. “You know, there’s really not a lot of women who have achieved that, so for me it’s like a triple honour.”

As she goes on to explain, the visibility of females in the music industry is improving, both on and off stage. There’s still a long way to go before the word equality can be stated with any absolute certainty, but from her perspective it’s empowering to see how girl power is thriving across the board. “I was kinda blown away when I went to the factory how many women build the guitars,” she grins. “I was like ‘Holy shit, it’s mostly girls in here!’ When I asked about that, they told me some of the men are too rough and would end up breaking the guitars! That was amazing to hear, it kinda reminded me that women have superpowers.”

 The new signature model features custom single-coil pickups voiced specifically after her prized instrument, a C profile maple neck, a Master TBX tone control and a distinctive four-ply tortoiseshell pickguard. But perhaps it’s the Aged Caribbean Mist finish that will catch people’s attentions first and foremost, no matter how far they might be from the stage. As fate would have it, the original guitar – a 1993 model acquired by Tedeschi two years later in 1995 – carried a slightly different shade of aquamarine when it found its way into her life...

“My Tele was a little more blue originally, but over time it became more green,” she continues. “Fender asked me which colour we should use for the new signature: the one it was or the one that it is. And I told them, ‘Definitely the one that it is now!’ It’s such a gorgeous colour. We’re all really happy with it... I will never look at that finish and think it’s ugly!”

If you’ve managed to catch the official Fender promotional video for the signature, you will already know it’s a guitar that sounds every bit as beautiful as it looks, especially when placed in the hands of a player as skilled as Tedeschi. For the performance clips, she was plugged into a Fender amp with the tremolo engaged and nothing in between. As she goes on to explain, a guitar and an amp are all she needs to get the job done, and as we all know it’s a job she always does very well.

“It was probably a Deluxe Reverb or Vibrolux,” says Tedeschi. “I find Twins a little too bright for me. I’m not a huge fan of them because they tend to be really loud and piercing. That’s why I’m more into the sound of a Deluxe or Vibrolux. And, of course, a Super Reverb... that’s what I use on a regular basis when I’m on stage. Just an old-school Super and that’s me!” 

One thing you mention in the video is how the neck pickup is notably warmer than other Telecasters. Why do you think that is?

“That’s the thing about any pickup or guitar... they’re all different. This pickup was hand-wound years ago, it was actually a used guitar when I got it. I found it hanging up on the wall at Cambridge Music in Somerville, Massachusetts. This was back in 1995, so it was already a couple of years old. It felt kinda customy, as if the previous owner had done their own thing to it.

“I just loved the sound of the guitar. Sure enough, when Fender took it in to try and replicate it, they found it hard to get it exactly right at first. But they did a great job of finding a sound that was warmer and hotter like mine. It’s such a hard thing to capture. Most of us players don’t realise how every guitar will end up sounding different. Fender kept sending me pickups and I would try them out until I found the one that was closest, with more volume and more depth. It’s a nice contrast to the thinner sounds you usually get from a Telecaster.”

It definitely seems to have more low end and less twang...

“For sure. People sometimes say to me ‘Oh yeah, you play a Tele!’ but in my head I’m thinking my guitar doesn’t really sound like one. It still has the pickup selector so you can mix up the sounds or even go in-between to get them out of phase for more of a Buddy Guy kinda tone.

“I love learning about this stuff. I’m not really a huge tech person, I’m more of a ‘plug in and go’ style of player. But along the way I’ve been learning about different pedals and other gear. Over the years I’ve mainly just stuck with my wah-wah pedal and a tuner, though I love the sound of vibrato and tremolo, too... those tones are always fun. I quite like Supro amps for that. They always make a really nice tremolo, as do Ampeg with their Reverberockets, which have a lovely vibrato and tremolo.”

It’s interesting that your model features a TBX tone circuit like some of the old Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton Strats, where one to five are the classic Tone knob parameters and six to 10 take things up a gear...

“I wasn’t sure about it at first, always staying in the first half of the dial, but then found myself using that stuff more and more. Once you get over the threshold of the halfway point, it definitely starts breaking up a bit more and sounding thicker. If I want a really warm tone, I’ll roll it back from five and crank up the volume. It’s all there, you can find it, but the settings are slightly different to a regular Tele. Ultimately there are more options.”

So which players drew you into playing Telecasters?

“Early on, I remember Albert Collins playing one. Of course, he always sounded amazing. But, you know, it wasn’t so much the players as it was the guitar itself. I feel like the Telecaster picked me! I had a dream about this guitar and went back to the store to buy it the next day. I liked it because it sounded a bit like a Strat and Tele, but with a different take on it, falling almost in between. I knew straight away this guitar would be very universal. You can use it for any style of music.

“My husband Derek usually plays a Gibson SG, so he has that humbucker sound. Having a single-coil guitar is really helpful for me because it helps create a different sound. Using two guitars with humbuckers could end up sounding quite same-y and too similar. We don’t want to have the exact same tone when we are playing together. Having different guitars helps people out who they are hearing – obviously Derek and I have our own feel as musicians, but using different guitars and tones makes it even more obvious. It creates more space.

“A lot of people don’t think about this, but when you are recording or mixing a band and you bring up two things that sound similar, they can occupy the same space in your hearing and in your brain. A little bit of separation can help instruments compliment each other more.”

Your guitar is adorned with all kinds of signatures from famous musicians such as the late, great B.B. King. Can you talk us through your favourites?

“The first signature was done in 1997 by Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown. I was so excited because I was going to Martha’s Vineyard with my band to open for him. We got there and President Clinton decided to have a party at the venue for his secretary. Somehow, Carly Simon, who owned the place, kicked me out of my spot and kept Gatemouth, who was quite upset by that.

“He told them ‘Susan’s with me!’ to stop Secret Service coming in and making us leave. Then he looked at me and said ‘You are like my granddaughter, so you are going to stay with me today so we can all hang out!’ He was smoking pot out of a pipe with all these government agents running around, and this is before marijuana was even legal. He was the OG, telling everyone he was the Deputy Sheriff in Slidell, Louisiana. He was so great to me and that’s how he ended up being my first signature.

“And then in 1998 I went on tour with BB King and Buddy Guy, who were the next ones to sign it. Buddy signed ‘Buddy Guy 98’ on the back of my headstock, which is where my name is on the signature guitars. Most of the people who have signed my guitar are musicians I’ve opened for or played with, rather than random people. Jimmie Vaughan is also on there because I’ve toured a bunch with him. I used to have Double Trouble on there, too... but it came off. They were my band when I was opening up for The Allman Brothers, which is when I met my husband.

“Other people on there are Willie Nelson. Doctor John came off, sadly, his signature wore off over time, as did Bonnie Raitt’s and John Hiatt’s signatures. Other idols that are still on there are Kris Kristofferson, Joe Walsh, Ron Wood, Ernie Isley, Herbie Hancock, Little Melvin, John Lee Hooker... it’s a really special guitar but it’s quite sad I’ve never lacquered it to protect the signatures. It’s the only thing that’s a bummer, I’m afraid they will all come off one day. I need to protect what’s left!”

 So how many guitars do you own in total and which ones would you say are the most collectable or meaningful?

“I actually don’t know! Right now we’re renovating our house and all our stuff is moving around – some of it’s on the road, on the truck, in the studio and elsewhere. Sometimes I feel like it’s Derek who owns all the guitars but that’s not true. I own a bunch of guitars, like a 1977 Telecaster in Natural with all the original parts. That’s a beautiful guitar that sounds really good.

“I also have a Cream Custom Shop Telecaster with a maple neck but a rosewood board. All of my guitars have a rosewood fretboard because I prefer warmth over brightness. I also have a 1970 Strat that my husband bought me years ago for my birthday, and it’s my birth year Strat. He also got me another one of my favourite guitars, which I really need to bring out on the road but I’m too scared because there’s only 88 of them in the world, and that’s a 1960 Blonde dot neck Gibson 335.

“It’s gorgeous, it’s pristine and it’s amazing... though it does need a new set of strings right now. When the studio gets renovated I will be using that on our records.”

What can you tell us about your very first guitar? 

“It was one that my Dad gave me, which originally belonged to him, a 1971 Martin 00-18. I wrote many songs on it as a teenager and other tracks like Looking For Answers and stuff like that. It’s very special to me, especially because you can get that Elmore James sound by putting in a Lawrence pickup, plugging into a Deluxe Reverb and cranking the reverb up all the way. It’s that sound!

“One year, Derek was doing an Elmore tribute record and asked me how to get that tone, so I gave him that guitar and he was blown away by how close it got him. Especially given how he plays, because his intonation is so perfect on slide. That was a fun little thing! I guess tone really is just trial and error, you learn by doing stuff and trying different things out.”

You mentioned that you tend not to use too many pedals. But beyond the wah and tuner, are there any that have impressed you over the years?

“There’s a company called Moollon who makes a few pedals that I really like. Every once in a while I will switch them in, but one I use a lot is the Z.O.D. Zeppelin Overdrive which can do boost all the way to distortion. You can control the gain, volume, treble and bass to dial in the tone you’re looking for, whether it’s more clean or broken up. I use their pedals quite a lot.

“I also really like Piedmont Custom Electronics, who are based in Atlanta and make Derek’s Aluminum Falcon pedal. They made me something specifically for me Tele which sounds really cool. One other pedal I use a lot is called the FuzzBubble-45, made by Analog Alien. Those are really cute and fun. I try not to get too into the pedal thing. My husband had this pedal he borrowed from someone that cost something like $2,500. I didn’t even want to try it, just in case I liked it and wanted one. That’s an insane amount of money... more than what you’d pay for an amp!”

The last time you were in the UK, you performed two songs with your husband and Eric Clapton as part of the Jeff Beck tribute shows at the Royal Albert Hall. That must have been emotional!

“Jeff Beck was probably one of the most unsung legends of guitar. You’d always hear about Eric Clapton and BB King, while Jeff kinda flew a little bit more under the radar. But he was also a huge superstar that everyone was aware of. I first opened for him back in 1998 or 1999 in New York City.

“He was so sweet and actually invited me up to meet him and talk to him. In that moment, I remember thinking ‘Wait a minute, this really is Nigel from Spinal Tap!’ He was talking about his frets and amp settings... it kinda blew my mind because when I went to music college, we’d be watching Spinal Tap the whole time. He was one of those guitarists who could play anything, from The Beatles to Jimi Hendrix to even classical stuff. The sky was the limit with him. He was so gifted and could do it all, and would always create his own sound. He was so versatile and so great at playing melodies from the heart.

“He was also very supportive of women. He’d have a lot of female artists working with him, which was special and unique in such a male-dominated industry. His drummers and bass players had often been women, and even some of the other guitarists playing with him. All the badass guitar players love him because they know how hard it is to do what he did. Eric Clapton loved him, so did my husband.”

What do you remember about those two performances?

“It was so surreal, honestly. Walking out there, it was me, my husband, Eric and Doyle Bramhall II – so that’s four of us on guitar, all taking solos. One of the songs was The Sky Is Crying because Derek felt it was a good one that we could all play lead on. The other song was I Must Have Done Somebody Wrong.

“I grew up as a huge Eric Clapton fan, to the point where I had recurring dreams about him as a teenager. And then those dreams literally came true later on in life! I found myself saying ‘What the hell is happening?!’ Being on stage with him, in that moment, celebrating Jeff was such an honour and felt like a dream. As a little girl I’d had dreams like that and there I was on stage at the Royal Albert Hall. I’ve played there many times, but not with Eric Clapton next to me! So that was huge.

“There was a lot of love from all the people celebrating that night. We all loved Jeff. It was very dreamlike, with so many ‘pinch me’ moments. At one point I found myself hanging out in the wings, waiting with Johnny Depp being like ‘What’s up, dude?’ or chatting to Kirk Hammett from Metallica. It was amazing how many people from different worlds came together to celebrate a beautiful guitar player, musician and person.”

 What was your highlight from the other performances?

“There were so many. Seeing Derek play Goodbye Pork Pie Hat was pretty wild, because that’s such a classic Jeff song which he took from Charles Mingus. Derek didn’t even know it and learned it last minute because Eric kept throwing things at him. It’s Jeff Beck and people are used to hearing it in a certain way... luckily Derek is such a badass, he could do it. I was nervous for him! But he sounded beautiful on that.

“It’s only been a year or so since that happened, but it also feels like a lifetime ago because we tour so much. We’re on the road 200 nights a year, so it’s hard to remember. I know Gary Clark Jr played. Ronnie Wood was great, it was wonderful to see him and Rod Stewart. I was watching them and then realised it was Jeff Beck who started The Faces. It’s easy to forget how all these things came together. We almost take it for granted, but these guys are still around and you can see their energy, light and excitement. It’s very inspiring. Rod Stewart moving around like that at his age is pretty badass!”

The last album you released, I Am The Moon, starts with Hear My Dear – a song where it sounds like you are singing to your husband in the chorus...

“I definitely am! But he’s the one who actually started writing that song, even though me and Mike [Mattison, vocals/acoustic] helped too, it’s really Derek’s song. And it is his melody, so it’s very special to me.

“I love the dynamics on that track. When we play it live, we bring our 12-piece down to a whisper and that’s why it’s so impactful. It’s one thing to get hit in the face with sound all the time, but when you all come down together, you can hear all the nuances and it can become very moving and emotional, which is beautiful. We’re all a team working together, it’s not the Derek and Susan show! It’s really much bigger than that.

“When we came over to do three nights at the Palladium in London, I remember playing Hear My Dear and Eric Clapton was in the audience. He came out and was crying... he found the music so moving, he loved it. Even though I’d known him for 20 years through Derek, he’d never really heard me play guitar until that night... and that’s when he invited me to come out and play the Jeff Beck thing. Playing in front of your heroes is very intimidating but also very exciting.”

I Am The Moon was quite an epic project, given how it was a quadruple album consisting of four consecutively released parts. What can we expect next from your band?

“I think it’s a very special record because it shows how the writing, for all of us, has gotten better and better. This is a really unique band and we have a bunch of new stuff written. We can’t wait to get in the studio to record it. A lot of it is in the same vibe as I Am The Moon, but some of it also feels quite different and unique.

“It’s such a gift to play music and help heal people. I feel like people really need it, the world has changed so much after Covid. We’re starting to realise how much we need each other. Nobody wants to be isolated, so it’s nice to get out and let the music take you on a journey. That’s one thing about our band that really keeps me motivated.

“Sometimes I just want to get off the road and don’t want to tour, but it’s a 12-piece band with mouths to feed and bills to pay. We’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing – adding light into the world instead of darkness... there’s already plenty of darkness out there.”

• For more information on the Susan Tadeschi Telecaster visit Fender

The 1974 Martin 000-28 acoustic guitar that Eric Clapton used to write Wonderful Tonight is headed for auction, and is expected to fetch up to $400,000. 

Hosted by Bonhams on 12 June, the auction will see this legendary acoustic go under the hammer for the second time, with Clapton having including it in a massive consignment of 100 guitars that he auctioned off in June 1999 to raise funds for the Crossroads Center Foundation. 

There were some choice pieces in that event. But the Martin was particularly hard to let go. There wasn’t without a little pain on Clapton’s part. “That guitar went everywhere with me,” he said at the time, admitting that, yes, there were some tears as the bidding got under way.

It was, however, all worth it. That event duly raised $4,452,000 for the drug and alcohol rehab facility. Clapton would host further auctions to support his foundation, notably auctioning off his Firebird and Blind Faith Telecaster in 2020. Which might take his mind off that Martin, but maybe not. 

You can't write one of the greatest love songs of all time on it and not think about it from time to time, feeling a pang of regret. With this ’74 000-28 having resided in the 1999 auction buyer's collection ever since, it is now their turn to feel the pain. We would imagine that this is one guitar any player would get a little attached to.  

This is a pretty special acoustic. As the press release says, “this is more than just a favourite instrument of one of rock's greatest living guitarists.” Claire Tole-Moir, head of Bonhams Popular Culture department, describes it as a “one-of-a-kind collectible of immense cultural significance.”

As one of Clapton’s go-to acoustics, it has quite the back story. This was what he used to write one of the all-time great love songs as he was waiting for his then-girlfriend Pattie Boyd to get ready for a night out in 1976. They would later marry in ’79. 

