Clapton Was God
All right, technically this article is Part 2 to “Jimi Hendrix and Technology,” so if you haven’t read the article or watched the YouTube video, I’d take a break and do it now. That will fill in a lot of gaps in this story.
Okay, ready? Cool.
Although this article is a continuation of Jimi Hendrix’s story, Jimi doesn’t really show up until halfway through. In the beginning, we’re zooming in on Eric Clapton.
We’re focusing on the year 1966, which is a huge year historically. If I had to pick one year in the history of music, especially when it comes to rock’n’roll and electric guitar, 1966 is really hard to beat. I’m slightly biased here, as I did do a 1966 series of effects which (pretty faithfully, if I do say so myself) cloned the original Tone Bender 1.5, the Vox Tone Bender, Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, and Dallas Arbiter Rangemaster. There's a good reason that all these effects were invented in ’66. Musically, it was a boiling pot of so many important things. The Beatles had appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show two years earlier, which snowballed and started the British Invasion. Then right in late ’65 and ’66, it got pretty wild. It all started when two musicians, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, hit the scene at almost the same time.
We already detailed Hendrix’s life pretty well in Part 1, so now I want to hone in on Eric Clapton’s story. Let’s start at the beginning.
Clapton’s Childhood
Eric Clapton was born in 1945 in Ripley, which is a village in Surrey, England. Eric’s mother was 16 years old when he was born, and his dad was a 25-year-old Canadian soldier. Basically, his mom got pregnant and his dad went off to war, returned to Canada, and never came back to England. As a result, Eric was raised by his grandmother and his step-grandfather. He actually grew up believing that they were his mom and dad, and that his mother (who lived in town) was actually his older sister. You can imagine how Eric felt when this all came to light, but I’m not going to focus too much on that. There’s plenty of biographical stuff out there on Clapton if you want to know more. To save time, let’s just say that he grew up in a very unusual environment and leave it at that.
Eric gets a guitar at the age of 13, one of those cheap steel-string, German-made catalog guitars. I bet you’re expecting some sort of August Rush moment where he picks up the guitar and just instantly knows how to use it?
Nope.
13-year-old Eric actually tried out the guitar and said, “The strings are so far off the neck, it hurts to play,” and he gave up. Really. He played for a couple of weeks and then he lost interest, which proves that even our rock’n’roll idols are regular people.
Two years later, he picks the guitar back up and decides to power through the pain and keep learning, and he actually gets good at guitar. He would put on American blues records, saturating his musicality with blues artists like B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy Waters. He's obsessed with it. He sat and played, and since he had a small reel-to-reel tape recorder, he would sit and play and record himself, and then he would review what he had recorded and play it over and over until he felt it was perfect. He became obsessive, and he got really good because of this, which proves that an obsessive personality is what you make of it.
At age 16, he starts busking around town. This is the typical picture of a musician with their guitar case open to accept tips while they play in an open square. And he’s good, so people take notice. It’s hard not to. We’re in the late ’50s, early ’60s, and you have this young, white English boy playing black American blues music. It’s really fascinating.
The Roosters & The Yardbirds
Clapton’s career technically started in 1962. He joined a duo there in Surrey, just two guys playing blues music. Then in January of ’63 at age 17, he joined his first band, the Roosters (which is honestly a fantastic band name.) The Roosters were an R&B and blues band, kind of pre-British Invasion blues, and they were moderately successful because of that. In the end, though, Eric left the Roosters and joined a band called the Yardbirds in October of ’63. The Yardbirds started as a band that played American blues music like Buddy Guy and B.B. King, and Clapton absolutely loved this.
It's not just Clapton who’s obsessing, by the way. This is a national phenomenon. You see interviews with the Beatles talking about Sun Records and Chess Records, and pretty much any big British artist at this time was pulling from an American influence. It’s hard not to see the irony where these British artists who are inspired by American music come back and invade America with their own unique brand of music. That’s the exact opposite of a vicious cycle.
Okay, back to the story.
Clapton joins the Yardbirds and they develop a cult following. They take over the Rolling Stones’ residency at a club right outside of London called the Crawdaddy. They become a very well known band in London and throughout England. Pretty soon, Clapton started touring as well as the residency, and the Yardbirds actually ended up touring with an American blues musician named Sonny Boy Williamson II. This is a literal dream come true for Clapton. He actually gets to tour with an authentic American blues singer.
In 1965, the Yardbirds had a major hit called “For Your Love.” This is the first time the Yardbirds are ever noticed on a major level, over the radio, that kind of thing. The song was very pop, and it became a hit. Because of this success, the Yardbirds as a band started shifting towards pop ideals and wanted to produce more popular, radio-centric music.
