As a prolific songwriter, Stephen Bishop has penned songs for the likes of Art Garfunkel, Barbra Streisand, and Phil Collins.

However, Bishop is also the artist behind the 1977 soft rock hit On and On, as well as Save It for a Rainy Day, from his breakthrough album, Careless, which featured a veritable list of collaborators, including Eric Clapton.

“When my manager at the time, Bob Ellis, was at Shangri-La Studios visiting Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones, another of his artists, Eric happened to be there,” Bishops recalls of the collaboration in a new Guitar World.

“Bob told him, ‘You should meet this young artist I'm working with named Stephen Bishop. He's a funny guy – I think you’d like him.’”

Clapton dropped by the studio with his guitar, and, as Ellis predicted, the two hit it off immediately.

Bishop continues, “I played Eric some of the songs I was working on, and to my relief, he really liked them.”

Clapton performed the guitar solo on the single Save It for a Rainy Day, which ended up peaking at number 22 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 when it was released in December 1976.

He also provided what Bishop describes as “beautiful slide guitar work” on the fourth track on the album, Sinking in an Ocean of Tears.

“As a 16-year-old kid, I’d seen Cream perform, so having Eric playing on my debut album was pretty surreal,” he says. “He was exactly like what you’d imagine a rock star should look like; he had this effortless charisma about him.

“What means the most to me, though, is that all these years later we're still friends and still keep in touch.”

However, as important as Clapton was to Bishop’s breakthrough, no one was as critical to his success as his “lifelong friend” Art Garfunkel.

“Art’s support helped open doors that ultimately led to my record deal,” Bishop reveals. “He also sang background vocals on several songs on Careless, and I returned the favor by singing background vocals on Breakaway. That's how our friendship began, and it's lasted for more than 50 years.”

Guitar World’s interview with Stephen Bishop will be published in the coming week.

And, speaking of Clapton, his ‘Summersburst’ – used on Cream's debut album – has finally been unearthed after 60 years.

Matthieu Lucas, from the Parisian guitar emporium Matt’s Guitar Shop, has unearthed a few musical gems during his lifetime. But, perhaps his proudest moment happened very recently, when he brought Eric Clapton’s influential ‘Summersburst’ – which has been hidden away from public view for nearly 60 years – to the public.

Eric Clapton’s fabled 1960 Les Paul Standard – his ‘Beano’ ’Burst – was snatched from a church hall in Brondesbury, London, at the height of his mid-’60s Bluesbreakers fame. He also happened to be just starting rehearsals with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker on a certain project called Cream. After the robbery, Clapton hastily bought another ’60 Les Paul from future Police guitarist Andy Summers for £300.

This guitar would shape Clapton’s next era – including, most pivotally, his work on Cream’s debut album, the game-changing Fresh Cream. Somewhere in between his trips across the Atlantic, though, the Les Paul would suffer the second of two serious neck breaks. While it was given a “creative” headstock replacement at Dan Armstrong’s repair shop, Clapton seemed unhappy with the result and left the guitar at the shop after refusing to pay the bill.

After changing hands more than a few times, fast-forward to 2026, when the guitar somehow found its way to Paris and into Lucas’ hands via renowned guitar collector Perry Margouleff.

“I knew about it for years,” Lucas says in the latest issue of Guitarist. “I couldn’t tell anyone about it because that’s not how Perry is working – he wants his guitars to be top secret, if I can say.

“But then I decided to make it public for several reasons, because my theory is that guitars like this should be played, should be shared with people. I think it doesn't even belong to me, or whoever is going to buy the guitar – it belongs to, I would almost say, humanity because that guitar is a major piece of the ’60s and British music, and a major piece of guitar history, so my feeling is that all those guitars need to be shared and played.”

At some point, Lucas stepped in and told Margouleff, “‘I want to buy this piece, but in my opinion it’s just a shame that it stays off the internet because I think it’s a different time now and everybody should know what happened to this guitar,’ because nobody knew where it was, basically.”

Lucas says that when he first met Margouleff around 13 years ago, the veteran collector took him under his wing and showed him a lot of his star-owned guitars. However, the future owner of Matt’s Guitar Shop wasn’t in a position to purchase Clapton’s guitar – that is, until 12 years later.