 It is impossible to put a number on the amount of couples who have had Wonderful Tonight played at their wedding but the stats shared by Tole-Moir would suggest it is a fair few.

“With intergenerational appeal, the song’s popularity has grown since its release four decades ago,” says Tole-Moir, “with more than 450 million streams on Spotify, 490 million views across YouTube, and billions of plays on terrestrial radio.” 

That is quite the legacy. Those years of service to Clapton are writ large on the guitar itself. This was not kept in its guitar case and brought out for special occasions. You will find cigarette burns on the headstock. Clapton had a habit of using the headstock as a cigarette holder during performances. 

There is also a sticker on the top side of the body reading “She’s in love with a rodeo man” – a tribute to the Don Williams track that appropriately was released in the same year as this Martin was made. The case itself is pretty cool, too, heavily stencilled with “Eric Clapton Group. Tulsa, Okla.”

The auction gets underway on 12 June at Bonhams Knightsbridge, in London. See Bonhams for more details.

If there’s one song Eric Clapton probably wished he’d never written, it’s Tears In Heaven. A lament to his deceased son Conor, and also full of Clapton’s own self-loathing, it garnered Grammy Awards, empathy and a good deal of admiration for his guitar-playing skills. All that given, who would really cherish accolades for writing about their dead son?

The story of Tears In Heaven is equally tragic and bizarre. On 20 March 1991, four-year-old Conor Clapton climbed through an open window from a Manhattan hotel apartment and fell 53 floors to his death. The boy was staying with his mother, Clapton’s previous partner, Italian model Lory Del Santo. Clapton and Del Santo were separated, and Clapton was still an alcoholic.

“I was a baby trying to look after a baby, so I just let Lory raise him, which she did brilliantly,” he admitted in his 2007 autobiography. Clapton tried to be as good a father as he could manage, and had taken Conor to the circus the previous day (see Circus from EC’s Pilgrim album).

Tears In Heaven was first recorded as part of Clapton’s soundtrack for the movie Rush (1991). Why such a grief-laden song was submitted for a drug/ police thriller soundtrack, only Clapton knows. His co-lyricist on the Rush project was Will Jennings, who later won an Oscar for penning the lyrics to My Heart Will Go On, the Celine Dion-sung theme for the ’97 movie Titanic.

As Jennings explained to Songfacts: “We wrote a song called Help Me Up for the end of the movie... then Eric saw another place in the movie for a song and he said to me, ‘I want to write a song about my boy’. Eric had the first verse of the song written, which, to me, is all the song, but he wanted me to write the rest of the verse lines and the release [‘Time can bring you down/time can bend your knees...’], even though I told him that it was so personal he should write everything himself.

“He told me that he had admired the work I did with Steve Winwood,” Jennings continued, “and finally there was nothing else but to do as he requested, despite the sensitivity of the subject. This is a song so personal and so sad... it is unique in my experience of writing songs.”

Clapton himself, in 1993, recalled being bullish about the task: “The timing was perfect because they needed a song about loss and I had plenty of them. Tears In Heaven was actually in a very embryonic stage when I was approached, and I completed it for Rush.”

In many ways, Conor Clapton’s tragic death marked the rebirth of Eric Clapton. The singer not only had to deal with a traumatic funeral – Conor’s maternal grandmother tried to throw herself into the grave as Conor’s coffin was lowered – he was also edging into sobriety via the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program. 

Despite his numbed grief, Clapton remained sober and found a new focus. In his autobiography, he wrote: “I was suddenly aware of the fact that there was a way to turn this dreadful tragedy into something positive. I really was in the position of being able to say, ‘Well, if I can go through this and stay sober, then anyone can’. At that moment I realised that there was no better way of honouring the memory of my son.”

The best-known version of Tears In Heaven later appeared on Clapton’s 1992 Unplugged album, recorded at Bray Film Studios near Windsor in Berkshire, with a band including Andy Fairweather-Low also on guitar and Nathan East on bass.

Creatively, Unplugged also proved a turning point for Clapton. It reunited him with an organic style of acoustic blues – leading to the outstanding From The Cradle album of 1994 – and was a considerable commercial and critical success. Tears In Heaven, released as a single, was itself a huge hit, reaching No 2 on the Billboard Top 100.

Cynics may argue there was a degree of sympathy vote or grief tourism in Tears In Heaven’s success, but you’d have to be a harsh critic indeed to argue that other Clapton hits, such as his reggae-lite version of I Shot The Sheriff, were actually better. The song certainly hit a chord with people who had possibly never listened to Eric Clapton before.

“My mail for the next year was phenomenal,” he recalled. “I got at least 150 letters a day directly from people who were dealing with their own grief... and not really having the tools to deal with it. A lot of people don’t know how to deal with death. It’s not something that we’re taught in school.”

To record Tears In Heaven, Clapton played a José Ramírez III nylon string guitar, newly built in ’91. In a video for the song, he played a Juan Alvarez classical, built in 1977. When Clapton auctioned the second batch of his guitar When Clapton auctioned the second batch of his guitar collection in 2004 – to benefit his Crossroads Centre in Antigua for recovering addicts – the two sold for just over $280,000.

Despite the song’s desolate subject matter, Tears In Heaven is not of a blues structure. It’s best described as a ballad, with familiar chords around the key of A. The toughest task, guitar-wise, is handling the fingerpicking and fretting the bass notes (probably with your thumb over the neck as Clapton played it).

Have a go at playing it, because Eric Clapton will not play Tears In Heaven ever again: “I can’t play that anymore," he told Esquire in 2008. "It would be inappropriate to use the memory of my son or what I felt at that time to gain any kind of influence with the audience."

This remained the case until 2015, when Clapton began to revisit Tears In Heaven with a more upbeat, reggae-inflected rhythmic treatment for his Slowhand At 70 show at the Royal Albert Hall.  It's appeared in the setlists frequently since, most recently for his show at RD Studios in London on 8 December 2003, recorded for the To Save A Child live album with proceeds donated in aid of children in Gaza. 

"The key thing that I learned about life from the death of my son was that we only have this moment," Clapton reflected in a 60 Minutes interview. "That we don’t have tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn’t exist. Anything can happen even before the sun sets.”

• Classic Interview: Eric Clapton – “I was in it to save the world. I wanted to tell the world about blues and to get it right. In a way I thought, ‘Yes, I am God; quite right!‘“

The ship just might have come in for all those tonehounds out there trying to nail Eric Clapton’s mid ‘80s electric guitar sound, because a Marshall JCM800 that was used by Slowhand during his legendary 1985 Live Aid performance is up for sale. 

Clapton’s Live Aid set, which featured Phil Collins on drums, was one of the highlights of an event that would become the standout pop-cultural moment of the decade. It was watched by an estimated TV audience of 1.5 billion people, with Clapton’s performance of his Derek and the Dominoes standard Layla bringing the house down at JFK stadium in Philadelphia. 

On the day, Clapton wore a white shirt, played his ‘Blackie’ Stratocaster, with a red guitar strap, and in in his backline that was this 1984 JCM800 Super Lead MKII, and this is the amp that is now being sold via London’s Denmark Street Guitars – send your enquires via email to justin@londonvintageguitars.com. 

The guitar amp is being sold as a half-stack, with a matching 4x12 straight cabinet. Clapton had a number of JCM800s during this period, having moved back to Marshall after favouring Music Man amplifiers such as the HD 130 Reverb on account of them having a master volume. 

Clapton used a couple of JCM800s that day, and while there are no further details on the listing – Denmark Street Guitars just posted it to its Instagram page – this looks it was part of the consignment of JCM800s that went under the hammer in 2011, when Bonham’s hosted a charity auction to raise money for the Crossroads Centre, Clapton’s addiction recovery centre in Antigua.

Marshall’s naming convention is a little arcane. Two of Clapton’s JCM800s were 1987 models, 50-watt tube heads. The other two were Super Lead MKII 1959s, which is the amp that is up for sale. It is a 100-watt tube head with the four-inputs configuration on the front. 

Clapton acquired these JCM800s in 1984 when he was working with Roger Waters, and they would feature on Waters’ debut solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking. They would be his main go-to amps until he switched to his dual Soldano SL 100 setup with the Pete Cornish switching system, though he reportedly still used one of the JCM800s to power his Leslie rotating speaker system.

Marshall’s naming convention would confuse anyone but the simplicity of the control setup would have been just what Clapton was looking for. He favoured that in an amp – just turn it up and let it do its thing. 

“I don’t like too many options in an amplifier,” Clapton told Guitar World. “The simplicity of an early Fender is what I want. If I want it to distort, I’ll just turn it up full volume, and it will do that. But when you’ve got all these permutations, you just spend too long fiddling around on the knobs.”

What do Chuck Berry, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Gary Moore, Albert King, Jimi Hendrix and countless others have in common? 

No, there isn't a punchline: the answer is a knowledge of the basic blues format and the ability to blend it into their own contemporary styles.

The first thing you often hear on any blues record is a 'taster' of what's to come, courtesy of some fancy or soulful licks. 

Sometimes this is called a 'turnaround' - the bit at the end of a 12-bar progression when everything is gearing up to go round again. You could say it's like starting with an ending!

Check out some of our intros and compare them with their outro counterparts. Often the only major difference is that the outro finishes with a very final I ('home') chord, as opposed to the intro, which usually features the V chord (for example, B major in the key of E), setting our ears up to believe - correctly - that there is more to come.

There's something compositionally elegant, too, about 'book-ending' a song in this way. It sounds more deliberate, rather than just bluffing through and coming up with whatever you fancy (that has its place too, but you know what we mean).

Exceptions to the rules

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and some of these are featured in our extensive catalogue of examples. John Lee Hooker and Elmore James often 'vamped' on one chord or riff, beginning and ending a song in much the same way. Robert Johnson's fingerstyle acoustic blues employed unusual diminished voicings and chromatic movements to lead from one place to another.

And modern electric players like Eric Johnson and Scott Henderson substitute unusual chords throughout the 12-bar progression, giving a jazzy feel to proceedings.

Whatever the territory, if you're looking to improve your library of 'stock' licks and fills, there is something here for you. Starting with intros (of course!), there are both easy and more advanced ideas in a variety of keys and styles, from acoustic to full-on distortion.

The outros follow a similar template - first a simple idea, and then something a little more advanced over the same backing tracks, which are included for you to experiment over. Some of these licks will be useful for general soloing vocabulary as well as intros or outros. So, whatever happened when you Woke Up This Morning, you will now be able to express it far better in song.

Good luck... one, two, three...

20 essential blues intros

Click on the top right of tab to enlarge

Listen: Intros 1-2

Intro 1: Easy acoustic in E

This should sound familiar to anyone who's ever listened to the blues. Using the open-string friendly key of E, this descending figure creeps back up to the V chord (B) ready for the first verse. 

Intro 2: Advanced acoustic in E

A fancier spin in the previous idea, the chord voicings here are expanded for a jazzier feel. Play with confidence for the best effect!

Listen: Intros 3-4

Intro 3: Easy acoustic in G

This ascending turnaround leads to the V chord again (D in this case). Keep the feel swinging and bouncy and dig in confidently with thumb and fingers. A pick will give a more modern sound if desired.

Intro 4: Advanced acoustic in G

Using the same basic idea but adding a few embellishments gives an interesting and harmonically 'complete' sounding intro. Note that the ascending bassline is still very apparent, until we break away for the licks in bar 2.

Listen: Intros 5-6

Intro 5: Easy acoustic in A

Starting on the V chord (E) means we've jumped in towards the end of the progression, just in time for the turnaround. The partial 7th chords lead to an ascending chromatic line, implying both 7th and diminished chords. The sudden stop for the vocals is also an essential in blues vocabulary!

Listen: Intros 5-6

Intro 6: Advanced in A

Letting a little rock 'n' roll filter in here, these pentatonic based licks lead to another useful chromatic idea, loved by Robben Ford among others. really dig in to the raked chords at the beginning and keep the attitude going from there.

Listen: Intros 7-8

Intro 7: Easy in E

This classic pattern is one of those that doesn't need turnarounds or V chord tomfoolery - it is what it is! Though easy to play, it's challenging to sound like you really mean it - so keep a close eye on timing and don't lose the intensity.

Intro 8: Advanced in E

Turning up the gain and indulging in a few double-stop bends brings the idea forward a few years. Having established the riff, who could be blamed for allowing their fingers to slip up the neck for some pentatonic indulgence? Dig in to those low notes to make people pay attention.

Listen: Intros 9-10

Intro 9: Easy in Gm

Without the minor blues, many classic records would never have been heard. This idea focuses on wringing as much emotion out of as few notes as possible, making the most of bends and vibrato. These details are crucial if you are to really get the point across.

Intro 10: Advanced in Gm

Much more fiddly but no less intense, this idea is quite logical to play once you've teased your fingers through it once. From then on, it's simply a matter of running through it to develop your 'muscle memory'.

Listen: Intros 11-12

Intro 11: Easy in E (Version 2)

Using 7th and diminished chords (you get the diminished by simply dropping down a fret in this case) this intro is played with quite a heavy picking hand, to maximise its impact. Remember, this would be your first and last chance to grab an audience's attention!

Intro 12: Advanced in E (Version 2)

Calling to mind a higher class of Beano reader, the gain is turned up here, though not quite to 'rock' levels. Details like timing and quarter-tone bends are all important to give the right bluesy effect. Take your time developing these skills and you can't lose!

Listen: Intros 13-14

Intro 13: Easy in Bb

Using the tried and tested descending line approach that we can see in 100 blues intros, this should example be played delicately but upfront in the mix. Add a little delay to create the right atmosphere.

Intro 14: Advanced in Bb

Taking a more solo-based approach, this intro employs fragments of the original descending line, building into some Hendrix style double-stops. A little wobble with the vibrato bar (if you have one) can add some nice extra expressiveness.

Listen: Intros 15-16

Intro 15: Easy in Cm

A straight four to the bar instead of a swung or 12/8 feel will give a more 'in your face' result - especially if you play it aggressively with lots of gain! This Jimmy Page style intro doubles the bass and is a good example of the symmetry often present in intros and outros.

Listen: Intros 15-16

Intro 16: Advanced in Cm

This wailing solo-fest is a great way of letting the audience know you mean business before toning it down for the verse. Bends and vibrato are again the key of producing this feel. Take your time to work on both. Touch is all-important in blues.

Listen: Intros 17-18

Intro 17: Easy in A (Version 2)

Another intro identical to how you might play the body of the song, with no turnarounds or diminished chords. It's deceptively tricky, so be patient with yourself. A little bit of gain is nice, but too much crosses over into rock territory and is harder to control.

Intro 18: Advanced in A (Version 2)

Slightly more gain for some edge and some bent double-stop licks give this intro a little more attitude. Bars 2 and 4 also double up on the fourth and fifth strings. Not too much harder than the easy version, but to make it sound 'right' takes a little work.

Listen: Intros 19-20

Intro 19: Easy in C

Rake through those 9th chords and wobble a little with the bar if you have one. Combined with a little reverb it gives a nice shimmer. A combination of descending line and spelling out the chords a little like Eric Johnson and we're ready for vocals...

Intro 20: Advanced in C

Starting with a raked G9 chord, this intro quickly moves into Hendrix/SRV territory with a series of double-stops. Take your time to find the most comfortable fingerings and don't neglect the all-important quarter-tone 'blues curl'...

20 essential blues outros

Listen: Outros 1-2

Outro 1: Easy acoustic in E

This ascending line leads to the common and efective device of moving up a semitone (F7) to 'resolve' into the home key (E7). Not too technically challenging, but you can never play something too beautifully, can you? So make that the object of this particular exercise...

Outro 2: Advanced acoustic in E

Using a similar template to the easy version, we've opted for a descending figure this time, with a little double-stop trickery and some fancier 13th chords bringing things to a close. These are best played with thumb and fingers to sound all the notes simultaneously and avoid unwanted strings.

Listen: Outros 3-4

Outro 3: Easy acoustic in G

The concept of an ascending figure followed by the semitone chord movement is put to good use again here, this time in the key of G, a favourite of Robert Johnson. Let all the open strings ring together for some interesting implied chords...