Clapton wasn’t a happy camper. The day that song went public, he quit the band. Really.
Think about that for a second. This paints such a great picture of Clapton as a musician, of his priorities. He's in a band that's finally becoming famous and because they're leaving their blues roots, he walks away from it. Who does that? He really is a purist at this point. He's very much after that sound, not the fame, and that's important to note as we move forward.
So Clapton leaves the Yardbirds, and he suggests that his friend Jimmy Page join the band in his place. Jimmy Page is a young session player, a studio guy who does engineering, but he refuses to join them because he's friends with Clapton and he respects him. So a guy named Jeff Beck joins the Yardbirds instead. I honestly couldn’t name-drop better than this if I tried. Eric Clapton leaves the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck joins, and then later Jimmy Page does join the Yardbirds alongside Jeff Beck. Three crazy famous, massively influential guitar players are in this one band, but they're never in it together.
Clapton joined a band called John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers in April of ’65, but he quit a few months later. We don't really know why.
The Glands
Then he went and toured Greece? It’s very random. There's some very interesting pictures of him touring with a band called the Glands, which might be the worst band name I've ever heard. One important thing to note during this period is that his gear starts changing significantly. Clapton had always been seen with a Telecaster and an AC30, but around this time he got a 1960 Les Paul and he traded in his AC30 for a Marshall JTM 45 Combo, later known as the Bluesbreaker amp.
The story goes: Clapton goes up to Jim Marshall and says, “I want an amp that'll fit in the boot [trunk] of my car.” I like that story, because it makes sense.
That said, it’s possible that that's not how it actually happened. Clapton leaves the Yardbirds, where he's making money, and he travels to Greece, where he’s with a band named the Glands. The Glands aren’t exactly a worldwide sensation, so he comes back to London, and even though we tend to think of our guitar gods as having unlimited resources, the odds are that he is completely broke at this point. He ends up getting a Marshall Bluesbreaker, and a lot of people think that Marshall just gave it to him as a gift, free of charge.
But however the change happens, it happens. The AC30 is out, the Bluesbreaker is in, and Clapton’s sound is about to change. So is the sound of popular music in England.
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers
In November of ’65, Clapton comes off this tour in Greece with the Glands, and he rejoins John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. His gear is different. His style is different. And he quickly gains the reputation as the best blues or rock guitarist in London, period. They're playing the club circuit and people can't get enough of Clapton. People are standing outside of the clubs on the sidewalks, waiting to get a glimpse of him. It's like a circus, and Eric Clapton is in the middle of the ring. John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers were basically Clapton’s backup band at this point, there to support him in showing off his amazing guitar skills. Even John Mayall himself has admitted that.
Around this time, “Clapton is God” graffiti started showing up all around London, Western Soho. People were literally taking spray cans and just spraying “Clapton is God” all over the city.
Clapton’s gone on record saying that this made him incredibly uncomfortable, which I think we can all understand. When anyone starts out learning a new hobby or skill, your goal is to be the best at it: the best chef, the best writer, the best musician. Clapton had always wanted to be the world's greatest guitar player, but it was just something to aspire to. It wasn't supposed to actually happen. How could you top that?
Around the same time, John Mayall decided he wanted to record an album with the Bluesbreakers, and he wanted to do it live so he could capture all these guitar solos that Clapton did, the live sound that he’d developed with his Les Paul and this Marshall that was totally cranked, all producing this huge, thick sound. It was nothing like the Telecaster AC30 vibe that had been happening in London. They were playing American blues covers in a very young, British way. It was exciting. The live album was John Mayall’s way of showing this off.
They go and they record it live, but the recording is horrible quality and gets totally scrapped. Instead, they go into DECA studio in London and they record it. This turns out to be a sound engineer’s nightmare for a couple of reasons. First, some aspects of a live recording are nearly impossible to replicate in the studio. Secondly, they aren’t just replicating one instrument. You’ve got a full band here, a drummer, a bass player, John Mayall playing harmonica and keys, and Clapton probably has his Bluesbreaker leaning against the wall and it's cranked up to 10.
When you’re in a club, you just deal with it. But when you go into a studio and they're trying to mic the drums and all these instruments, it’s hell on earth for an engineer. The engineer and producers are raising a fit. They hate this. They don't like it.
And Eric Clapton refuses to record.
Yup. Clapton knows what a good mix sounds like, and he’s not hearing it in this recording. And sure, he's being very difficult. Maybe he's pretentious, but if people are saying “Clapton is God,” that’s gotta mess with his perspective a little. He probably felt he was entitled to do what he wanted with his amp. In his mind he knew there was a sound that came from turning this amp up all the way. It was a very destructive, massive rock sound which colored the way his solos came out, and it just was not going to happen if he turned down the amp. He knew that. That’s why he didn’t budge.
