At 83, Eric Clapton Reveals the 5 Greatest Rock Stars He Ever Saw

At 83, Eric Clapton Reveals the 5 Greatest Rock Stars He Ever Saw

I kind of retired at the age of 17. I’d had enough of the the music business. In a very short time I saw through the whole thing. I thought, “I’m out.” And I became famous for that. And there’s nothing I could do. It was beyond my control, but um beyond my control. That’s been true more often than I’d like to admit.

 But when I look back now, what stays with me isn’t the machinery of fame or the noise of it all. It’s the people I watched. The ones who seemed to understand something I didn’t. People ask you these questions, and they sound very simple, don’t they? Who is the greatest? Who are the five people you love the most? Um I don’t know.

 I mean, what are we talking about? Guitar playing? Songwriting? Being a good friend? Showing up when it mattered? Cuz those are all rather different things. And And I’ve known a lot of people. When we started, I was watching everybody. Of course I was. You’re young. You don’t really know what you’re doing yet, although you probably think you do.

So you watch people. Somebody does something interesting with a guitar, you notice it. Somebody knows how to handle fame. You notice that, too. And sometimes you think, “Oh, that’s good. I might have that.” Everyone does it. They just don’t always admit it. Um but there were certain people where you couldn’t really work out what they were doing.

That was the interesting bit. You could know them for 30 years and still think, “How does he do that?” George Harrison was certainly one of those. I knew George for over 30 years, and I never quite figured out how he managed to be so forgiving. Uh Jimi Hendrix was another. I only met him a few times, but I used to watch him whenever I could.

And then you got people like B.B. King, who who was a completely different thing again. Uh so, five greatest rock stars, that’s terribly unfair. Ask me tomorrow and and perhaps I’ll change one of them. But today, all right, I can give you five. Um so, I was sitting at home not too long ago, just going through some old photographs and someone asked me this question.

And I smiled for a second because it’s a much easier question than asking who I love the most. Um people usually want to know about the hits, the tours, the records, but that’s not what comes to mind anymore. Not really. Um I gave that question some thought. Five names came into my head almost immediately, not because they were the biggest stars, not not because history remembers them better than others.

The first name that came into my mind was George Harrison. The first person I thought about was George. Um George was a Beatle, of course, the quiet one they called him. And he was quiet in a way, but not in the way people thought. He wasn’t serene or removed. He was lonely, I think, desperately lonely. He used to show up at my house without calling first.

He just walk up the drive with a guitar over his shoulder, carrying these acetate discs of Beatle songs, wanting me to hear them. He needed someone who understood. Um I don’t think I realized at the time how much he needed that. The funny thing is, when we first met, I didn’t even consider him a friend. He was just a fellow musician.

But he kept coming around. He chose me. I never quite understood why, but he did. And that choice changed everything for me. Um one afternoon, I remember this so clearly, he came over in the springtime and he was escaping from all the business at Apple. He said he couldn’t face all those dopey accountants. He walked around my garden, borrowed one of my acoustic guitars, and he wrote Here Comes the Sun right there.

I sat on the grass and listened. He felt safe enough in my home to find his peace. That’s not something you forget. We used to take acid together in the early days up at his bungalow in Esher. Just the two of us playing guitars for hours. The music was the conversation. We didn’t need words. He’d play something and I’d answer.

It was like discovering another person’s soul through their fingers. But the thing that mattered most wasn’t the music. Um it was the way he protected our friendship. He had this phrase he’d use, preserve and protect. He’d say it about us. He believed we had to actively, consciously preserve and protect what we had cuz the world wanted to tear it apart.

And God knows I gave the world plenty of ammunition. Uh the truth is I fell in love with his wife. Pattie, I told him. I sat him down and told him I loved his wife. And he didn’t explode. He didn’t hate me. He accepted it. He understood. Through the thick and the thin, he used to say, “Eric and I have always preserved and protected our friendship.

” That moment of grace changed my life. Um we drifted apart for a while after that cuz how cuz how could we not? But we always came back. By By the ’80s, we were close again, laughing about it. It had become this civilized tragedy. We could talk about it, and then we could move on. Two old friends who had survived fame, [snorts] women, addiction.

Grateful to have each other in the end. George died of cancer. I was home when I got the call. I remember feeling this silence I’d never known. It was like the world had stopped humming. I organized a concert for him at the Royal Albert Hall. I stood on stage with his friends and played While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and I poured everything into that guitar.

Every ounce of grief. But when I think of George, I don’t think of him dying. I think of him walking up my drive uh with that guitar. I think of him holding up a lighter at my concerts. He always did that. A small gesture of unwavering support. The quietest Beatle cheering on his dearest friend.