Outro 4: Advanced acoustic in G

Taking a more chordal approach, the ascending bass line is preserved, even when we reach the 'surprise' D11 chord. This is a great example of spicing up a classic progression. Use thumb and fingers for simultaneous notes and to avoid the unused strings on those 7#9 chords at the finish.

Listen: Outros 5-6

Outro 5: Easy in A

Jumping in at the E - or V chord - this example leads us back home with a descending line to the not entirely unexpected semitone chord movement. Tip: try moving down a semitone then up again too. In fact, you can amend any or all of these examples to suit your own style.

Listen: Outros 5-6

Outro 6: Advanced in A

These rock 'n' roll double-stops lead to a harmonised descending line on the second and third strings. remember, a lot of classic blues was made in that same era. The semitone movement is back again like an old friend, but we're sure you won't mind when you hear those lovely 13b5 chords.

Listen: Outros 7-8

Outro 7: Easy in E

This could be an early Van Halen ending, but has its roots in the classic descending line. Note, the bass features an ascending line underneath, implying some interesting harmony. Take this as a starting point for more rock excess!

Outro 8: Advanced in E

A more Clapton-esque affair, this outro is peppered with vibrato, whole and quarter-tone bends, all of which require your strictest attention to detail. How many times have you heard the old adage "it's not what you play but the way you play it"? Well that's true here.

Listen: Outros 9-10

Outro 9: Easy in Gm

Using the V chord (D) to set up for the last Gm chord is an alternative to the semitone movement featured here. Watch out for the usual bend/vibrato issues. This is a simple pentatonic phrase that can sound magnificent. Jumping into the chords at the very end gives a nice finish.

Outro 10: Advanced in Gm

Busier and with a fair amount more gain, here is an alternative/advanced take on the same backing. After the pickup bar, really dig in to that first G for some stinging vibrato. We've opted again to follow the final chords, this time with two double-stops, like Peter Green.

Listen: Outros 11-12

Outro 11: Easy in E (Version 2)

Using a clean-ish tone, this example follows the V chord through the descending run and semitone movement to the home chord template. This will obviously be a familiar idea by now but ideas like this never stop being useful, as blues is often based on tried and trusted ideas.

Outro 12: Advanced in E (Version 2)

Flicking to the bridge pickup, with a little more gain, this outro gives a few useful soloing ideas too, using the E major pentatonic - which works especially well over the A chord. It's another way of playing the classic descending pattern leads to the final chords...

Listen: Outros 13-14

Outro 13: Easy in Bb

Similar to the earlier intro, this simple phrase takes in a couple of doublestops, to reflect its 'finishing-the-song' status. As a set-up for the final chord, we've opted for the V (Eb) but as a minor chord, adding a little drama and demonstrating another sonic possibility.

Outro 14: Advanced in Bb

Taking a more SRV or BB King approach, this pentatonic phrasing is another example of the importance of string bending in the blues. Even if the phrase is easy for you technically, there are always improvements you can make on these little details...

Listen: Outros 15-16

Outro 15: Easy in cm

Now we're adding a bit of rock to the blues. This outro plays a slightly more fleshed out version of the bass part, pausing on the V (G7#9, but it could be a regular G chord if you prefer) before a big C finish.

Listen: Outros 15-16

Outro 16: Advanced in Cm

Staying firmly in lead guitar territory, this Gary Moore style finish really milks those string bends. Although it launches into something of a pentatonic flurry, it stops a little way short of 'widdle' territory and should fall under the fingers if you run through it a few times.

Listen: Outros 17-18

Outro 17: Easy in A (Version 2)

These double-stops are saved from simply doubling the bass by the quarter-tone bend in bar 1. Sometimes, that's all it takes. But in cases like this, make sure you have your timing razor-sharp too. Playing ahead of or slightly behind the beat makes a huge amount of difference.

Outro 18: Advanced in A (Version 2)

Another spin on a previously used idea using rapid-fire double-stops. As always, watch for the quarter-tone bends that are a classic blues fingerprint - and how about that delightful Am/maj7 chord that creates a very sophisticated finish.

Listen: Outros 19-20

Outro 19: Easy in C

It's nice to give these chords a little tremolo shimmer, but spelling them out in bar 3 gives an even nicer spin on the classic descending sequence. The 13th chords add a cool jazzy finishing touch.

Outro 20: Advanced in C

Mixing double-stop and pentatonic ideas, this outro is quite complex, so it deserves a bit of extra time. Work through slowly and absorb the vib/bend details, as well as the best fingerings for those double-stops. It should be fairly self-explanatory with a guitar in your hands.

• 50 guitar chord shapes you need to know

The late blues scholar, musician and writer Julian Piper interviewed Howlin' Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin back in 2006 for Guitarist magazine. Hubert reflected on his career with Wolf, his friendship with the Rolling Stones and the direct influence of Robert Johnson and Wolf's mentor Charlie Patton. Hubert passed away on 4 December 2011. 

"Maaan, Keith's okay, he's just sitting around playing some blues - I been around his house and we been recuperating together!'' Hubert Sumlin's infectious laugh ripples down the transatlantic phone line from his home in Milwaukee. He's a man who laughs a lot – you rarely see a photo of Hubert not smiling – and, all things considered, it's probably just as well he's got a sense of humour.

During the last few years he's lost a lung, had heart surgery, his house has been flooded - losing him his prized collection of vintage photographs - and his wife passed away. All in all it makes Keith Richard's unfortunate incident with a coconut tree seem rather trivial in comparison.

"Keith's a wonderful person, they all are," Hubert continues. "Came to my rescue when I was sick, the band paid all my bills. I was in bad shape at the time and I can't say enough good about them."

The blues world has seen many great partnerships in its time - Buddy Guy and Jr Wells, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Muddy Waters and Little Walter – but the legendary status afforded Hubert Sumlin and his old boss Chester Burnett, better known as Howlin' Wolf, is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

No-one has ever sounded like the Wolf and no-one ever will. Gifted with a huge rasping feral voice so powerful that it could allegedly blow valves in a mixing desk, Wolf was the indelible link between the primal cottonfield blues of his mentor Charlie Patton - who taught him to play guitar - and Led Zeppelin, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix.

A consummate performer, Wolf would think nothing of entering a club on all fours snarling, a handkerchief tied to his belt to imitate a tail, or rolling on the ground bellowing. His songs like Smokestack Lightning, Killing Floor, The Red Rooster, Back Door Man and Evil, became anthems for a whole generation of musicians on both sides of the Atlantic; Hendrix's anarchic live version of Killing Floor at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival was a highlight of his early career.

But as much as the Wolf was revered, so too was his guitarist Hubert Sumlin. A slight, unassuming man who usually stood quietly picking on a never-ending variety of guitars – everything from a Goldtop Les Paul to a quirky Italian Bartolini which looked like a prop from the Starship Enterprise – it was Hubert's spiky, icy cool lead lines that nailed the songs time and time again.

Uniquely, and unlike anything recorded up to that time, Sumlin's solos and intricately crafted riffs owed little to the influences of either Mississippi, or the increasingly popular 'City Blues' of guitarists like BB King and Freddie King.

"On just about all the numbers we recorded Wolf always turned me loose, let me do what I wanted,'' Sumlin recalls. "One time the Chess brothers hollered at me in the studio when we recording Shake It For Me… Leonard Chess said; Hubert, turn it down, turn that thing DOWN! Wolf just stopped the music and pointed across the room at where they were in the Control Booth. Wolf goes: When there's something to be said, let me tell him, not you! You fools operate the studio and leave the music to me. C'mon man, let it rip!"

"I wasn't really loud,'' Hubert says indignantly. "I can hear and I can hear good - I was just playing with the guys. The guitar sounds upfront on the records we made but it wasn't like that when we recorded it, we needed to hear one another. The way we did it everyone would be heard - the piano player, bass player, drummer - but when I played my solo, maaan you better get out my way!''

Scowlin' Wolf

But if the Wolf was generally supportive of Hubert's musicianship – he invariably referred to the younger man as his 'son' – he could also be a hard taskmaster. Stories abound of the fights he and Hubert had on and off stage – on one occasion he allegedly knocked out his guitarist's front teeth – and as Hubert admits, it was Wolf who was responsible for inadvertently forging the fluttering style that has become his trademark.

"He was so powerful at times I wouldn't even dare speak to him! One time, Wolf told me to put the pick down because I was playing too loud,'' Hubert says. "He told me; Put it down, use your fingers like everyone else. I told him that's what I started out playing with and that's what I was going to go on using. Wolf turned to me and shouted: No you ain't, you fired!'' Sumlin laughs out loud.

"So I went home and started practicing but couldn't believe it - I'd been playing with this guy eight years and now I'm fired! Wolf's time was always split time, 12 bars, six, 11 - anything.'' Hubert explains. ''I'm set in my ways and when he told me to put the pick down I just felt like hitting him, but I went home and practised playing without it.'' He chuckles.

"My fingers got so sore but I went back to work and that evening I was the last guy to get up on the bandstand. Wolf says; Ladies and gentlemen, this is my son - let's see if he's got it now! We played Smokestack Lightning and he said; Why didn't you play like that before?"

Right now, Hubert's on a bit of a roll. His last album, About Them Shoes, boasted heavyweight contributions from Eric Clapton and the aforementioned Mr Richards, and he's also stepped onstage in the UK for a couple of dates with the Rolling Stones.

It's a friendship and mutual admiration society that goes back to 1964 when the Rolling Stones recorded Little Red Rooster, and later had Howlin' Wolf support them on their 1965 Shindig television appearance in Los Angeles. Although the Wolf was suitably restrained, one can only speculate how the mothers of America reacted to their daughters watching the Wolf rip the place apart.

"That's right!" Hubert exclaims. "They didn't want him on the show but the Stones insisted; I used to see them guys all the time, and when I first heard the Stones version of Little Red Rooster I couldn't believe it! Then when Wolf and Mick Jagger first met, Mick walked up to Wolf and said; I hope you didn't mind that we cut Little Red Rooster? Wolf just smiled and said: No, man… you guys have put me on the map!

"They opened my path because they were well known before they ever first got to the States, and they tore up things here. I fell in love with them, Muddy and all of us felt the same way. Did we mind?" he laughs. "No, I just thought, Amen, hallelujah, at last!"

Rooster booster

If the Top 20 success of Little Red Rooster was a phenomenon, even more bizarre was the success that Howlin' Wolf and Hubert enjoyed a few months later with Smokestack Lightning. In the wake of The Rolling Stones' increasing notoriety, the UK was in the grip of R&B fervour.

Pye Records had been releasing Chess recordings for a couple of years, and with their distinctive red and yellow label and imposing R&B logo the Chess songs by artists like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Sugar Pie Desanto and Tommy Tucker were just about the hippest thing on Mod dance floors from Brighton to Wardour Street.

Smokestack Lightning's menacing loping riff, picked by Hubert over a hypnotic bass line, instantly became an obligatory number in the setlist of any self-respecting R&B band throughout the land. Incredibly, the song even reached number 42 in the pop charts and a few more sales might have seen the leering Howlin' Wolf on Top Of The Pops alongside Engelbert Humperdinck and Cilla Black. Now that would have certainly been a sight to see…

But as Hubert readily admits, the tune owed its origins to something Charlie Patton taught Wolf back in his Mississippi plantation days. "Smokestack Lightning was a lick he got off Patton. Wolf had learnt them so well that he fell in love with the music. Robert Johnson and Patton were around when I was still a kid, so I'd never heard that stuff, but Wolf learnt me a lot. He showed me some things that Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson had taught him - he knew those people, showed me old stuff that they were doing."

Sumlin chuckles as he recalls how Wolf and Charlie Patton originally met up. "He went to see Patton playing at this joint out in the country but he was too darned young to get in. He went up and crawled underneath the floor - the house was on cinder blocks - but people were stompin' around so much that the floor fell in on his head. Patton reached down and sat him up saying; Look here young man, this is what we gonna play, you watch me. I see you gonna be alright!"

In 1970, Sumlin and Wolf flew in to London to record an album that became known as the London Howlin' Wolf Sessions. A bizarre attempt by all involved to recreate the Wolf's finest hours using a bevy of British 'name' musicians including Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and Bill Wyman, it remains an intriguing piece of musical history.

Clapton had been reluctant to play, preferring that Hubert play lead guitar, but it was not to be. As a result, a tired-sounding Wolf is to be heard patiently trying to explain the changes on Little Red Rooster to an obviously over-awed Eric Clapton.

It's a day that Hubert remembers well. "On Little Red Rooster, Wolf is playing the guitar and I'm right in the background," he recalls. "Wolf ended up playing the slide with a milk bottle but he was in a mess! Because he didn't have a slide he'd broken the end off and he'd cut his fingers bad, there was blood everywhere!

"But I never will forget us cutting Shake For Me and Going Down Slow, every time I hear those tracks it feels like the Wolf is still around. Even now, I can't believe he's gone…"

• John Lee Hooker: "Eric Clapton, John Mayall and all those other people over in England made the blues a big thing. In the States, people didn't want to know"

Bedecked with the eyecatching, trippy, day-glow cover art of Aussie counter-culturalist Martin Sharp, Cream’s second album Disraeli Gears was always going to turn heads when it hit the shelves. Its unique and formidable blend of blues riffing and psychedelic freak-out caught the ears of the world’s record-buying public, too, and made its tracks stand out like purple-red flashes on the radio.

Almost from the moment phenomenal jazz drummer Ginger Baker approached former Yardbird and Bluesbreaker Eric Clapton about starting a band back in mid-1966, Cream – whose line-up was completed by ace bassist, singer and songwriter Jack Bruce – were soon signed up by Robert Stigwood’s Reaction Records label in the UK and Atlantic’s Atco imprint in the US. Their debut Fresh Cream did well on home turf, but only just cracked the Top 40 over the pond.

Disraeli Gears, released in November 1967, speedily eclipsed the success of its predecessor and, aided by the incendiary brilliance of its standout track (and second single) Sunshine Of Your Love, helped make Cream one of the most significant bands of the decade. Strange Brew was not only the long-player’s first track, it also served as the lead single.

Months before that, when Cream were about to lay down tracks for the as-yet-untitled second album, late Atlantic Records chief Ahmet Ertegun knew exactly what he wanted.

“They made the first record Fresh Cream and it was not a tremendous hit and I was kind of disappointed in the thrust of it,” Ahmet said in the Classic Albums: Disraeli Gears documentary. “So, for the second record, they agreed to come to America and record in our studio.”

The first Disraeli Gears recording sessions took place at Atlantic Studios in New York on 3 and 4 April 1967, following Cream’s brief US debut performances at Murray Kaufman’s infamously chaotic promo concerts at the Big Apple’s RKO theatre. The plan was for the three-piece to lay down a single and then to return in May to complete the rest of the recordings. 

Ertegun produced the first day’s session himself and, in response to his request for a blues cover, Cream dutifully dished out a version of Hey Lawdy Mama, originally recorded as Oh Lawdy Mama by Buddy Moss in 1934.

“This came from hearing an album that Buddy Guy and Junior Wells did together,” Clapton explained in the Classic Albums documentary. “And he did Hey Lawdy Mama on that but that riff is from another song, I think a Little Walter song called Everything’s Gonna Be Alright. What we did is we took it from shuffle to straight-time… so we took that riff then just [put] the song over that.”

After a few takes, young producer (and future Mountain bassist) Felix Pappalardi entered the Atlantic fray and told Ertegun he thought the track was lacking something. The next morning, Felix returned with a new set of lyrics he’d penned overnight with his wife, Gail Collins, and told the band that these words would fit well over the original Lawdy Mama blues groove. 

"It wasn’t solely the lyrics that Pappalardi wanted to change, though – he also persuaded Eric to take over the lead vocal from Jack Bruce. The more poppy, psych-fuelled Strange Brew was born, and Pappalardi was consequently installed as the record’s producer.

“[Felix] took that really from a blues, just a standard 12-bar, and turned it into a kind
of McCartney-esque pop song,” continued Clapton. “I wasn’t that mad [about it] and I’m still not that mad about it, as a form, but I respected the fact that it could be done and he knew how to do it… and, of course, he let me play a guitar solo which was… almost like an unspoken deal that if I gave in and played on this kind of pop song, I could play an Albert King guitar solo.”