The story goes that John Mayall actually says, “Give God what he wants.” He tells the engineer to shut up and record it.
So they do. And so there's bleeding everywhere. I mean, the guitar amp is bleeding into the overhead drum mics and the vocal mics. But when you listen to the record, you get that massive guitar sound because it's in every source of audio. I don't know how many tracks were on this recording, since it was still only ’65, but Clapton’s guitar comes through in every track on the board, which is wild.
Jim Marshall got some of the best free publicity he could dream of when this record was released. Photos of the recording session actually show a Marshall Bluesbreaker in the background, and one photo makes it onto the record sleeve. Suddenly, the entire world sees that Eric Clapton, guitar hero, uses a Marshall Bluesbreaker. Naturally, other guitarists wanted to use it, too. The Bluesbreaker amp also got a lot of traction because it was such a new sound.
There’s a myth that Clapton also had the Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster in the studio, but I wholeheartedly believe he did not. There's no evidence. The engineers deny it. People on the scene say it wasn’t there. Clapton denies it. He just plugged the Les Paul into the Bluesbreaker and he turned it all the way up. He probably dimed certain tone knobs as well. And the rest is history.
Clapton leaves John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers a second time, but the album has been finished. It’s affectionately just called Bluesbreakers or Beano, because Clapton is reading a Beano comic book on the album cover. It drops July 22nd of 1966, and it becomes the number six album on the charts, which is bananas. This album passes A-list artists, and the sound of the blues officially becomes British on this record.
It's hard to imagine yourself in a time where the British blues didn't exist, but try. When this album dropped, there was no British blues sound. This was completely new. It was revolutionary. It was wild. This new British sound was just being invented, and Clapton was the one inventing it.
When Clapton leaves the band, he's replaced by Peter Green, who is a cofounder of Fleetwood Mac. I know I keep name-dropping people here, but I kind of have to. Peter Green goes on to found Fleetwood Mac. He takes Clapton’s place. Peter’s nickname was the Green God, playing off “Clapton is God.” Also, the Bluesbreaker bassist John McVie was and still is the bass player for Fleetwood Mac. That's where the name Fleetwood Mac comes from. Mick Fleetwood is the drummer and then John McVie (pronounced Mac-Vie) is the bass player.
Cream
In 1966, Jim Marshall had just started getting his amps to the place where we know them. First, he was importing amplifiers and Fender gear, specifically the ’59 Tweed Bassman. Because of import taxes, he decides, “Hey, I'm going to make these here.” So he clones the Bassman, but because British parts are different, it becomes what we know as the JTM series and the Plexi and all that stuff. So, Jim Marshall is now starting to gain a reputation.
Remember that the JTM 45 Combo/Bluesbreaker is on the record sleeve for Bluesbreakers, and because of that Marshall becomes massively famous.
You’ve gotta understand just how big Clapton was at the time. The record drops, and Clapton leaves the band, but his name is still on that album, and his solos are still out there for the world to hear. This record rockets to the number six album on the charts overnight, which is bonkers.
The record gets big. And Clapton gets bigger. And Jim Marshall’s JTM 45 Combo/Bluesbreaker gets huge. This is a chain reaction of rock’n’roll. It's very interesting.
Another piece of equipment that blows up in popularity is the Les Paul that Clapton plays in the record. He's playing a 1960 Les Paul Sunburst, but by the time the record dropped, the Les Paul guitar had already been discontinued. This is something that a lot of people totally miss.
Les Paul was a famous musician from the United States who traveled with his wife Mary Ford, and they were huge. Les Paul was also an inventor. He created a guitar called the Log, which is arguably one of the first electric guitar solid bodies ever made. But the guitar is pretty much a flop. Fender is ruling the world with his small, lightweight Telecasters, Stratocasters, etc., whereas Gibson has the heavy Les Pauls that people complained literally hurt their backs to play. That's part of why they weren't selling well. As a result, the Les Paul guitars were discontinued in 1961.
They transfer the Les Paul name onto what is now called the Gibson SG, for “small guitar.” Basically, they're trying to create a guitar to compete with Fender, so they create a smaller guitar (the SG) but rebrand it as the Les Paul. The Les Paul that we know now was discontinued in that moment.