 The next person I want to talk about is B.B. King. Now, B.B. was the king of the blues. Everyone knows that. The public saw the smiling, gracious gentleman, always in a suit, always polite, playing that guitar he called Lucille. But the private B.B. was a man who had been waiting, waiting for decades to be recognized, carrying this deep private hurt that he transformed into something beautiful.

 Um I met him in New York at the Cafe Au Go Go. I was young, maybe 22, full of myself. And we jammed together. Jimi Hendrix was there, too. The three of us played, and Jimi recorded the whole thing. He promised to send us tapes. He died before he could deliver. B.B. used to laugh about that. He’d say, “When I die, if I can find Jimmy, he’s going to give me my tape.

” That was B.B. Uh he laughed with his whole body. He’d slap his knee when something was funny, and his laugh would fill a room. He called everyone baby or man. There was a warmth in his voice that felt like a blanket. But the thing about B.B. was his lack of bitterness. He had every reason to be bitter. He’d been overlooked for decades, denied his due, playing to small crowds in tiny clubs, sleeping in his car because no hotel would take a black man.

 He told me those stories without anger, just a pragmatic sadness. And I’d listen and feel ashamed of my own complaints. Um we talked about all sorts of things, his early years on the road, the broken-down cars, the segregation. He told me once, “You can’t make people love you.” And I said, “But they do love you.” He said, “Well, they do now.

” And he laughed. Uh I remember one time in the ’80s, we were on stage together, and he turned to me and whispered, “I’m too old for this, baby.” He was 65, and he was still out playing every young guitarist on the bill. I looked at him and thought, “He’ll never be too old.” We made an album together in the ’90s, Riding with the King.

During one session, he broke into a solo that was so pure, so beautiful, that I stopped playing and just watched. I realized I was in the presence of something transcendent, not just a musician, but a man who had spent his entire life chasing a sound, and had finally caught it. Uh I had tears in my eyes. I didn’t tell him that day.

 I just thanked him. B.B. died in his late 80s and in the years before I knew he was struggling financially. That was hard. The king of the blues, near the end, struggling to pay his bills. I didn’t know how to help. I felt helpless. And when he passed, there was all this mess about his estate. It was difficult. But the whole thing came down to music, really.

When I think of B.B., I don’t think of him in a hospital bed. I think of him on stage, closing his eyes, frowning as he wrestled with the notes. I think of him slapping his knee and laughing. I think of Lucille singing. Um the next person who came into my my mind was Duane Allman. Duane was young, so young. But he wasn’t a kid.

 When I met him, it was like sitting down with a sage, an old soul trapped in a young man’s body. I was in Miami, struggling to start recording an album. My producer, Tom Dowd, suggested we go see this band from Georgia called the Allman Brothers. I walked into that concert, heard Duane play, and I was floored. I’d never heard better rock guitar playing on an R&B record, ever.

After the show, I invited him back to the studio for a jam. He walked in and we played until dawn. And then he didn’t leave for months. Um Duane had a quiet intensity. He didn’t talk much. He communicated through his guitar. He’d play a lick, look at me, and smirk. It was a challenge and a compliment all at once.

 There was an unspoken language between us. In the studio, we’d lock eyes and the music would take off in a direction no one had planned. We’d sit in my hotel room after recording all day. He’d be on the bed with his gold top Les Paul. I’d be in a chair with Brownie, my Stratocaster. And we’d play old blues tunes for hours. Big Bill Broonzy, Robert Johnson, Elmore James.

 We’d talk about the old masters as if they were still alive. Duane knew all the obscure names, the stories. I was in awe of his knowledge. Um The thing about Duane was his generosity. The opening riff on Layla, that screaming iconic lick, that was Duane’s idea. He turned to me in the studio and said, “How about starting it this way?” And he played this seven-note phrase, and and the song came alive.

Lesser guitarists would have kept that idea for himself. Duane just gave it away like it was nothing. He made me feel alive. For those few months, I wasn’t a loner. I had a partner. We didn’t compete. We played to each other. It was a creative marriage I’d never experienced before. And I’ve never experienced since.

Duane died in a motorcycle accident. He was 24. I got a phone call, and I remember the shock, the disbelief. I hadn’t even known he rode motorcycles. The funeral was a blur. I didn’t speak. I just stood there. For decades, I couldn’t talk about him. Couldn’t listen to some of those Layla tracks without feeling the loss.