“It took a bit of time, but we arranged a deal a few weeks ago, and then I went to New York City and picked up the guitar myself.”

Having played Clapton’s “The Fool” SG, his 335, and other Cream-era instruments, Lucas has a few thoughts on how this Les Paul compares.

“It’s funny, because all of them [have notably slim necks], except the 335, which has more like a ’64 neck but still a very thin neck. So I think Clapton really loved a very thin neck on guitars, you know? This guitar is quite the same: it has one of the thinnest necks on a ’60 I’ve ever played.”

Lucas notes that it was probably made in the latter part of 1960 “because of that ‘tomato soup’ finish and other details,” while, structurally speaking, “it’s super easy to play and super fast because of that thin neck.” He goes on to point out that “the neck pickup is one of the creamiest neck pickups that I’ve tried.

“It’s not like a woody sound, it’s very creamy, very dense. It makes total sense when you put the guitar into a Marshall, and you put the tone at zero – you get exactly the Spoonful sound.

And the one thing that still blows his mind? “When you play the guitar, it’s incredible because that’s the record, you know? It already sounds like the record.”

For the full story and more about Eric Clapton’s iconic guitars, pick up issue 539 of Guitarist from Magazines Direct.

Ask any bass-playing great of the last 50 years who their heroes are, and you can bet that Jack Bruce will feature high up the list.

The driving force behind ’60s supergroup Cream – not to mention his stints with Alexis Korner, Graham Bond and the Bluesbreakers – Bruce was one of a very short list of pioneers who were challenging the traditional concept of what a bass guitarist could, and should, play, creating lines that linked the jazz-inspired drumming of Ginger Baker with the blues-inflected guitar of Eric Clapton.

“Clapton isn’t God. Jack Bruce is,” wrote Jeff Berlin in the October 2003 issue of Bass Player. “When I was 14, I sprayed his name on my bedroom wall with luminous paint to remind me who was the greatest bass player in the world.”

Bruce’s innovations – first with his Fender VI and then with his Gibson EB-3 – provided a cornerstone in the instrument's development. His playing in the trio’s legendary live jams liberated the bass for generations of players who followed.

“Jack's playing on these songs might be the first recorded example of an electric bass player with chops,” said Berlin. “I'm So Glad (Goodbye) is perhaps the most intense of the live jams, but for me the definitive Jack is on Sweet Wine from Live Cream. Jack's playing on that cut changed me forever.”

“For pure composition, listen to As You Said on Wheels of Fire, which features Jack on cello, acoustic guitar, and vocals accompanied only by Ginger Baker's hi-hat. Who else in all of rock could have come up with that priceless tune?”

As well known for his outspoken views on music, bass playing and… er… metronomes as he is for his unquestionable command of the bass guitar, Berlin remembered meeting his hero at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London.

“We were introduced by the fine English drummer Jon Hiseman. I quickly discovered that Jack is one of the funniest guys l've ever met. He gave me a lift back to my hotel, and he had me laughing so hard I was crying.

“The next time we met, I was performing at the Music Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, and I was playing really well. It was one of those special nights that happens only once in a while for musicians. Then Jack walked in.

“My hands developed rheumatism in three seconds. I couldn't play a thing. I got nervous because I know that if Jack can do anything, he can hear everything that's going on – and that's why I played bass like Rocky Balboa when Jack sat down in the front row.

“Another time, Jack did a clinic at the Musicians Institute in L.A. Bruce Gary was on drums and I played guitar. I can't remember how we got into it, but Jack and I suddenly found ourselves singing White Room like Jerry Lewis would sing it.

“Through the laughter, I found myself thinking, ‘Here I am playing Cream tunes with the same guy whose name was spray-painted on the wall of my mother's home, the same guy who influenced me to buy a bass and spend the better part of 25 years trying to learn how to play it.’”

After Bruce's passing in 2014, Berlin released the tribute album Jack Songs, featuring contributions from a stellar line-up of guest musicians, including Alex Lifeson, Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal and Eric Johnson.