In 1968, the Les Paul guitar was reintroduced because Eric Clapton uses it on this album in ’66. This causes another nutty chain reaction. Basically, because Clapton uses it on his album, Jimmy Page (who goes on to found Led Zeppelin) buys a Les Paul as well. And because Jimmy Page buys a Les Paul, his good friend Jeff Beck (who is an insanely influential guitar player) also gets a Les Paul. Even Mike Bloomfield switches from a black Les Paul to a Sunburst like Clapton. Eric Clapton's influence is massive.
Bear in mind that this is still pre-Hendrix, so Clapton single-handedly launches the Les Paul guitar back into production when they drop the Bluesbreaker record. No big deal.
In July of 1966 (after Clapton had left John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers), he was invited to a new supergroup called Cream. He joins Ginger Baker on the drums (who’s heralded as one of the first superstar drummers in rock history) and Jack Bruce on bass, who was also a former member of the Bluesbreakers. Long story short, Cream immediately becomes the greatest band of its kind, ever. It's this supergroup trio with loud, massive stage presence, guitar solos, amazing bass, the whole nine yards. The drums are this unreal presence in the music world. As a result, Cream produces hit after hit.
What’s bonkers here is that Clapton was already massive. He was already “God” in the guitar scene, which was hard to top. But he did. He started singing and writing. He covered songs like “Crossroads.” The world started to hear his voice as well as his amazing guitar solos.
Hendrix Meets Clapton
So, Clapton is in Cream. He's a big deal. It’s still mid-1966. Now we’re finally heading to New York City to follow up with Jimi Hendrix.
At this time, Jimi is still unknown. Linda Keith, Keith Richards’ girlfriend, discovers Jimi and introduces him to Chas Chandler, who’s the bassist of a London band called the Animals. Chas says to Jimi, “Come to London. I'm going to make you famous in England.” At first, Jimi is hesitant. Then Chas drops a bomb on him. He says, “If you get on that plane, I’ll introduce you to Eric Clapton.”
And Jimi gets on the plane. This is a big hint here of how big Eric Clapton is. Clapton was bait to get Hendrix on the plane. Now, how is that possible? Well, keep in mind that Jimi is still relatively unknown, plus the Beano record was a big deal to Hendrix. By the time the Beano record dropped, Jimi was already a huge fan. On top of that, the record sleeve of that record might've been the first time Jimi saw a picture of a Marshall. You have to remember, this was 1966, a time before Amazon Prime, Guitar Center, Reverb, or Sweetwater. You saw new gear through album covers, or firsthand. That was it.
So, even though they’ve never met, Hendrix is discovering things through Clapton. He learns about the Marshall amp through the Beano record. He loves this new British blues sound that Clapton is producing with Cream. Clapton is his hero. Clapton is God. So when Chas offered Hendrix a chance to meet Clapton in person, he got on the plane.
Chas is better than his word. One week after arriving in London, Chas not only introduces Jimi to Clapton, he actually gets him on stage with Cream. This is bananas. This would be the equivalent of me taking my daughter backstage to a Katy Perry soundcheck and saying, “Hey, Katy, let my daughter sing with you.” It's absurd. No one does this.
Except for Chas Chandler, and guess what? It works. Chas walks in with Jimi and boldly says, “You should let him play with you.” And Clapton lets him play.
This is a huge moment in rock’n’roll history. Jimi is walking onto the stage. Clapton cleverly blocks his Marshall amp, so Hendrix has to walk over and plug into the bass amp, with no pedals or anything. They play a double-time version of a Howlin’ Wolf song called “Killing Time,” which is Chicago blues. Hendrix covers this on records later.
And Hendrix blows the audience away. He’s playing on the same stage as Clapton, and he surpasses him. Hendrix dethrones God. It's all very dramatic. The greatest guitar player in England goes up against a no-name American blues guitarist -- and that guy dethrones him. It's really, really fascinating. What’s truly nuts is that that was the second time Hendrix had probably ever played a Marshall, and the first time would have been as he sat in with the band Trinity a few days earlier.
There is this account where Clapton walks off the stage right after this and he's standing on the side stage by the curtain trying to light a cigarette, and witnesses say he couldn't even open his lighter because his hands were shaking so badly.
So here you have Clapton, a white British guy playing and transforming black American music. Hendrix was inspired by Clapton. Clapton was his hero, which is important to note. We tend to downplay Clapton a lot when we look at Hendrix, but Hendrix saw Clapton as a hero, Clapton meets Hendrix, and he comes face to face with the thing he's idolizing, which is black American blues culture. And in one moment, at the Regent Street Polytechnic where Cream was playing, Clapton walks on the stage and he's met face-to-face, in real life with the very thing he was trying to be, which is basically Hendrix.
Hendrix took the skills that Clapton had, the musical style that he had pretty much invented, the talent that a lot of people would say couldn’t be improved upon, and he did it better.