 The sheer joy of trading guitar lines with a friend. But when I think of Duane, I don’t think of the funeral. I think of um him in the studio playing a slide part, looking up at me with this huge grin as if to say, “Can you believe we’re doing this?” It was the happiest I’d ever been in the studio.

 Uh the next person I want to talk about is Steve Winwood. Steve is still alive. I talked to him regularly. And that matters cuz so many of the others are gone. Um Steve was a prodigy. That voice, like an old black soul singer trapped in a teenager’s body. I saw him with Traffic. And and I heard that voice and I went up to him afterward and said, “Let’s do something together.

” That was the birth of Blind Faith. But the public saw the smooth successful solo artist. What I saw was the quiet, steady friend. Steve was never loud, never demanding, never competitive. In an era of massive egos, Steve just wanted to play. And neither of us was suited to the superstar  Blind Faith was a nightmare of press attention, but we escaped it together into the music.

Steve was a sanctuary. I could sit with him in a dressing room and not say a word. We did that once after a show. Just sat there, exhausted, sipping tea, no conversation. That’s the measure of real friendship. You don’t need to fill the silence. We talked about our kids, our homes, the simple lives we tried to build away from music. Just ordinary things.

Nothing important, really. But that was the point. Um one time we played After Midnight too fast at Madison Square Garden. We looked at each other, laughed, and kept going. The audience didn’t even notice. It was a shared joke just for us. Steve never lectured me. When I was struggling with alcohol, he didn’t judge. He just showed up.

 He played. He was there. We we drifted apart in the ’70s and ’80s. Not a falling out, just life. But, we’d reunite for a show, and it would feel like no time had passed. The friendship evolved from a youthful, intense, creative partnership to a mature, comfortable friendship. He’s still here, still playing, still that quiet, steady presence.

And I’m grateful for that cuz so many of the others have gone. Um the last person I want to talk about is Jeff Beck. Jeff died recently, and it hit me harder than I expected. Cuz Jeff and I had a complicated relationship. He was the rival, the uncomfortable one. Um Jeff replaced me in the Yardbirds, and I didn’t like it.

 He knew I didn’t like it. He was terrified of being seen as second best. He’d study my face obsessively looking for signs of disrespect. I could feel his eyes on me when we played together, measuring, comparing. It was uncomfortable. But, it forced me to focus. He had a chip on his shoulder. He was um pugnacious, insecure, but deeply vulnerable.

 And underneath all that, I respected his genius. He was a radical innovator, the guitarist’s guitarist. He could make a guitar sound like it was weeping or screaming. Um we had this thing where we talked about the uncomfortable rivalry. We could acknowledge it eventually, even laugh about it. He teased me about my moodiness, my punchy character.

It got under my skin a bit. Uh one time in the early ’80s, he invited me to a gig near my home. On the way there, he turned to me and said, “Do you want to play Blackie?” I said, “I don’t know that song.” He said, “No, it’s it’s my guitar.” We both laughed. It was awkward and hilarious.

 Two men who didn’t know how to be normal with each other. But the thing that got me, the thing that still gets me, is that Jeff kept my Christmas cards. I sent him one every year. A generic family photo, the same one I sent everyone. And he kept them. He told me once, “I keep looking at those pictures, trying to figure out if you’re happy.

” I was stunned. Here was my great rival, my competitor, checking on me. He wasn’t trying to beat me. He was trying to see if I was okay. It was the closest we ever came to admitting we loved each other. When I appeared in his documentary, he said he was shocked. He studied my face over and over, looking for something.

 And he said there was a tear. I think we both knew by then that the rivalry had always been something else, just love, really. Jeff died suddenly. Uh bacterial meningitis. I couldn’t believe it. Still can’t sometimes. I miss the uncomfortable feeling of being in the room with him, the thrill of competition. He kept me honest.

 But when I think of Jeff, I don’t think of him dying. I think of him at the Arms Charity Concerts, turning to me with this huge grin and saying, “You’re not so bad.” And I laughed. It was pure, playful affection. Um when I think about George, I remember a guitar in a garden. When I think about BB, I remember a laugh that filled a room.

When I think about Dwayne, I remember a slide guitar and a smile. When I think about Steve, I remember a quiet presence in a dressing room. When I think about Jeff, I remember a rivalry that was really just love. Music gave me a career, but people gave me a life. If I could have one more afternoon with any of them, I wouldn’t want to talk about work.

 I’d want to sit in a garden or hotel room or a car on the way to a gig and just talk about nothing. The kids, the weather, a funny thing that happened at the shops. Just nothing. And after all these years, those are the people I still miss the most.