“When he died, I immediately set out to choose some of my favourite songs of his and record them via my own musical vision. I wanted this record to be brilliant to honour his spirit. He really means this much to me.”

No electric guitar on earth is so uniquely recognisable as this totem of Clapton’s epochal time in Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker – but its origins remain frustratingly obscure to this day.

“There’s a lot of mystery around exactly where and when this guitar was acquired by Eric Clapton,” says Amelia Walker of Christie’s. “I’ve seen it [stated] in some places that George Harrison gave it to him, but he likely bought it in early ’67 because he was sick of getting Les Pauls stolen.”

Guitar historian Tony Bacon takes up the story here: “In the first few months of 1967, Eric Clapton went shopping and bought a circa-1964 cherry-finish SG Standard. His customary hunting ground was the West End of London and its music shops, notably the Gibson-centric Selmer store in Charing Cross Road, and that seems a likely source, though there’s no firm evidence,” Tony adds.

“Why an SG? As Amelia Walker notes, perhaps he was fed up with the fact that his two Les Paul ’Bursts had been stolen during the previous nine months or so and fancied a change of style – but keeping the familiar humbuckers and control layout.”

With Clapton now the proud owner of a then-three-year-old SG, the burgeoning psychedelic scene prompted Clapton’s management to suggest an unlikely collaboration with two in-vogue Dutch artists, who later became known by the collective name The Fool.

“I think that Robert Stigwood, who was their manager, hooked him up with The Fool, and as well as decorating their instruments, they also styled [the band] in terms of their fashion,” Amelia Walker says. “So we’ve got this fabulous photograph taken by Karl Ferris, who told me that he looked after The Fool [in a quasi-managerial sense].

“He took this amazing series of photos the day after the painting on the guitar was finished, so the paint was literally fresh, and they posed in the studio with their mad outfits and mad instruments.

“But I don’t think that the artists, Marijke Koger and Simon Posthuma, were actually known as ‘The Fool’ collective by that exact point, though they obviously became known as such and were sought out to paint the wall at Apple studios.

“They also painted John Lennon’s piano at Kenwood. We’ve got this photograph of them painting [that piano]; included in The Irsay Collection is a piano that’s behind that [painted] one, so you can see them midway through painting it.”

“[Cream] were very part of the whole 1966 psychedelia zeitgeist, so it’s not surprising that Robert Stigwood, Cream’s manager, wanted that look for the band: something fresh, new and hip.

“The reason The Fool SG has changed so much is because they didn’t seal the painting, so with Eric’s playing, it very quickly got very worn. There was no protective over-layer on the paint. They even painted the whole fingerboard, which clearly didn’t last very long.”

Tony Bacon says that Clapton adapted the guitar in more conventional ways, too, during his time with it: “The guitar still had its original Deluxe Vibrola when Eric bought it, but its cover plate came off to reveal more of the artwork. Soon he disengaged the Vibrola altogether, at first leaving the arm pointing backwards and out of the way.

“Later, into ’68, he had the Vibrola’s arm and mechanism removed, leaving just the frame as a simple tailpiece. He replaced the guitar’s original Kluson tuners with Grovers, a popular move and one he knew about from his Les Pauls. Paint began to flake from the rear of the neck, and he had at least some of the extra paint there permanently removed.”

Clapton, of course, moved on to other guitars – and The Fool in its turn passed into the hands of other musicians, as Tony Bacon explains: “Eric eventually let it go, perhaps to George Harrison, but it certainly went to Jackie Lomax, a musician friend of George’s from the old Liverpool days.

“Around 1971 it moved on to Todd Rundgren, who fitted a stopbar tailpiece and an incongruous Schaller ‘harmonica’ Tune-o-matic. Todd had the body paint restored and sealed, and had someone replace and re-paint part of the neck and the headstock.”

“Todd Rundgren did a very good job of restoring it,” Amelia Walker adds. “You can’t see exactly what’s been over-painted and what’s original because it now has a completely clear [topcoat] layer, so nothing fluoresces under blacklight – or rather the whole thing fluoresces.

