A Pair of Masters At Work, Together
I ran across the last of the following video clips recently by chance. “Pulling the thread” afterwards led me to the others.
A brief sidebar: if you’ve ever wondered if Clapton’s nickname “Slowhand” is really apropos, watch the last clip, paying attention to his and Winwood’s left (fret) hands. While Clapton’s nickname didn’t originate as a description of his playing style – it was instead a reference to the slow clap, or in British slang, the “slow hand” that audiences in the UK would execute while waiting for him to replace the guitar strings he often broke during performances early in his career – the nickname turned out to be an accidental stroke of genius. It is IMO incredibly descriptive of his fluid but motion-efficient and seemingly effortless playing style.
The clips below speak for themselves. Enjoy – and get a head start on the upcoming weekend.
Thank you, gentlemen. For the music – and the memories.
Category: Pointless blather, Who knows
I’ve been a fan of Clapton’s since I bought Disraeli Gears…the video here is a great capture of “strange brew” from that album, Jack Bruce is playing the six string bass and Clapton’s hall mark guitar work is also clearly displayed in the crappy video….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDEPT6Jr12M
Talk about bringing back memories, thanks for posting Hondo..good way to wrap up a stupid week…
I should point out I’m old enough to have purchased it when it came out….so yeah we’re coming up on 50 years of Strange Brew….
that clip was from a German TV program called “Beat Club” and Jack is actually playing a baritone guitar, and they’re actually lip synching, look how stiff Clapton is
Peter Green used a baritone guitar for the center part of Fleetwood Mac doing his “The Green Manalishi”. NOW that was the great version of that band and PG was Claptons replacement in JM’s Bluesbreakers and on another album “Hard Road” on my 10 deserted Island disc selections
Still have it on vinyl.
Snap, crackle pop!
(Me too)
I’ve been a fan of Clapton and Winwood since the 60’s…..the John Mayall Bluesbreaker album is one of my 10 desert island disc as well as “Layla and other love songs”
I like Claptons renditions of Freddie King songs, such as “Hideaway or Have you ever Loved a Woman” as well as other blues interpretations, saw Cream at MSG in 2005, was a little to young to see them in 66-68 when they were touring small venues and “Blindfaith” I have 1st print editions with both covers as well as all the Traffic albums and 1 Spencer Davis Group LP…..the older brothers of friends turned us on to this style of music when we were quite young….wasn’t into the Monkees and AM music…the “Cousin Brucie” nonsense radio pop tunes, we listened to FM stations in the NYC area, like WNEW and WABC which became WPLJ later on…they would play whole LPS with no interuptions, very few annoying commercials, lots of quality music tho
Ditto a fan of most of the above (although I think “Layla” is the rock version of “Bolero”, an exercise in monotony. I do think that Clapton would be a memory had he not decided to cover a lot of JJ Cale (arguably one of the best American songwriters ever.) Here’s to the memory of John! (gotta be careful not to call him John Cale, who played with Velvet Underground and choreographs nowadays – different folks)
Don’t think so. The two Cale tunes Clapton released as singles (“After Midnight” and “Cocaine”) really didn’t do that well, chart wise. Much of his other solo material did much better.
Clapton has numerous other songs as a solo artist than were bigger hits than either of those – including at least one that made it to #1 (Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff”). “Lay Down Sally”, “Wonderful Tonight”, “Tears in Heaven”, and the acoustic version of “Layla” from Unplugged also all did better on US charts than either. And I’ve probably omitted a few from the list – Clapton had a slew of hits that charted in the 1970s and 1980s.
Hell, “Living on Tulsa Time” equaled the best chart position of any Cale tune Clapton released as a single (#18). And IMO it was, “Meh.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Clapton_singles_discography
Still: if you’re a Clapton or Winwood fan, might want to check in again tomorrow AM. (smile)
Speaking of masters, check out this Prince clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFNW5F8K9Y
Prince destroys it. He was an incredible guitarist.
Oh, and Prince’s solo starts at about 3:25.