“It was very much against my wishes but at that moment I had absolutely no power in the band, in the studio,” Jack Bruce told Guitarist magazine in 2012 regarding the changes Felix initiated. “That was just the way it was at that point, because Ahmet Ertegun was more or less in love with Eric. He thought Eric should be the frontman… Things like that happen in bands. If they’re not manufactured, they don’t always work out the way that the powers that be want them to.”

During the sometimes tense atmosphere of the Disraeli Gears sessions, Cream did manage to stamp their authority in one way, by refusing to use the smaller amps that legendary American engineer Tom Dowd had proffered them. Instead, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton, who plugged in with his psychedelic paint-daubed ‘Fool’ Gibson SG, insisted on using the amps that gave them such a monstrous live sound.

“There was a particular way of working [at the studio],” Jack Bruce explained in Classic Albums. “For instance, the bass player would use a little Ampeg amp… and it would be the same amp for everybody. So for us to come in with Marshall stacks – [Tom Dowd] wasn’t used to it but he very quickly got used to it.”

“They’re one of the groups that are partially responsible for my not hearing as well as I used to!” added Ahmet Ertegun.

Cream were one of the most important bands of the '60s, helping pave the way for heavier acts like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, as well as inspiring the newly emergent prog rockers with their endless onstage improvisation. But, towards the end of 1968, the band shocked the rock world by calling it a day, partly due to Clapton’s desire to get back to a more pure and ‘honest’ form of blues. Cream achieved more in two years than most bands could ever dream of during an entire career, and their legacy continues to burn bright.

• Jack Bruce talks beloved basses, Baker and blowing speakers

This interview was originally published in Guitarist magazine in 1996

John Lee Hooker is the definitive Mr Blues. His gruff voice, gruffer songwriting style and minimalist guitar work have become familiar to blues lovers and the blues-bereft alike. If you've shopped for beer, jeans and Pepsi, Hooker soundbites have probably influenced what you went home with.

Beyond the TV ads, though, he's responsible for bringing the blues, both traditional and modern, out of the cold and into accepted mainstream music. Heavens, you can even hear Hooker in the mellow, easy-listening suburbia of the BBC's Radio 2.

"Well, my voice has mellowed out a little too," reveals Hooker, in a rare admission of his advancing years. There's no doubt that Hooker is the oldest elder statesman of blues - indeed, of popular music itself. He has several years' start on the likes of Sinatra and his Chicago and Mississippi contemporaries are all gone: "There's just me and BB left now," he reflects.

But where BB King has to some degree courted commercialism and glitz, it has simply followed John Lee. He is revered as an icon of a bygone America, an icon which may, or may not, have really existed, but one which a growing number of ad agencies and music buyers are tapping into.

Hooker's last two albums, The Healer, on which he was aided by Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray, and the follow-up, Chill Out, where Santana made another guest appearance and Hooker's old friend Van Morrison lent a hand, sold massively.

John Lee now lives comfortably on the West Coast, flitting from his house in San Francisco to other homes he has acquired as investments. When you get some money after decades of slog and commercial rip-off, you want to see it, feel it - sit in it.

A stretched limo is parked outside; occasionally John Lee is driven into town. His entourage is mainly women - "They just want to meet John Lee Hooker," he says. His life is one of ease, where he revels in who he is, but still doesn't quite know why: "I've never done anything different, just sung the blues. But now they tell me I'm a genius."

Whatever he is, John Lee is magnanimous. He's the first to admit that his continued success is due, at least in part, to the blues explosion of the sixties, which saw young white musicians - a lot of them middle-class Brits like Eric Clapton – taking 'his' music and making it their own.

"That's who made the blues," insists Hooker, in a gracious display of modesty. "Eric Clapton, John Mayall and all those other people over in England made the blues a big thing. In the States, people didn't want to know, and it wasn't until the British guys made the American people listen that people like myself and Freddie King, Albert and BB King started to get people wanting to hear our music. It was our music originally, but it was those guys in England who made it big and then brought it back to the States.

"I actually came over to England to live, because there was more work and more recognition for what I did in England than there was over here. It's changed now, though, and all kinds of people like blues in America, too. But it's those guys we have to thank."

John Lee Hooker was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi on 22 August 1917. He took up singing the blues professionally in the early thirties and his laid-back, drawling style later influenced sixties artists such as John Mayall, Johnny Winter and Buddy Guy.

Tracks like Boogie Chillen' have become blues classics and dozens of albums have been recorded on legendary labels such as Chess and Charly. In a career spanning over half a century, Hooker can't remember how many records he's made - it could be as many as 250 - but he has a particular fondness for The Healer, on which he duetted famously with Carlos Santana on sessions that seemed to elevate both parties.

"Hoo. That was my big record," whoops Hooker; "that was a real big record that put me right back on track again. Carlos Santana was very good on that record. He's not a blues guy at all, he's a Latin guitarist, but what we did together there was real good. What did it was his guitar and my voice. He's got his own voice on the guitar – one note from Carlos and you know it's him – and I guess one note from me and you know it's me, too."

Hooker's latest release on Pointblank/Virgin is Don't Look Back, a combination of old songs and new which marked an overdue collaboration with longtime friend and blues soulmate Van Morrison.

"Van's been my friend for a lot of years," enthuses John Lee, his voice becoming noticeably animated when discussing the enigmatic Irishman. "Van's a real blues man and he has the blues inside him. It doesn't matter whether he's white or Irish; he's a blues man for sure and I love him. He's a great influence on me and we work real good together."

Morrison takes the producer's credit on Don't Look Back and indeed was scheduled to work with Hooker on The Healer, but contractual obligations kept the two apart. "This is a great album though," says John Lee, "and it was good to do some of the old songs again, like Dimples; that's still one of my favourites. We did some of those old tunes because a lot of the young folk who like blues have never had the chance to hear them.

"Blues is really, really big now, but I did Dimples way back, before a lot of these kids were born, so it's a good chance for me to do the songs in a new way - especially with my friend Van producing and singing on the record, too - and for young people to hear them fresh."

On Dimples, John Lee is joined by Los Lobos, who supply a surprisingly authentic and spirited backing, while the bulk of the musical chores are covered by regular cohort Charles Brown on piano and Hammond organ, with Brown's guitarist and bass player, Danny Caron and Ruth Davies, lending their weight.

The album's drummer and keyboard player are Kevin Hayes and Jimmy Pugh from the Robert Cray band, while occasional horns are added by Gregory Davis and Roger Lewis of the Dirty Dozen. Van Morrison also adds vocals to four tracks, including his own composition The Healing Game.

"This was a good album to make," states Hooker; "I enjoyed working alongside Van and you can hear on the record that we got along just great; he pushed me and I pushed him too."

Perhaps surprisingly for some, John Lee has chosen to cover Jimi Hendrix's classic blues Red House on this latest recording. In fact John Lee was recently in conversation with Jimi's father and sister and made a promise that he'd record the track at his next opportunity.

"I've always loved that song; I loved the way Jimi did it. I never did see him play, but I know he was seen as somebody in the rock side of things, but underneath he was a blues man. He played a mean blues guitar. He was under-rated in some ways, but he made it real big."

• Classic interview: Buddy Guy – "If people come see you, I think you should give them every damn thing you’ve got"

Mark Knopfler’s eagerly anticipated all-star supergroup version of Going Home, his theme to Local Hero, has been released, with the single featuring over 50 legendary guitarists, including the late Jeff Beck, who opens the charity single with a “spellbinding” piece of electric guitar manipulation that would be his last ever recorded solo. 

Now we can finally listen to the track – all nine minutes and 49 seconds of it – can we work out who played what on the track? That is easier said than done. Produced by Knopfler’s long-standing co-producer and Dire Straits keyboardist, Guy Fletcher, Going Home has a credits list that reads like a who’s who of guitar. 

You’ve got David Gilmour, Eric Clapton, Slash, Brian May, Jeff Beck, Steve Cropper, Duane Eddy, Steve Vai, Sheryl Crow, Derek Trucks, Susan Tudeschi, Nile Rodgers, Pete Townshend, Hank Marvin, Tony Iommi, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Armatrading… The list of guitarists goes on and on, with other musical A-listers popping in, all to help raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust and Teen Cancer America

Ringo Starr and his son, Zak Starkey, play drums. Sting plays bass guitar while Roger Daltrey plays harmonica. It’s a bewildering array of talent. Thankfully, a video will be dropping next week with a commentary on who is playing what to help us make sense of it all – though there’s no mistaking the work of Beck, Knopfler, Gilmour or May. 

And the Times has run a report from Paul Sexton – who wrote the sleeve notes – which sheds some more light on the project, which all started with Townshend and Clapton dropping by Knopfler’s British Grove Studios, in Chiswick, west London, followed by Sting and Sam Fender – whom we’d like to think got the same train down from Newcastle – with contributions delivered in-person and digitally from across the globe. 

When it came time to mix, Fletcher had an abundance of material to stitch together, and he got to work on a five-minute edit and the full version that’s being made available on digital platforms. 

He offered some clues as to who is playing what. For starters – and no one needed this one – Jeff Beck is playing the intro, as ever all fingerstyle, on the edge of break-up, jockeying the whammy bar, a performance Knopfler describes as “spellbinding”.

“Once I got Jeff Beck’s contribution, there was no way I was going to mess with that,” Fletcher told the Times. “It was as pure as it can be. What he did with it brings you to tears, it’s absolutely astonishing. Only five or six months after I received it, he passed away. The fact that he’s first is kind of beautiful.”

Fletcher says Armatrading plays electric guitar throughout the track and “just wailed” while there is no shortage of Gilmour for Pink Floyd fans to pick out.

“When David Gilmour came in, he played loads of stuff, but there were certain licks that were just absolutely Gilmour,” said Fletcher. “Same with Ronnie Wood, instant Stones.”

The track grows more rock as it gathers momentum, and much of that was to do with the influence of Queen’s Brian May, who made a telling contribution.

“Brian May did an entire section, about a dozen guitar harmonies, and when he comes in it’s unmistakably Brian,” said Fletcher, who added that Bruce Springsteen's contribution was similarly hard to miss, so keep your ears tuned for a Fender Esquire.

“What I really want to do, more than anything else, is just to thank each and every one for this sterling response,” said Knopfler upon the single's announcement in February. “I really had no idea that it was going to be like this. It hit Guy and I quite early on that we had to extend this piece somehow, to take in the number of people who joined in... I think what we’ve had is an embarrassment of riches, really. The whole thing was a high point.”

Going Home is available now, and it's for a good cause. You can find out more about those causes at Teenage Cancer Trust and Teen Cancer America. 

Going Home (Theme From Local Hero) credits

• Joan Armatrading, Jeff Beck, Richard Bennett, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Brown, James Burton, Jonathan Cain, Paul Carrack, Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Jim Cox, Steve Cropper, Sheryl Crow, Danny Cummings, Roger Daltrey, Duane Eddy, Sam Fender, Guy Fletcher, Peter Frampton, Audley Freed, Vince Gill, David Gilmour, Buddy Guy, Keiji Haino, Tony Iommi, Joan Jett, John Jorgenson, Mark Knopfler, Sonny Landreth, Albert Lee, Greg Leisz, Alex Lifeson, Steve Lukather, Phil Manzanera, Dave Mason, Hank Marvin, Brian May, Robbie McIntosh, John McLaughlin, Tom Morello, Rick Nielsen, Orianthi, Brad Paisley, Nile Rodgers, Mike Rutherford, Joe Satriani, John Sebastian, Connor Selby, Slash, Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr and Zak Starkey, Sting, Andy Taylor, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Ian Thomas, Pete Townshend, Keith Urban, Steve Vai, Waddy Wachtel, Joe Louis Walker, Joe Walsh, Ronnie Wood, Glenn Worf, Zucchero.

Joe Bonamassa did not get here by accident. Looking back on his landmark Blues Deluxe album over two decades ago, he was looking at his last roll of the dice. "It was the first album I think people started to take notice, also I think it was the first album that I just did what the fuck I wanted," the guitarist told Jordi Pinyol in a recent interview. 

"This was the last shot - 20 years ago was the last shot for me. I was 25, looking down the barrel of extinction, but to be honest with you, when you're back is against the brick wall you have no other option to look forwards, so that's what I did."

It was 20 years of gradually rising trajectory, as Bonamassa's reputation spread through relentless touring in Europe and the US. More and more people took notice of the young blues-rock player's chops, and songwriting with his constantly growing stature as an entertainer. "It was the beginning of the hardest 20 fucking years of my life, but here I am, nine times platinum and whatever."

It was also a path that could hit frustrating plateaus - the guitarist was frequently snubbed by parts of the mainstream music press despite his creative achievements. But when Bonamassa played the Albert Hall on 4 May, 2009 he had a career-shifting experience; the patronage of a guitar legend who would become a friend. 

By his own admission, Bonamassa came to the blues via the UK; Paul Kossoff, Peter Green and the towering influence that is Eric Clapton. When Slowhand stepped out with Bonamassa at the Albert Hall that night he was gifting a patronage that even Gary Moore never received from him during his lifetime. And its significance isn't been lost on Bonamassa. 

"He's very, very influential to me and has been a friend for a long time," Bonamassa reflected to Pinyol. "I can never repay him for what he did because he came out and did something that turned my career around. 

"That was the biggest B12 shot I could have ever asked for, because it meant something to me and everybody saw that. It meant something, it wasn't like, what celebrity can we get to show up at this thing? No, I'm at the Albert Hall because I want to be like him, and he came. That was a big fucking deal.

The prestigious London venue is like a second home for Clapton as a performer to some degree; he's played there over 200 times. Making his appearance with Bonamassa as his guest there even more symbolic.  

The unforgettable moment the two duetted on Bobby Bland's Texas shuffle Further On Up The Road would be immortalised on the release Live From The Albert Hall and can also be seen above. Bonamassa (Les Paul) and Clapton (Strat) confidently traded licks and vocals before joining each other for a crescendo where Slowhand's smile of recognition said it all. But for Joe Bonamassa the pressure beforehand was immense.  

“For me it was either the beginning of the beginning or the beginning of the end," Bonamassa reflected with Guitarist magazine in a 2017 interview. "There was no middle ground. Either fail or succeed or just play and nobody would care, but somehow that gig turned into something that people would remember and we recorded it and that was really the beginning of this modern time in my career. It was incredibly moving and I don’t remember much about the experience because I was nervous.”

It didn't show. And for the guitarist it was not only childhood wish fulfillment, but a full circle moment; to be honoured and to honour the musician that helped set his journey as a musician in motion.

"I learned to play blues guitar just from playing along to the Beano album," he told us in 2021. "More so than even BB King, Freddie or Albert, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf or Robert Johnson.

“Eric Clapton was the conduit for me to get into all of those guys. And, of course, having him play with me at the Royal Albert Hall was amazing."

• Joe Bonamassa will return to the Royal Albert Hall on 4 and 5 April 2024. More info at royalalberthall.com

It would have been Jimi Hendrix's birthday today so to celebrate we're bringing you this archive piece - let's go back to the source...

1 October 1966. Cream are playing at the Central London Polytechnic in Regent Street. Eric Clapton had left John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in July, and since teaming up with bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker, Cream seemed invincible.

That three already well-established musicians should form a band was without precedent in British rock history. And, for Clapton, the powerhouse rhythm section of Bruce and Baker was the dream team. It allowed him the freedom to stretch out on long extended jams, an innovative format owing more to jazz than rock or blues - and the band had been taking audiences by storm.

Killing floor

An outsider jamming with Cream was unheard of, but, on this night, when manager Chas Chandler asked if new American guitarist Jimi Hendrix could sit in for a number, Clapton readily agreed.

Hendrix had only flown in from New York a week before, but thanks to Chandler’s clever PR, a huge buzz was already going around the London clubs.

Clapton couldn’t have anticipated what was about to unfold. “He was very, very flash - even in the dressing room. He stood in front of the mirror combing his hair and asked if he could jam. He played Killing Floor, a Howlin’ Wolf number I’d always wanted to play but which I’d never had the complete technique to do.”

The effect on Clapton was undoubtedly cataclysmic, shattering any preconceptions about blues guitar - and his confidence. Writer Keith Altham was present. “Hendrix blew into Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor at breakneck speed, just like that - stopped you in your tracks.”

