Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and fourth in Gibson's...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth30 March 1945
CityRipley, England
What gives him the right to do that? ... I ask myself if musicians should conduct themselves like politicians. They are only musicians. Where do they get the right to talk like that?
When you came knocking on the door this morning I was quite happy playing the guitar, for fun, I mean and not practicing and I'll always be that way.
I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department.
... when I saw Jimi Hendrix I knew immediately that this guy was the real thing ... and when he played it was like a rough sketch of what he was going to become ... this guy was our generation, and he wasn't in a suit .. he played a Howlin' Wolf song 'Killing Floor', and then we (The Cream) had to carry on the set. It was pretty hard to follow ...
My definition of Blues is that it's a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of those things but it's the two together that make it what it is. And you need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things alone don't do it.
From the beginning, I knew intuitively that if nothing else, music was safe, and that nobody could tell me anything about it. Music didn't need a middleman, whereas all the other things in school needed some kind of explanation.
... whatever your standing in life, the most important thing is behaving in ways that help other people. It's the same with music. I am a servant of the music ... and if I get caught up in ego, I'll lose everything .. it'll burn and that's a guarantee ...
For me there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall.
I always liked Tulsa music for its no-compromise attitude, as if the musicians were making it just for themselves, without regard to what other people would think of it.
My dedication to my music has driven everyone away. I've had girlfriends, but I always end up on my own. I don't particularly like it, but I don't see a way 'round it.
I've got the god given talent or the god given opportunity better put, to let that out in a harmless way you know, and I don't know what it does to you, I don't really know.
Yeah, and I went straight into a fantasy world. Just stepped straight into the abyss. You know, I was gone and kids used to walk past my front room, cause I lived on the green.
The first one was quite cheap, but that was expensive for us. For my folks to buy on the Never Never. It was quite, you know, a rare object to have and I gained quite a lot of status by having this.
It was a mystery to me, how the tuning was, or the style seemed to come out of nowhere, it obviously had roots in America going way back, there was nothing like it for me I'd ever seen before.