Chas Chandler went backstage to find Clapton puffing nervously on a cigarette. “You never told me he was that fucking good,” Clapton is reported as saying. Chandler later recalled, “When we first met in New York, Jimi knew all about the guitarists in Britain and asked if he’d get to meet Eric Clapton. I told him that once he got over, he’d show Clapton how it was done, which of course he did.”

A night to remember 

The Blues Band and The Manfreds guitarist Tom McGuinness first met Clapton at an audition at The Station Hotel in Richmond in 1963 and hit it off immediately via a mutual love of the blues.

“We sort of chatted and said names to each other like Elmore James and Lowell Fulson… the fact that you could meet someone who knew these people was a real treat.”

McGuinness and Clapton formed a band, The Roosters, and it was during that time that Clapton first heard Freddie King.

“It was fine with the white rock ’n’ rollers until I heard Freddie King, then I was over the moon,” Clapton told Guitarist, speaking of his own musical development. “I knew that was where I belonged, finally. That was serious, proper guitar playing and I haven’t changed my mind ever since.”

Shortly afterwards, The Roosters disbanded, Clapton joined The Yardbirds and McGuinness went on to play with Manfred Mann.

“I didn’t see Eric play in between then and the Mayall album, because I was working every night,” says Tom.

“I was at a college gig in Manchester in 1966 and before the gig they were playing records while we were setting up and I heard this record and I thought, ‘Wow! Who is that amazing guitar player?’ and it was John Mayall’s new album [Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton] and I thought, ‘I didn’t know he was that good!’”

Flying with The Yardbirds 

To those who knew him, Eric Clapton’s eventual evolution to godlike guitar playing status must have seemed a divine right. The genesis of his fame began with The Yardbirds, a band of neatly suited mods from south London. In the wake of The Rolling Stones, the band’s gigs at Richmond’s Star Hotel and Crawdaddy Club had fast become the stuff of legend.

Fronted by singer and harmonica player Keith Relf, The Yardbirds excelled at hammering out frenetic takes of R&B anthems by heroes such as Chuck Berry and Slim Harpo, culminating their shows with the guitarists speeding up the neck in a manic tour de force.

Replacing guitarist Top Topham, 18-year-old Eric Clapton had joined the band in October 1963, bringing about an immediate quantum leap in both The Yardbirds’ sound and fortunes. Shortly after, German promoter Horst Lippmann arranged for the hard drinking, maverick blues harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson to work with the band.

A larger than life character, more used to the rigours of juke joints in his native Helena, Arkansas, Sonny Boy Williamson accompanied Lippmann to catch a Yardbirds show at Richmond’s Crawdaddy Club. After briefly jamming, he was enthusiastic at Lippmann’s suggestion that they should record.

On 8 December, Yardbirds manager Giorgio Gomelsky and engineer Keith Grant duly lugged gear into the club’s cramped kitchen for two nights of recording. As Clapton later admitted, backing the blues legend was a daunting prospect.

“He put us through some bloody hard paces. For a start, he expected us to know his tunes. He’d say, ‘We’re gonna do Fattening Frogs For Snakes, then kick it off, and, of course, some of the band had never heard those songs.

“I’d already decided before I met him [Sonny Boy], that he wasn’t one of the great blues artists; I think he sensed my arrogance and deliberately gave me a hard time. He put me on the spot at any possible occasion. It was just a nightmare and I asked for it.”

Listening to the album today, the band’s rhythms sound stilted, and Clapton’s solos on his Fiesta Red Telecaster, played through a Vox AC30, lack any fire.

Clapton lets loose

In March ’65, The Yardbirds’ single For Your Love was racing up the charts and, in a display of extraordinary idealism, Clapton left the band. “I got brainwashed with this commercial R&B. The whole thing got so businesslike with finances and promotion, we became machines instead of human beings,” he later said.

Over the next five years, fleeing fame and expectation would become an obvious character trait of Clapton’s, but little enticement was needed for him to join John Mayall & The Blues Breakers; Mayall was a blues purist, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the music and a record collection to match.

With Jimmy Page producing, Mayall’s first move was to record two songs for Andrew Oldham’s Immediate label, I’m Your Witchdoctor and the smouldering slow paced Telephone Blues. With Page’s sympathetic ear at the mixing desk, Clapton was given free rein to reproduce his live sound, the sustained, disembodied wail of his Gibson Les Paul howling over Mayall’s droning Hammond organ.

Page’s white-coated engineer, more used to working with big bands and orchestras, at first switched off his machine, stating that the guitar was unrecordable. He was unable to believe Clapton was producing his sound on purpose!

Soft Machine guitarist John Etheridge remembers seeing Clapton play on many occasions during the mid-1960s.

“When [The Kinks’] You Really Got Me came out, Dave Davies’ solo was considered to be the pinnacle of what people were doing at the time. It was kind of Chuck Berry on amphetamines - lots of notes and double-stopping, early 60s bending. I’d heard Five Live Yardbirds and I thought, ‘This guy’s okay…’ but I didn’t think about it much.”

To the Manor born

But in October 1965, on the recommendation of a friend, Etheridge went to see the Blues Breakers at the Manor House in Finsbury Park.

“I walked in and there was this guy standing there and he began playing and the whole of my life went 'kryyykkk', really. The reason why it was so great was that this was the first time I had heard anyone actually singing on the guitar.

“The whole emphasis, the whole vocalisation of it, the self-conscious intelligence and musicality of it was in another league, really. The sounds of it - and the vibrato. I’d heard Buddy Guy and BB King, but they had the implication of vibrato and Clapton completely refined it. The Les Paul into the Marshall was just incredible. The whole room was transfixed; everybody was completely blown away.”

When John Mayall & The Blues Breakers went into Decca’s West Hampstead studio, their small budget landed them in the undersized No 2 studio. To compound matters, producer Mike Vernon and engineer Gus Dudgeon were both comparative rookies and, as Vernon later recalled, unprepared for the difficulties they would encounter:

“John didn’t know what the hell was going on as far as technical problems were concerned; he was just interested in making music. And Eric would insist on playing loud, which we hadn’t had to contend with before.”

Clapton, in fact, resolutely refused to turn down his Marshall JTM45 combo. “He had a terrible time with the engineer,” drummer Hughie Flint recalled.

“He wanted his amp right up, which meant it was distorting and Gus was tearing his hair out. But Eric said, ‘No, I can’t play unless I play like I play on stage.’”

Proximity mics

In an interview with Guitarist in 1994, Clapton elaborated: “When I was doing that album with John Mayall, it was obvious that if you mic’d the amp too close it would sound awful, so you had to put the mic a long way away and get the room sound of that amp breaking up.”

Fortunately, Clapton’s obstinacy on the recording of what has become known as ‘The Beano Album’ (due to Eric reading the comic in the cover shot) produced what is undoubtedly one of the most influential albums in rock history: one that’s inspired not only blues players, but just about every rock guitarist of note, from Eddie Van Halen to Steve Hackett.

However, some people who had seen The Blues Breakers play live had a few mixed feelings. “We were disappointed with that record,” Etheridge continues. “It wasn’t nearly as good as the live show. People used to be in tears, because it was so beautiful and good; friends of mine would just be sobbing. That’s where ‘Clapton Is God’ came from. It wasn’t promo bullshit; he was!”

Clapton would leave the Blues Breakers two months later to form Cream. But with ‘Clapton Is God’ graffiti appearing on bus stops and walls around London, for John Mayall losing his star player was a bombshell.

He must have taken small satisfaction from the fact that Clapton helped create an album that ironically achieved higher chart success than Cream’s first record when it was released later that year.

But Clapton’s position as the greatest British blues guitarist seemed unassailable. “I was so deadly serious about what I was doing - I thought everyone else was either in it just to be on Top Of The Pops or Ready Steady Go! or to score girls or for some dodgy reason. I was in it to save the fucking world! I wanted to tell the world about blues or just get it right,” Eric said.

“I saw myself as being Buddy Guy, playing with a trio, but I was out of my depth with Jack and Ginger,” he later admitted privately. But whatever insecurities Clapton had about Cream - and he had some - they were soon compounded.

Hendrix has arrived

On Friday 25 November, the hurricane that was Jimi Hendrix finally hit. Manager Chas Chandler arranged a showcase gig at The Bag O’ Nails, a trendy Soho watering hole frequented by pop aristocracy such as Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones.

A huge buzz was already starting about this American guitarist; nothing like him had been seen or heard before. Despite Clapton’s undoubted guitar playing skill, he was hardly a showman. He stood stock still studying his fretboard with academic intensity.

Hendrix, on the other hand, used every trick in the book. Not only was his playing sensational, he was a consummate showman, picking his Fender Strat with his teeth, behind his back and humping it between his legs.

Hendrix was more than just a great musician, he was an American archetype, the latest in a lineage of hard-living, hard-rocking ramblers that included artists as musically diverse as Charlie Parker, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams and Jerry Lee Lewis: a lineage that stretched back to 1920s bluesman Charlie Patton. 

Singer Terry Reid set the scene: “We were all hanging out at The Bag O’ Nails, Keith [Richards], Mick [Jagger], Brian [Jones] come skipping through, all happy about something. Paul McCartney walks in, Jeff Beck. I thought, ‘What’s this? A bloody convention or something?’

“Here comes Jimi, wearing one of his military jackets, hair all over the place, pulls out his left-handed Stratocaster, beats it to hell, looks like he’s been chopping wood with it. He gets up all soft spoken and, all of a sudden, Whooor-raaawwrr! and he breaks into Wild Thing… and it was all over.

“There were guitar players weeping, they had to mop the floor up. He was piling it on, solo after solo. I could see everyone’s fillings dropping out. When he finished there was silence. Nobody knew what to do, everyone was dumbstruck, completely in shock.”

Jeff Beck was similarly devastated. “It wasn’t just his amazing blues playing I noticed, but his physical assault on the guitar; it was an explosive package. He hit me like an earthquake. I had to think long and hard about what I should do next.”

The aftermath

The late Guitarist writer Julian Piper was also a witness to Jimi’s UK landing: “I’d also seen the cataclysmic effect of a Jimi Hendrix performance,” he recalled.

These were the glory days of pop journalism, and Melody Maker’s Chris Welch penned the ‘Raver’s Column’, a goldmine of trivia about who was jamming with whom, who’d been spotted creeping into a recording studio in downtown Penge, and who was about to throw in the towel in a famous band - that sort of thing. Welch was the man on the spot.

“Sent to London for a week in 1966, I excitedly scanned ‘The Raver’. An entry read: ‘Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and Brian Jones all hung out at Mayfair’s new 7 ½ Club to catch sensational newly arrived American guitarist, Jimi Hendrix. Catch him next week on Wednesday or Thursday, he’s going to be big!’

“That Wednesday night,” Julian continues, “with a friend in tow, I stumbled downstairs to sit on a long bench at the edge of the dance floor. The cellar couldn’t have held more than 40 people, and occupying almost all of the floor were two Marshall stacks and a drum kit. More people drifted in and then - wearing one of his military jackets, his face dwarfed by a huge bush of hair - a smiling Hendrix walked on carrying a white Fender Strat.

“I was transfixed; I can’t recall even noticing the arrival of Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. After briefly fiddling with his tuners, Jimi kicked into Rock Me Baby, the sound knocking you back in disbelief - a shattering wall of glorious controlled noise, mixing feedback and Eastern tonalities, all built around that familiar, hoary old blues riff. As we later found out, at this point Jimi was struggling for enough suitable material, and the band barely rehearsed.”

Noel Redding provided an intriguing insight into that time: “We learned to play as we went along. Right at the beginning, it was very short, intense gigs at small clubs in London with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones watching, which really freaked me out.

“There were never any setlists and we didn’t do soundchecks or hardly any rehearsing. That’s why there were some tunes we never played live, because, if we did, they’d just peter out or collapse.

“We’d just tune up on stage, say good evening to the audience and probably kick off with Killing Floor. It was all very spontaneous, and when we went on stage we had no idea what we were going to do.”

Dare to be different

Julian Piper picked up the story: “Although the record was not yet out, Hendrix played Hey Joe and Stone Free, but the highlight was his take on Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone; somehow he managed to sing it and play all those wonderful doublestop licks from the original recording.

“At one point, he walked in our direction, leering - the guitar neck pointing suggestively at the face of the beautiful blonde girl sitting beside me, a person I realised was Marianne Faithfull. Beside her sat an expressionless Mick Jagger.

“After Jimi finished with his volcanic take on Killing Floor, he flung the Strat to the ground, creating a cacophony of feedback. Chas Chandler, who’d been sitting behind us, vaulted over to switch the amps off, leaving a stunned silence. An encore would have seemed redundant.”

Roger Mayer, who had been building effects pedals for Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck for several years (his Octavia pedal famously became a favourite of Jimi’s), also recalls the shocked aftermath:

“A few of them said they wanted to give up playing the guitar. They realised they’d seen someone so good that what they’d been doing was just a pale imitation of the real deal. That night exposed, in no uncertain terms, the weaknesses of their own guitar playing. It’s true of seeing any genius perform, and it showed the English guitar playing fraternity what could be done.

“In 1964, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page had started rolling forward the guitar sound, but it wasn’t until Jimi that we really went to town. Up until then it had all been very simple - a white man’s version of the blues, which was all very good, but didn’t shift the goal posts.”

Looking forward

“Jimi was used to playing behind Wilson Pickett, where he’d get an eight-bar break in a song if he was lucky,” continues Mayer.

“He came from the tight confines of the R&B bands with the shiny suits and the headliners out front. They didn’t want anyone in the back line to outshine them, and Jimi told me that was one of the reasons he got fired - he was always doing tricks, stealing the show.

“You should always dare to be different,” Mayer asserts. “Copying and looking over your shoulder is no good. You should be looking forward, not backwards. A lot of white man’s blues today is just boring!

“Blues, by definition, cannot be learned; you can feel it, but there’s no way a white person can feel it in the same way as a black person who grew up with it in their neighbourhood.”

Kathy's song

Probably no-one got to know Jimi Hendrix better than Kathy Etchingham, who met Jimi Hendrix soon after his arrival and was his girlfriend for three years. She remembers a man who wasn’t as supremely confident as his music might suggest:

“He had an enormous amount of confidence in his music, but, as an American in London, he was like a fish out of water. Chas Chandler thought, ‘Ah, we’ve got to get Jimi introduced onto the social scene,’ and that’s what he did. But in those early days we didn’t have any money, so we used to sit around a lot in the places we lived, planning out the future.

“We’d play games - card games, Monopoly, Scrabble - and, as time went on, we had more money and went out more often. Jimi certainly knew about English music before he came over, knew about Eric Clapton, admired John Mayall’s Blues Breakers and Cream.

“Jeff Beck’s name would come up often; in my mind, I’m sure he preferred Jeff’s playing to Eric’s. There was real rivalry between Jimi and Eric. When they did talk, people might’ve thought it was all very friendly, but it was a stilted, difficult conversation where they tried to be nice.

“To be fair, it was difficult for Eric; he was the leader of the gang then this character comes in from nowhere. When Jimi played at the London Polytechnic with Cream, Eric strolled confidently off, then Jimi started playing Killing Floor and you could see the look on their faces. Jimi walked offstage with this smirk; he knew exactly what he was doing.

“When Jimi went back to the States to play at Monterey,” Etchingham concludes, “it was a big deal for him. Perhaps he didn’t have the confidence to realise how important he’d become in Britain. But, at the same time, I think he knew he’d worked his way up quietly, and knew in his heart of hearts he could blow them all away.”

A blues legacy

From those first appearances in the UK, Jimi took the world by storm, and in 1967 his first album, Are You Experienced, would stand alongside The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper and Cream’s Disraeli Gears as the great psychedelic masterpieces of the era.

In 1968, Cream disbanded, Eric Clapton later confessing: “My overall feeling is that it was a glorious mistake, and although it ended up being a wonderful thing, it was nothing like it was meant to be.

“But with Jimi, part of me wanted to run away and say, ‘Oh no - this is what I want to be,’ and part of me fell in love. But I just had to surrender and say, ‘This is fantastic.’”

The new live album, 'Jimi Hendrix Experience Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969' is out now on 2LP vinyl, CD and all digital platforms via Legacy Recordings (streaming links are here: https://hendrix.lnk.to/ForumPR). The new book, JIMI by Janie Hendrix and John McDermott is out 24th November.

Eric Clapton’s heavily modded and custom-finished ‘Fool’ Gibson SG has been sold for a cool $1.27 million, making it the most expensive of Slowhand’s guitars to have been sold at auction.

The 1964 Gibson SG, which features psychedelic art from the Dutch art collective with whom shares its name, The Fool, joins an elite group of $1 million-plus guitars, though is still some way short of the world record $6,010,000 that was paid for Kurt Cobain’s 1959 Martin D-18E, most famous for its appearance on Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged album.

But maybe that’s the generation gap affecting the price, because there are few more recognisable electric guitars in rock history. It is the source of Clapton’s Woman Tone, the slightly nasally vocal sound that characterised early Cream recordings. 

Its custom psych paint job was hugely influential. The look became all the rage as the sun dawned on the Summer of Love – George Harrison would give his Rocky Fender Stratocaster a similarly psychedelic makeover with Day-Glo paint.

The auction was hosted by Julien’s, the guitar purchased by The Jim Irsay Collection, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Indianapolis Colts and Irsay family’s metal health initiative, Kicking The Stigma – Irsay is the owner of the Colts. 

For Julien’s it is another record, having sold the aforementioned MTV Unplugged acoustic guitar, and Kurt Cobain’s 1969 Competition Fender Mustang guitar, as used in the epochal Smells Like Teen Spirit video, which, at $4.5 million, became the second most expensive guitar ever sold at auction.

Darren Julien, president and CEO, Julien’s Auctions, described The Fool as “one of the most important guitars in all of rock music history”, and he is not wrong. Presiding over the auction was one of the highlights of his career.

“To have this legendary guitar that created and defined the classic rock sound that is an art masterpiece and symbol of the psychedelic ‘Summer of Love’ era go to Jim Irsay’s renowned memorabilia collection is another great privilege and hallmark of my career and a highlight of Julien’s Auctions twenty-year anniversary celebration this year,” he said.

It might also be a highlight of The Jim Irsay Collection – that said, the competition is steep. Irsay’s archive includes Bob Dylan’s 1964 Stratocaster, the guitar that wired ‘Electric Dylan’ into our pop-cultural consciousness after his incendiary 1965 performance at Newport. He owns the Gerry Garcia’s ‘Tiger’ guitar, made by Doug Irwin, George Harrison’s Revolver SG, and David Gilmour’s legendary Black Strat. 

Irsay hopes to display these in a museum but right now is taking the collection around the States, exhibiting them and then showcasing them in a concert with the Jim Irsay Band. The next date is 11 January 2024. Tickets and more details can be found at The Jim Irsay Collection.

As for the Fool, this is the latest stop-off point on a storied life. It was once owned by Todd Rundgren, and has been much modded over the years. The trapeze-style tailpiece and long-arm vibrola has long been removed and replaced with a Wide Travel harmonica-style bridge and stop-bar tailpiece. The control knobs have been changed. 

Now, you could say that this is player’s grade, and in vintage guitar circles that might connote a discount, but when the player was Eric Clapton, and the guitar is The Fool, that just puts a premium on top.

The Julien’s Auction also served as a reminder of just how sought-after the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard is now. One sold for $585,000. Other notable lots included the Gibson Epiphone PR325S that was played by Johnny Cash and used by Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line, a bargain at $63,500. A stage-played Charvel once owned by Eddie Van Halen sold for $117,000. 

The Played, Worn, & Torn: Rock ’N’ Roll Iconic Guitars And Memorabilia auction continues over the weekend. See Julien’s Auctions for more details.

Few guitarists can take on Jeff Beck's Cause We've Ended As Lovers and come out unscathed, but Joe Bonamassa and John McLaughlin are definitely in the elite group. "My initials are JB," said Joe introducing the song/ "We're gonna pay tribute to the man himself right now – the original, the best ever JB." 

And they did him proud, with the consistently excellent Josh Smith providing rhythm, as you can see below thanks to footage captured by Youtuber frenchamerican.  

Stevie Wonder penned that song for Beck, and that link continued when Clapton took the stage; he invited Stevie out to provide keys for Crossroads to a rapturous reception. Footage below was captured by Michael Varney. 

Clapton also played an acoustic segment on the Sunday night (24 September) which you can see below.  

He played an unbeatable trio of songs from his MTV Unplugged recording for the intimate performance with Jimmy Knox cover Nobody Knows You When You're Down At Out, Layla and Tears In Heaven.  

Slowhand returned for Calros Sanata's festival-closing set to guest on Peter Green's minor blues classic Black Magic Woman – again captured by YouTuber Mike Varney – before a rendition of The Doors' Roadhouse Blues. 

For the first song, Carlos Sanatana spent nearly the whole performance with his back to the audience, seemingly directing his band. 

Eric Gales, Samantha Fish and Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram traded blazing blues licks on Freddie King's Going Down on the Saturday on the festival (23 September). Mr Gales stole the show for style with that gold shirt too. 

That wasn't even Fish and Gales' only duet of the weekend –  the next day they played Black Wind Howlin' together. 

Jimmie Vaughan also joined with Gary Clark Jr for a great tribute to SRV with a performance of Texas Flood for the first night of the festival on Saturday 23 September. 

• John Mayer breaks out his Monterey Hendrix Strat, solos with H.E.R and guest with Sheryl Crow at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival

It takes a lot of hard work, just as much determination, and perhaps a little bit of good fortune to become a session drummer on a high profile gig. So, imagine what it takes to become recognised as one of the first-call drummers for not one, but multiple household name legends. 

Steve Jordan is one such drummer, with a unique feel behind the kit, a dynamic sense of touch, and a deep understanding of the drummers’ place in a song have earned him stage and studio slots with the likes of Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, John Mayer, The Pretenders, Bruce Springsteen, Donald Fagen (to name a few). He was even a weekly fixture on TV via his role in the Late Night with David Letterman house band.

Now, in the wake of Charlie Watts’ passing, he’s taking care of groove for one of the biggest bands rock ’n’ roll has ever seen with The Rolling Stones, a position personally signed-off by Watts himself years prior to his death, telling his bandmates, “Steve Jordan’s your man” if anything should ever happen to him.  

Steve’s success isn’t just owing to his standout drumming style, though. He’s also a dab hand behind the glass as a Grammy award-winning producer. Perhaps it’s this which helps inform his approach to the drums sonically as well as the notes he’s playing, with many ‘Jordanisms’ spurring new trends in the types of gear we play. 

Large hi-hats, stone-dead snare drums, wood hoops? It’d be a stretch to say he invented them, but they’re all often-imitated, close associations. Yamaha even enlisted him to help co-design its short-lived, and now sought-after modern Club Custom range.

Distilling a prolific discography of songs and performances which spans decades into five choices is no easy task, and this isn’t a case of ‘Five best’. Instead, we’ve gone for five songs that hopefully show the diversity and gravity of Jordan’s career. Dip your toe, then dive deep into the career of a modern groove master.

John Mayer - Vultures

We could have filled this article many times over with Jordan’s output with Mayer alone, and we’d say that his performance with the John Mayer Trio from live album Where The Light Is (as well as the studio albums) is not only essential listening, but also provides a pretty comprehensive cross-section of what makes Steve Jordan’s playing so addictive. 

There’s blues, soul, funk and rock, all instilled with his bouncing groove and impeccable drum sounds. That last point is largely why we’ve chosen Vultures (originally recorded for 2006’s Continuum) to kick off. 

On paper, the simple kick-snare pattern is straight out of Drum Beats 101, but the execution and sonics are what elevate the groove that we’ve heard a thousand times to a new level of interest. 

This is quintessential Jordan - oversized, sloshy hi-hats, an intentionally dead snare that’s so fat it’s risking a coronary, but the only pacemaker here is Jordan himself. Together with partner-in-time, Pino Palladino, it’s a masterclass in laying a groovy foundation for a guitar hero to build their house on.

The Blues Brothers - Soul Man

The Blues Brothers released Briefcase Full of Blues before the film came out, and therefore this live album pre-dates the studio-recorded soundtrack. However, it still netted Jordan a Billboard Number One, thanks in part to singles Rubber Biscuit, Hey Bartender and the BB’s version of Sam & Dave’s classic, Soul Man. 

“I was in a gas station, and I heard the original version again and I almost passed out. Because it was so incredible, and Al Jackson was so unbelievable. Our version just paled in comparison…I’m talking about Al Jackson’s groove, his pocket on that is so bullet-proof, iron-clad, compared to what I did which was the contemporary version. It’s almost embarrassing, it was such a lesson in humility.” 

Despite this —which Jordan claims was the catalyst for a more 'humble' change of approach in his playing — we’d argue that Jordan’s version holds up brilliantly.  and is well worth a listen for any covers band player looking to learn the song. 

Elsewhere, the album is a study in soul, blues and R’n’B drumming with Jordan moving effortlessly between straight grooves, gospel beats and shuffles. A must-listen for anyone playing with blues-obsessed six-stringers.

James Brown - Late Night with David Letterman

Ok, so this is a TV performance rather than one of the hundreds of studio recordings Jordan has appeared on, but it’s certainly a career standout. When James Brown came to Late Night with David Letterman in 1982, he performed three songs with ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Band’ — Paul Schaffer (keys), Will Lee (bass) Hiram Bullock (guitar) Sinaclair Pinkney (sax) and Hollie Ferris (trumpet) — and of course, Steve Jordan on drums. 

Ironically, due to the camera work and stage setup, we barely catch a glimpse of Jordan, but that’s made up for by the incredibly tight (and clearly audible) playing. Brown, notoriously tough on his band, specifically drummers, dished out a set of performances for the books, propelled by Jordan and co.’s funky backing. 

Jordan reflected on playing with the Godfather of Soul in an interview with Guitar Center, and it seems that it wasn’t just the audience who were impressed. “The first time James Brown appeared on the Letterman show in 1982, it was incredible. We blew his mind because he didn’t think our band was gonna be like that. 

"We had been waiting to play with James Brown our whole lives…so when we got the opportunity to do it, we were so freaking on it. He couldn’t believe it…it was really an amazing thing.

“After the show, I went back to meet him [to get his autograph]. He was sitting under a hairdryer…Al Sharpton was standing right behind him, because Al Sharpton used to do his hair!

"Anyway, he gets up, he grabs me and he says ‘Brother, you’re high!’ I’m saying to myself ‘I’m not high!’. He goes, ‘You’re high, your energy is high! This is the best show I’ve done in front of cameras since the TAMI Show!”. For him to say that was the greatest compliment that I think you could ever receive.” 

John Scofield - Busted

Blues doesn’t often scream ‘Drums!’, mainly due to the fact that the appreciation lies with the subtleties of the genre. But, it’s a style that we’re all likely to find ourselves playing at some point. 

Steve Jordan has been a consistent ambassador for great blues drumming, accompanying notable blue legends including Buddy Guy, BB King, Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Robben Ford and more, so if you’re trufflin’ for a shufflin’, Steve Jordan’s swingier output is a great place to look. 

This choice steps slightly outside of the standard blues shuffle style, as Jordan sits in with fusion/jazz/funk/blues shapeshifting guitar virtuoso, John Scofield for an album’s worth of Ray Charles appreciation (That’s What I Say).

Jordan takes the straightforward shuffle of the original and gives it a jazzy makeover with a swinging ride pattern, but it’s mixed with stomped hi-hats, a busy, weaving bass drum and that unmistakeable ‘crack’ and ghost notes from a tight snare. 

The Rolling Stones - Angry

Steve Jordan’s association with The Rolling Stones began in the ’80s after he joined Keith Richards’ project, The X-Pensive Winos - originally devised to pay tribute to Chuck Berry for the Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll documentary and concerts. Jordan produced and co-wrote three albums with Keef, and when Charlie Watts sadly passed in 2021, there was no question within the band as to who could fill the role.

Here, we’re treated to the first single from Hackney Diamonds - the Stones’ first new album of material in 18 years (unreleased at the time of writing). Jordan plays drums on all but two of the album’s songs which are of course, played by Charlie Watts (Mess It Up and Live By The Sword).

It’s a straight-ahead Rolling Stones tune that, like a familiar pair of shoes neither amazes nor disappoints. Instead, it delivers exactly what we’d hope to hear from a band whose career is now into its seventh decade. 

Jordan plays it straight, with a Watts-inspired beat and an incredibly appropriate drum sound, complete with a crystal clear ringing snare. We imagine that playing for The Rolling Stones is likely to keep Jordan busy, but the good news is that there’s plenty more to come.  

6 September 1968 wasn't memorable for everyone involved in the recording of the Beatles' White Album. 

When we quizzed him for details on the session earlier this year, engineer Ken Scott demurred "I was at the session, but It was just another day at the office so it didn't mean anything at the time. 

"It's become part of history, but I don't remember anything about it. Chris Thomas, who was George Martin's assistant, remembers nothing about it. John Smith, my assistant engineer, remembers nothing about it." 

Luckily, George Harrison himself is on record with better recall of the day he drafted in Eric Clapton to put the gloss on one of his key Beatles tracks, While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

In the Beatles Anthology, Harrison recalls the song's birth as an exercise in randomness: "I was thinking about the Chinese I Ching, the Book of Changes… The Eastern concept is that whatever happens is all meant to be, and that there’s no such thing as coincidence. Every little item that’s going down has a purpose.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps was a simple study based on that theory. I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book. I picked up a book at random, opened it, saw ‘gently weeps’, then laid the book down again and started the song."

Not untypically, it seems John Lennon and Paul McCartney weren't overly enthusiastic when recording - the Beatles' first on 8-track - commenced in earnest in September 1968. "I'll tell you, I worked on that song with John, Paul and Ringo one day, and they were not interested in it at all."

"We tried to record it, but John and Paul were so used to just cranking out their tunes that it was very difficult at times to get serious and record one of mine. It wasn’t happening. 

"They weren’t taking it seriously and I don’t think they were even all playing on it, and so I went home that night thinking, ‘Well, that’s a shame,’ because I knew the song was pretty good."

So, a full day's labour at EMI Studio 2 on 5 September ended with 44 half-hearted takes in the can (including 17 earlier passes), and George still unhappy with his own attempts at a solo. 

Engineer Brian Gibson says in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, "George particularly wanted to get the sound of a crying guitar but he didn't want to use a wah-wah pedal, so he was experimenting with a backwards guitar solo. 

"We spent a long night trying to get it to work but in the end the whole thing was scrapped and it was around that time that Eric Clapton started to get involved with the song."

Indeed, it was the very next day that Harrison called in back-up in the form of friend Eric Clapton, both to sort out the troublesome solo and to bring Lennon and McCartney to heel for one last push on the track.

"The next day, I was with Eric, and I was going into the session, and I said, “We're going to do this song. Come on and play on it,” he told Guitar Player in 1987.

"He said, “Oh, no. I can't do that. Nobody ever plays on the Beatles records.”

"I said, “Look, it's my song, and I want you to play on it.

"So Eric came in and the other guys were as good as gold, because he was there. Also, it left me free to just play the rhythm and do the vocal."

In Anthology, Harrison says, "So he came in. I said, ‘Eric’s going to play on this one,’ and it was good because that then made everyone act better. Paul got on the piano and played a nice intro and they all took it more seriously."

"It left me free to just play the rhythm and do the vocal. So Eric played, and I thought it was really good," Harrison remembers.

But one last layer of polish was required. "We listened to it back and he said, “Ah, there's a problem though. It's not Beatle-y enough” – so we put it through the ADT to wobble it a bit."

Harrison would later say, “What happened when Eric was there on that day, and later on when Billy Preston  - I pulled in Billy Preston on Let It Be - it helped. Because the others would have to control themselves a bit more. John and Paul mainly because they had to, you know, act more handsomely.”

Clapton himself hasn't discussed the session much over the years, but did say "I knew George was happy, because he listened to it over and over in the control room."

Job very much done.

BONUS: Just because it's always worth a watch

Guitar Center has put together an exclusive run of limited edition acoustic and electric guitars to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival, and among them are a trio of signature Martins for Slowhand himself.

To launch the collection, Guitar Center’s Michael Doyle dropped in on Clapton to present him with a pair of Martins to get his seal of approval. First up was a D-28 with a build inspired by Clapton’s 000 signature guitar; Sitka spruce on top, Indian rosewood on the back and sides, herringbone rosette and purfling, ebony fingerboard with diamonds-and-squares inlaid in abalone pearl, and Clapton’s signature inlaid in MOP at the top of the fingerboard. 

They’re only making 60 of these, each priced $4,499. The sight of has Clapton recalling his long love affair with the storied acoustic guitar brand, and how they were like an “exotic creature” when he first laid eyes on them.

“It was a D-28 way back in the early ‘60s, and someone said, ‘I’ve got a Martin. Do you want to see it?’ And a group of people formed a circle to look at this thing.”

Next up was a real high-end acoustic guitar, a D-45 with Madagascan rosewood on the back and sides. A limited run of just 25, it is the D-45 replica of the ’68 model that Clapton played onstage with Derek and the Dominoes legendary charity gig on 14 June 1970. It comes with special hard-shell guitar case stencilled with “Eric Clapton Group. Delicate electronic instrument. Handle with care.” 

Clapton recalls that Lyceum gig coming around just as he was warming to a change of pace post-Cream and performing with a little less volume onstage.

“That gig was a charity event, and it was just an excuse to take what we’d been mucking around with," he says. "And I had fallen in love with the whole idea of playing acoustic onstage, having been part of Cream where it was really loud, and two 100-watt Marshalls behind me. Unbelievable. And I’d have one of them one and the other one off, but I’d turn the other one on for the solos. What was I thinking? A 100-watts extra for the solo! [Laughs] So playing acoustic, I fell in love with Martin.”

This D-45 has all the finery bestowed upon it. There is the slightly rounded headstock edges, the abalone rosette and purfling, the abalone ‘hexagon’ inlays, period-correct gold Grover tuners, with Madagascan rosewood on the headstock facing. Clapton has signed the label on the inside of the guitar. It costs $15,499, and Eric Clapton is a big fan of it.

“Lovely. Lovely tone. It’s great actually,” he says. “Beautiful. Nice neck. Great action. Yeah, that’s all right with me. Yeah, this is fantastic.”

All approved. What we don’t see in the video, however, is a one-of-one Martin D-45 with Brazilian rosewood. A truly high-end guitar for the collector’s market, it was listed at $74,999. 

You can’t have a special Clapton release without a Fender Stratocaster, and Guitar Center has also hooked up with Fender for a couple of signature Strats to mark the occasion.

Again, we’ve got high-end and then very high-end options. The Eric Clapton CRASH Stratocaster is the more affordable at $3,499, and takes its name – and design – from NYC street artist John “CRASH” Matos. 

Limited to 60 instruments, it has an alder body, a bolt-on V profile neck, vintage frets, a blocked synchronized tremolo as per Clapton’s preference, and a trio of Vintage Noiseless Strate single-coils. There is a custom-engraved Crossroads neck plate and it ships in a custom tweed case.

Now for the Custom Shop Strat, a guitar put together by Fender Master Builder Todd Krause. Finished in Blu Scozia, this is limited to 25, has the soft V profile neck, the Noiseless pickups, and once more the vibrato unit is blocked. But there are some differences. 

The build quality will be off the charts, of course. There is also an active mid boost control that can add up to 25dB, so no need to be running that second Marshall head for the solos. The COA is signed by both Krause and Clapton. As Strats go, this is a latter-day holy grail and is priced accordingly at $14,999.

Rounding out the collecting is a PRS Private Stock Carlos Santana 1, which comes with a personal letter from Santana himself, and the suspicion that this could well be the original that Paul Reed Smith built the electric guitar icon back in the ‘80s. It has a pre ’85 spec. There’s Brazilian rosewood on the fingerboard. 

There’s custom abalone Santana OM inlay on the truss rod cover. The maple top is a work of art. And there are only 10 of these worldwide. Priced $14,999, they are available exclusively from Guitar Center, which is where you should head for more information and to order.

A portion of the proceeds from these guitars will go to the Crossroads At Antigua addiction recovery centre. The Crossroads Guitar Festival 2023 is also in aid of the centre and takes place on 23 and 24 September, with Clapton performing on both nights and joined by the likes of Joe Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr, Cheryl Crow, Samantha Fish, Eric Gales and more. See Crossroads Guitar Festival for more details.

Bernie Marsden, the legendary former Whitesnake guitarist and master of blues-rock guitar, has died, aged 72.

Marsden passed away on Thursday 24 August, with in the company of his wife, Fran, and daughters, Charlotte and Olivia. In a statement from the family, Marsden “never lost his passion for music, writing and recording new songs until the end”.

There are many things we could say about the guitar playing of Bernie Marsden. It was certainly influential enough for the University of Buckingham to award him an honorary master’s degree in 2015. Pictured in cap and gown he looked tickled by the  award. But it was strange to see him without an electric guitar in his hand. It would be central to his story.

Like many players of his age, Marsden got turned onto the instrument by Hank Marvin of the Shadows. But it was Eric Clapton who really opened his eyes to its potential. 

Clapton was young enough that Marsden could see something of himself in him. George Harrison of the Beatles was another primary influence, and so too the late Peter Green. Both would become friends.

Marsden would travel down from Buckingham to London to see Fleetwood Mac play, helping them load in, a good deed rewarded by a pint from Green. They were birds of a feather, and it was inevitable they would remain close.

Marsden’s first band of note was Skinny Cat, formed when he was 17. They wouldn’t last but supporting Fleetwood Mac, Jeff Beck, Slade and Gary Moore give Marsden a real taste for it, and he would cast the net wider. 

UFO was his first big gig. The big time it was not. Speaking to Louder in 2020, he admitted it was an eye-opener to a young kid like him.

“I was naïve and green, and thought that joining a pro band and moving to London was going to be like the cover of a Beatles EP, with everyone jumping in the air and being happy. It turned out to be anything but,” said Marsden, who often had to travel to gigs on his own. It was not a happy camp.

It was, however, a move up the ladder. The next moves involved session playing with Mickie Most, playing with Cozy Powell’s Hammer, then Babe Ruth, before Paice Ashton Lord changed everything. 

That was a great leap for Marsden, and perhaps also for Deep Purple fans reckoning with the stylistic evolution of this new project. 

“Paice Ashton Lord turned out to be a flash in the pan, although it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Marsden told Louder. He was right. He would record Malice In Wonderland with Paice Ashton Lord. As the curtain closed on Paice Ashton Lord, another opened.

Marsden got in at the ground floor with Whitesnake, joining guitarist Mike Moody and David Coverdale, and finally finding an outlet for his talent. In Coverdale, he knew he had someone he could work with, describing him as a “surrogate brother”.

He would record five studio albums with the band, co-writing the stone-cold classic Here I Go Again with Coverdale, and Fool For Your Loving, a track originally intended for BB King but one the record company had the good sense to make them use it for Whitesnake. That would become another evergreen hit. 

He would release two solo albums during his time with the band. When Whitesnake came to an end, Marsden was only 30 but thought he was washed up. His friend Cozy Powell, who was best man at his wedding, helped talk him round. Marsden formed Alaska – originally, as “Bernie Marsden’s Alaska”, such was the style at the time – tracking two albums, Heart Of The Storm and The Pack. 

One of Marsden’s most significant post-Whitesnake releases arrived in 1995, as he paid tribute to Peter Green on Green And Blues. Whitesnake was never out of sight in the rear-view mirror. In 2011, he got back on the stage with Coverdale and co at Sweden Rock Festival. They would not be strangers.

Latterly, Marsden had a portfolio career, scoring german TV show Frankie, collaborating with PRS and Gibson on a signature guitar, guesting on friends’ records and stages, recording the critically acclaimed solo album Shine in 2014. 

His legendary 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard ‘Burst of his, aka Beast, almost became like this extension of his personality and legacy. Little wonder there was outcry when the Beast was considered for sale earlier in June. Over the years he had lent the Beast to select friends – Joe Bonamassa was one such safe pair of hands. By popular appeal, Marsden decided to keep it. It was fitting that the Beast stayed with him to the end. 

"I feel safe to talk to you," Eric Clapton tells YouTuber The Real Music Observer in the video below. By his own admission, the post-COVID Slowhand is now only agreeing to interviewers with him and not established mainstream "journalists", but he's in an open and honest mood, keen to talk about his past and the monumental figures he made history with.

He recounts first hearing The Big Pink by The Band on the best "Mexican grass" he'd ever had in his life and being transported to "another dimension". The impact immediately made him feel deflated about his work with Cream at the time.

"I just thought, 'Oh man, what am I doing this [for] when that has already been going on?'".

While he admitted he'd softened on his feelings about Cream's achievements in retrospect, he was also keen to pay tribute to his late friend and The Band's guitarist, Robbie Robertson. 

"The Band to me was amazing because they were all giants," Clapton reflected. "Every one of them was a giant on his own, and [Robbie] was the visionary. I have no doubt that he wrote all those songs."

Clapton even repeated his desire to join The Band's ranks, despite knowing it could never have worked.

"If you had taken that to its conclusion and Robbie had said, 'Do you want to join?' when I was up there, I may have said yes. But I wouldn't have done that because I was already a celebrity [at the time] and none of them personally, individually, were celebrities. That was their thing – even their name was [about] anonymity. That was also what was magnetic for me because I always wanted anonymity, I wanted to be in the rhythm section. And if that would have been possible to sneak in, even if I'm disguised, and played rhythm guitar then we could have done it. But it was never gonna happen."

Clapton also shared his desire to pay tribute to Robertson by playing a couple of The Band's songs at upcoming solo shows ahead of his appearance at the September 23 and 24 Crossroads festival in LA  – an event Robertson was billed to perform at. However, Clapton admits it will be a challenge to play some of his friend's guitar parts. 

"When people underestimate what he does – they want to try doing it," he notes. "The intros to songs, the little things that sound like they're scrappy and off the cuff, which is part of his unique attractiveness to me – he sounds like he's only just now working out that this will work. I'm sure it's a lot more crafted out than that. I know him well enough to know he was really precise about what he did. It's so difficult to recreate that kind of on the edge of expression [feel] and not making a mistake, not blowing it. It's really, really difficult."

Slowhand also remembered Robertson had a particularly unusual ability for a guitar player. 

"He had hands like a Boxer, said Clapton. "He could play piano but he had very, very wide fingers. Not fat but there's a lot of soul guitar players who do that thing with two strings sliding at the same time, they usually do that thing with [two fingers] sideways on. With one finger he could cover two strings and that's really unusual. "

"He was a dear friend," Clapton added elsewhere. "He had told me about being ill but I never asked him what it was. And I don't really know that I want to know, other than he's gone and it's very very sad. People will never know what a hole it's left for those of us who were around at the time." 

• "I said, ‘Well, it’ll just be a back-up song in case some other things don’t work out’" – How Robbie Robertson wrote The Band's classic song, The Weight

The first of two tribute concerts to the late Jeff Beck was held last night, Monday 22 May, at London’s Royal Albert Hall, with Beck’s widow, Sandra, and fellow Yardbird alum Eric Clapton bringing together a spectacular all-star lineup to celebrate his life.

And it really was a celebration. Just check out Robert Randolph’s Instagram for an idea of what it was like to be on that stage in front of a capacity crowd. Here we are with Rod Stewart getting down to a band that features Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Clapton, Doyle Bramhall II, Billy Gibbons, Gary Clark Jr, and Ronnie Wood on electric guitar. And who’s that right there at the back? Oh, just Kirk Hammett from Metallica. Incredible.

Those lucky enough to have bagged a ticket for these shows witnessed a set worthy of the great man – and hopefully, surely there will be a commemorative DVD/Blu-ray in the works. 

But in lieu of that, how about watching Clapton, Tedeschi, Trucks and Bramhall perform the old Elmore James standard The Sky Is Crying, with Tedeschi on vocals and everyone taking a turn to solo?

It’s a performance that finds Clapton in top form. In recent years, his he has been suffering from peripheral neuropathy, a condition that he says makes it “hard work” t0 play guitar, but wouldn’t know it as he takes the opening solo here on an Olympic White Fender Stratocaster with Tedeschi, Trucks and Bramhall holding down the rhythm. 

They’ve done these many a time before. The Sky Is Crying is one of the Tedeschi Trucks Band’s most regularly covered tracks, and it’s usually an occasion for bringing a guest onstage. 

Speaking to MusicRadar in 2022, Tedeschi said keeping the audience guessing on the set-list and who might be joining them on any given evening is a big part of their show.

“It’s fun to leave people guessing,” she said. “People like the spontaneity of, ‘What are they gonna play tonight? And who’s gonna sit in!?’ It could be Santana or Clapton, you just don’t know.”

Last night, everyone was sitting in together, and it was Tedeschi who stole the show when taking the second solo on her ‘90s Telecaster, mostly working the neck pickup as she led the band into the penultimate verse before Trucks brings it on home on slide. 

Trucks and Clapton also jammed Muddy Waters classic Little Brown Bird, a track Clapton famously performed with Beck himself. You can watch fan-shot footage of this in the video above. More highlights are sure to emerge on YouTube, and more will be made tonight. 

Other guest performers included John McLaughlin, Johnny Depp, Imelda May, Joss Stone, and the opera singer and Beck collaborator Olivia Safe. May and Safe both feature on the recently released Jeff Beck Tribute EP, which comprises three tracks that had previously only been heard at Beck’s memorial service. 

May reads a poem over Midnight Walker Lament – originally released as an instrumental on Beck’s final studio album, 18, recorded with Johnny Depp – while Safe provided guest vocals on a live edition of Elegy For Dunkirk. She had recorded the studio version on 2010’s Emotion & Commotion.

Eric Clapton has released a poignant cover of Moon River that features Jeff Beck in one of the last recordings before he died. The single, which is now available on all streaming platforms, arrives ahead of a pair of star-studded tribute shows held in Beck’s memory at the Royal Albert Hall.

Getting Clapton and Beck on record together is always a treat. The two Yardbirds have a very different but distinctive way of addressing the electric guitar and the sounds they get out of the instrument.

Here, Beck’s Fender Stratocaster picks up the melody line first laid down by Audrey Hepburn in Blake Edward’s 1961 romcom Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer would collect an Academy Award that year for Best Original Song. It’s apt, then, that it would go on to be adapted by guitar’s most original player. 

It’s not the first time Clapton and Beck have performed a duet on the track, most notably it featured on their 2010 Together And Apart Tour, which was captured for posterity on an epic live DVD. And it is certainly not the first time they have traded licks onstage; watching them duke it out on Further On Up The Road in 1981 – Clapton on a Strat, Beck on a Telecaster – is pure fire. That footage from Ronnie Scott's is hard to beat, too

It might not have been by design that Clapton had this recording on file to release right now but it certainly seems appropriate. Moon River’s languid tempo clears space for reflection, a moment to remember Beck by. 

It’s also a great example of what make Beck such a unique player; his style radically augmented the technique playbook, with that fingerstyle-whammy bar dynamic as good as a thumbprint in identifying who is on the instrument.

Moon River is part of a double-A side and will be released on 7” vinyl on 14 July, joined by a brand new original Clapton track, How Could We Know, that features Judith Hill, Simon Climie, and Daniel Santiago.

By then, the Jeff Beck tribute shows at the Royal Albert Hall will still be fresh in the memory. Hosted on 22 and 23 May, the events will welcome a formidable lineup of top-tier guitar players to the stage. 

Clapton has enlisted the likes of Billy Gibbons, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Ronnie Wood, Doyle Bramhall II, John McLaughlin and Robert Randolph to take part.

Beck’s good friend and collaborator Johnny Depp will also be performing, with Joss Stone, Imelda May, Olivia Safe and the one and only Rod Stewart also on the bill. There are sure to be some surprises on the night. 

See the Royal Albert Hall for ticket details. Moon River is available to stream now and available to preorder on vinyl through Bushbranch/Surfdog Records.

• Derek Trucks: “I love hearing the Strat with the slide. Clapton is more tucked in. Duane’s slide sounded like it could totally flame out or go off the rails at any time“

Eric Clapton will head a tribute to Jeff Beck over two nights at the Royal Albert Hall on 22 and 23 May. Rhonda Smith, Anika Nilles and Robert Stevenson from Beck's band will appear and the following artists with personal and musical connections to the late guitar legend are said to have indicated their wish to appear at both concerts, but the lineup is subject to change:

Doyle Bramhall

Gary Clark Jr

Johnny Depp

Billy Gibbons

Imelda May

John McLaughlin

Robert Randolph

Olivia Safe

Rod Stewart

Joss Stone

Susan Tedeschi

Derek Trucks

Any surplus income from the shows will be donated to Folly Wildlife Rescue in Tunbridge Wells, Kent (of which Beck was a patron alongside Johnny Depp) and tickets go onsale on 15 March at 10am GMT from BookingsDirect.com. 

A presale will take place on 14 March at 10am GMT: register here.

The news follows Clapton's surprise appearance at Jerry Douglas's Transatlantic Sessions show in London in February where the folk song Sam Hall in tribute to "my friend Jeff" alongside an instrumental acoustic rendition of his George Harrison Beatles collaboration, While My Guitar Gently Weeps.  

The chance to see lap steel and Dobro legend Jerry Douglas with a string ensemble at the Transatlantic Sessions in London is a big deal in itself – throw a surprise appearance from Eric Clapton to play a Beatles classic and a tribute to Jeff Beck? Not a night you'll soon forget.  

It all went down on 11 February at the Royal Festival Hall and sees Clapton playing his Martin acoustic guitar for an instrumental While My Gently Weeps (the 1968 White Album song Slowhand collaborated on with George Harrison) before introducing his personal tribute to "my friend Jeff" with a rendition of traditional folk song Sam Hall. 

• Eric Clapton interview: "I actually have about zero tolerance for most of my old material. Especially Crossroads"

Eric Clapton is due to release a boxed set of vinyl containing six newly remastered solo albums and a disk of rarities from his ‘80s/’90s Reprise Records era.

Slated for release on 30th September, The Complete Reprise Studio Albums – Volume I is available to pre-order here.

Ahead of the release, Clapton will be playing a selection of US dates with Jimmie Vaughan.

Appearing as 12 180-gram vinyl disks, this limited edition boxed set contains Money and Cigarettes on a single LP, while Behind the Sun, August, Journeyman, From the Cradle and Pilgrim are being released as double-LPs.

The twelfth disk – titled Rarities (1983-1998) – features eight rare recordings, including live and unreleased tracks.

A cover of Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign taken from the Rarities disk has been shared on Clapton’s YouTube channel.

You can take a listen here…

Here’s a quick rundown of the Clapton albums featured on The Complete Reprise Studio Albums – Volume I…

Money and Cigarettes

Released in 1983, Money and Cigarettes is Clapton’s eighth studio album and was regarded as something of a personal comeback.

It features a stellar lineup of musicians, including Albert Lee (who plays keys in addition to acoustic guitar and electric guitar duties), slide guitar aficionado Ry Cooder, and legendary Stax bass ace Donald "Duck" Dunn.

Tracklist:

1. Crazy Country Hop
2. Everybody Oughta Make a Change
3. The Shape You’re In
4. Ain’t Going Down
5. I’ve Got a Rock ’n’ Roll Heart
6. Man Overboard
7. Pretty Girl
8. Man in Love
9. Crosscut Saw
10. Slow Down Linda

Behind the Sun

Named after a line from the Muddy Waters song Louisiana Blues, Behind the Sun was co-produced by Phil Collins. 

This 1985 LP became a top ten hit in the UK and reached platinum status across the pond.

Tracklist:

1. She’s Waiting
2. See What Love Can Do
3. Same Old Blues
4. Knock On Wood
5. Something’s Happening
6. Forever Man
7. It All Depends
8. Tangled in Love
9. Never Make You Cry
10. Just Like a Prisoner
11. Behind the Sun

August

Continuing Clapton’s collaboration with co-producer Collins, August was released in 1986 and spawned the singles Miss You, Tearing Us Apart (featuring Tina Turner) and the chart-topping It's in the Way That You Use It.

Tracklist:

1. It’s In The Way That You Use It
2. Run
3. Tearing Us Apart
4. Bad Influence
5. Walk Away
6. Hung Up On Your Love
7. Take a Chance
8. Hold On
9. Miss You
10. Holy Mother
11. Behind the Mask

Journeyman

The top ten, platinum-selling Journeyman LP saw a recovering Clapton return to form again in 1989. 

The album’s Bad Love single was awarded a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance the following year.

Tracklist:

1. Pretending
2. Anything For Your Love
3. Bad Love
4. Running On Faith
5. Hard Times
6. Hound Dog
7. No Alibis
8. Run So Far
9. Old Love
10. Breaking Point
11. Lead Me On
12. Before You Accuse Me

From the Cradle

1994’s From the Cradle was Clapton's first all-blues album and followed up his number one-selling Unplugged release – the live MTV broadcast recording that helped reinvigorate the popularity of Martin Guitars.  

Reaching the number one position on both sides of the Atlantic, From the Cradle received a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.

Tracklist:

1. Blues Before Sunrise
2. Third Degree
3. Reconsider Baby
4. Hoochie Coochie Man
5. Five Long Years
6. I’m Tore Down
7. How Long Blues
8. Goin’ Away Baby
9. Blues Leave Me Alone
10. Sinner’s Prayer
11. Motherless Child
12. It Hurts Me Too
13. Someday After A While
14. Standin’ Round Crying
15. Driftin’
16. Groaning the Blues

Pilgrim

Clapton’s 1998 “passion project,” this Grammy-winning album was a global top ten smash and featured the singles My Father’s Eyes, Circus and Born In Time (written by Bob Dylan).

Tracklist:

1. Inside Of Me
2. My Father’s Eyes
3. River Of Tears
4. Pilgrim
5. Broken Hearted
6. One Chance
7. Circus
8. Goin’ Down Slow
9. Fall Like Rain
10. Born In Time
11. Sick And Tired
12. Needs His Woman
13. She’s Gone
14. You Were There

A follow-up release is planned for early next year. Intended as a companion vinyl boxed set, The Complete Reprise Studio Albums – Volume 2 spans Clapton’s Reprise studio albums from 2001 to 2010.

Stay tuned to the Eric Clapton website for news.

Eric Clapton has form for releasing new songs without prior notice, but unlike his Covid restriction-era vitriolic output, this one finds him hitting his blues stride again in a way that should delight fans. 

Pompous Fool's title, lyrics and timing of release on the same day (7 July) Boris Johnson resigned as leader of the British Conservative party (he intends to hold on as Prime Minister until autumn) is surely more than a coincidence. Clapton even references 'number 10' at one point. 

Slowhand has been critical of Johnson and his government's handling of the pandemic in the past, but whatever inspired this song its honky tonk zest is definitely an improvement on last year's This Has Gotta Stop and Van Morrison collaboration Stand And Deliver. 

Eric Clapton interview: "I actually have about zero tolerance for most of my old material. Especially Crossroads"

Eric Clapton has been forced to cancel two upcoming shows in Italy and Switzerland after testing positive for Covid-19. 

Slowhand had just made a triumphant return to the Royal Albert Hall, in which the blues great – whom for a while was even considered God by some – played Layla twice, once on acoustic guitar, once on electric.

Clapton will have to sit out his 17 May show at Hallenstadion, Zurich, and the following date at the Mediolanum Forum, just outside Milan. Clapton and his team are optimistic that they can schedule alternative dates within the next six months. Tickets will remain valid for the rescheduled shows.

If Clapton’s recovery goes to plan he should make his two-night stint in Bologna which begins on the 20 May. The statement says he tested positive following the second night at the Royal Albert Hall.

“He has been told by his medical advisors that if he were to resume traveling and performing too soon, it could substantially delay his full recovery,” read the statement. “Eric is also anxious to avoid passing on any infection to any of his band, crew, promoters, their staff and of course the fans.”

There was better news for Clapton fans across North America, with a string of dates announced for this coming September. Clapton will open these with a performance at the Columbus Schottenstein Center in Columbius, Ohio, and close them out with a two-night stint at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The statement from Clapton’s camp voiced frustration that he should come down with the virus with the tour machine up and running, “having avoided Covid throughout lockdown and throughout the period when travel restrictions have been in place”.

Clapton had voiced his opposition to lockdowns, travel restrictions and other public health measures. In 2020, he recorded an anti-lockdown protest song, Stand And Deliver, with Van Morrison. He also feared he “would never play again” after experiencing side-effects from the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine that exacerbated his peripheral neuropathy.

Tickets are still available for his remaining European dates and for the US run.

• Eric Clapton: "I actually have about zero tolerance for most of my old material. Especially Crossroads"

In a new video interview with YouTuber The Real Music Observer, Eric Clapton has weighed in on his reported opposition to some of the Covid measures 

Clapton began the chat by confirming he was "feeling pretty good" with his health right now. "It's been about nine months since I got sick from the [vaccine] and for a couple of months I wasn't sure if it was going to go away or if it was going to get worse."

He confirmed his September dates last year in the US were a "trial" to see if he had recovered enough to return to the stage. "I had a great time but I still have some stuff going on which is effected by the cold, or the weather or stress," Clapton says. "But on the whole, I'm pretty much the way I was, thank god, before."

Clapton continued to explain that he believes the aftereffects of two AstraZeneca vaccines caused his existing health issues – he explains in the interview he's been treated for lower back problems and resulting nerve issues in his body – to become deliberating. He previously revealed that he feared he'd never play guitar again. "The second one just did me in," Clapton explains. "What it did was, it sort of exaggerated those symptoms I already had, the the point where I was really frightened. 

Clapton also suggested his political stance on the lockdown and vaccines was part of a wider disaffection.

"And that's when I started talking about that particular [issue] and not only that but for the last four years before that had been a really strange time where [the UK] withdrew from the European Union. And a lot of strange stuff was going on, so it all seemed to be… a buildup. And then here we are.

The interview is cut short due to a technical issue, but Clapton makes his motivations clear for becoming politically active in the last year. Though he doesn't mention the specifics of any personal fallings out with people as a result of some of his statement – like his guitar peer and former friend Robert Cray has alluded to.

"My career had almost gone anyway," reveals Clapton. "At the point where I spoke out it had been almost 18 months since I'd kind of been forcibly retired. And I joined forces with Van [Morrison]. I got the tip that Van was standing up to the measures and I thought, why isn't anyone else doing this?"

The two ended up reconnecting as kindred spirits for Morrison's anti-lockdown song Stand And Deliver last year. 

"I've known him since we were kids," explains the blues guitar legend. "And I contacted him. I said, 'What do you think? What's going on?' And he said, 'I'm just objecting, really. But it seems like we're not even allowed to do that. And nobody else is doing it.' And I said, 'You're kidding. Nobody else?' And he said, 'Nobody else.' And I said, 'I'm with you. Is there anything I can do to help? Have you got any songs?'"

Clapton then described his thoughts of the negative reaction to Stand And Deliver and his thoughts on the UK government's Covid measures from sections of the media and his fanbase.

"I was kind of mystified because I seemed to be the only person that thought that was an exciting or even appropriate idea with what was going on. And that challenged me even more. Because I'm a bit like him maybe; I'm cut from the cloth where if you tell me I can't do something, I really wanna know why I can't do it. And it seemed like I'd had a wall built around me. 

"But I thought, 'I'm gonna do this.' But I did make concessions — I did take out lines or change lines a little bit just to pacify those that I really didn't wanna hurt, people I didn't wanna hurt or scare. And needless to say, my family and friends, they got scared, and I think they were scared on my behalf."

Clapton then questions the impartiality of the UK's British Broadcasting Corporation and touches upon Belgian clinical psychology professor Dr Mattias Desmet and his theory on Mass Formation Psychosis. But it was the British government that really sparked him to react.

"I felt really motivated musically, it instigated something something that was laying dormant. I was playing live gigs up until the lockdown and without really being socially involved in any way but then these guys that were in power really started to piss me off, and everybody. But I have a tool, I have a calling and I can make use of that. So I set about it and started writing.

One of the results of that inspiration was This Has Gotta Stop, a standalone single Clapton released in August 2021. 

"What's offending me now is I'm being insulted by the media," Clapton says of the influence behind this particular song. "I can't take this anymore. In England they were using a lot of guilt and fear. And it was overwhelming. So I thought about Curtis Mayfield and I've always adored Curtis Mayfield. I think he was an incredible inspiration to me, and I made an album called Pilgrim. It was pretty much devoted to his memory, and the album he made before that [New World Order], his last album, he made playing on his back, as far a know, because he was paralysed from the neck down from an accident onstage.

"His comments on his own community were pretty outstanding, I thought," continued Clapton. "And I sang [This Has Gotta Stop] originally with a Curtis Mayfield voice. Ann then I started to develop it… but that's what it was for me. What would Curtis do if he was alive? And he was a brave, brave man."

5 songs guitarists need to hear by… Eric Clapton (that aren't Layla)

In a damning piece called What Happened To Eric Clapton?, The Washington Post  has spoken to a number of the guitarist's peers about not just his recent statements regarding touring regulations and Covid vaccinations, but controversy around a photograph Clapton was pictured in back in September. 

For Blues peer Robert Cray, that photograph ended his 35-year friendship with Slowhand. 

The picture was taken after a September show in Austin, Texas and posted on Texas Governor Greg Abbott's Twitter. It shows Clapton and guitarist Jimmie Vaughan posing with Abbott backstage.

Abbott was in the spotlight at the time for his voting stances, having recently signed the US's most restrictive abortion law and a controversial Republican-backed measure on new restrictions regarding voting access. 

“There’s this great photo [from 2013] at Madison Square Garden after the show, with B.B. King sitting in a chair, Jimmie Vaughan, myself and Eric sitting behind him,” Cray says. 

“And I looked at that picture of Gov. Abbott, Jimmie Vaughan and Eric Clapton in that similar pose, and I’m going, What’s wrong with this picture? Why are you doing this?"

The relationship between the pair of blues guitar icons now seems unrepairable.

“I’ve told myself, I don’t need to have a conversation,” Cray told The Washington Post. “I’d just rather not associate with somebody who’s on the extreme and being so selfish. 

"We started playing a music that wasn’t particularly popular to start off with at the time we started playing. We’ve gained some notoriety, and I’m fine with that, but I surely don’t need to hang out with Eric Clapton for that to continue.”

For the full feature, head to washingtonpost.com

Robert Cray: 10 guitarists I enjoy listening to

Eric Clapton has taken a break from recent controversy to announce a new, mostly acoustic album to be released on 12 November. The Lady In The Balcony: Lockdown Sessions features longtime collaborators drummer Steve Gadd, bassist Nathan East and keyboard player Chris Stainton relocating to the English countryside at Cowdray House, West Sussex to play a reworked selection of Clapton classics including After Midnight, Layla,” Bell Bottom Blues, Tears in Heaven, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out and Key to the Highway.

Clapton also pays tribute to the late Fleetwood Mac legend and fellow Bluesbreaker Peter Green with renditions of Man Of The World and Black Magic Woman on a 'mostly acoustic set was envisioned to be like an Eric Clapton Unplugged II,' according to the release statement, 'but not quite, as three songs are played with electric guitars.' 

The album's title was inspired by Clapton's wife Melia -  the only one outside band and crew to watch the sessions, from a balcony. It was produced by Grammy-winning producer Russ Titelman, who has worked with the guitarist on a number of occasions. 

The genesis of The Lady In The Balcony came after the cancellation of Clapton's Royal Albert Hall Shows earlier this year with Cowdray House providing a controlled lockdown environment for the musicians.

The Lady in the Balcony: Lockdown Sessions will be available on DVD, Blu-ray, CD, DVD+CD, Blu-ray+CD, 4K UHD+Blu-ray, 180-gram 2LP, limited edition 2LP pressed on 180-gram yellow vinyl, and a Deluxe Edition containing the DVD, Blu-ray & CD packaged in a 40 page 12” x 12” hardback photo book, digital video & digital audio.

Tracklisting:

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out
Golden Ring
Black Magic Woman
Man of the World
Kerry
After Midnight
Bell Bottom Blues
Key to the Highway
River of Tears
Rock Me Baby
Believe in Life
Going Down Slow
Layla
Tears in Heaven
Long Distance Call
Bad Boy
Got My Mojo Working

Classic Interview: Eric Clapton – “I was in it to save the world. I wanted to tell the world about blues and to get it right. In a way I thought, ‘Yes, I am God; quite right!‘“