“When we’re dealing with paintings, you can blacklight it and it will show up very obviously what’s original, where it’s been touched up, where it’s been overpainted and so on. But with this guitar, unfortunately, you can’t see it at all because of this [single, uniform clearcoat] layer that covers the whole thing.

“The headstock got pretty damaged when it was with Eric,” she adds. “I don’t know what Jackie Lomax then did to it, but by Todd Rundgren’s account, it was sort of hanging on by a thread or had been repaired badly [when he took ownership and had it restored]. Then I think what happened is the repair person was going to throw it away.

“Luckily, somebody said, ‘Don’t do that!’ [laughs] and it got rescued. The original headstock wasn’t with the guitar when it was sold by Todd at Sotheby’s in 2000, and when it was exhibited alongside the guitar at The Met Museum’s 2019 ‘Play It Loud’ exhibition, it was noted as being part of Perry Margouleff’s collection.”

• Christie’s will auction The Jim Irsay Collection: Hall of Fame on the evening of 12 March. See Christie's for more information.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

A new book called Cream Chronicled, authored by Ginger Baker’s daughter Nettie, sets out to document every gig and recording session, and various major events that happened to the band between 1966 and 1968.

It also covers the times Ginger, Jack and Eric got back together at the Rock ’N’ Roll Hall Of Fame inauguration in 1993 and the reunion gigs in 2005.

Needless to say, painstaking research, combined with an obvious love of the subject matter, has resulted in an amazingly authoritative book. We speak with Nettie about what it was like to spend so much time in Cream’s glorious past.

One thing that struck us when we read the book was how hard Cream were worked throughout their lifetime as a band.

When I started researching, that’s when I realised how intense their workload was and it seemed that it was a normal thing to do, and probably a lot of other bands at the same time were doing it, too.

I think their rise was so quick, it exacerbated the pressures. Very often they would go to all-nighters, which, at the time, was a big thing. A band would play a gig and then they would go off to another club to do an all-nighter and play from 11 till 12, and then play again at 2.30 to 4.30 [in the morning] or something like that. It was completely insane.

Can you remember the effect that had on your dad?

“Well, I think it was stress – the ambition and the hard work and the attention to detail. There were a lot of other things going on because at the beginning he was sort of running it, collecting the money and all of those sorts of things. I think at first he was very happy, but they did have the [burden] of going around the country in a van. No-one flew anywhere. And, as it went on, the stress began to affect him.”

In the book, you say that Ginger eventually put his foot down to playing two gigs a day.

“I don’t think anyone took any notice. I think it’s very important to understand that all three of them were not in control because they were young men; they were in their 20s, and it was a new phenomenon. It was a new genre and it suddenly caught on.”

How difficult was it to research the book? Did your dad keep diaries or any other records?

No. I mean, I’ve got a BA and a MA in English Lit from Queen Mary [University of London], and they’re one of the top research universities. So I was actually able to bring some of my academic qualifications into this thing, which is different from the other books I’ve written. And I’m a diarist, so I had diaries from the ’60s and I had diaries from the 2005 [reunion], so I was able to bring a bit of that in. But you just have to find as many sources as you can.

“I mean, the internet is great now, but I did go through books, too. Some of these retrospective anecdotes are not reliable at all, but you might get two or three sources that agree. So you think, “Yeah, that’s quite likely.” You just have to keep going. I just went everywhere and to everything I could find, you know?”

You said that Cream Chronicled sets out to bust some of the myths about the band. Which ones were you specifically keen to clear up?

That they all hated each other; they never socialised; they never travelled together. That Jack and Ginger were always fighting, according to all the retrospective accounts. And on the Goodbye album cover, that the photos of them were shot separately and then they superimposed their heads on the picture or something. I mean, for goodness’ sake!

Later in the book I say that when they came to do the Hall of Fame, people just got stuck on an image of axe-wielding maniacs on drugs or if they would even speak to each other. So I tried to say that the band split mainly because of the pressures of touring and the stresses they were under.

They didn’t say that they didn’t argue – because they were like brothers. Even in 2012 Jack was saying, ‘I really love Ginger, he’s my brother and brothers sometimes fight.’

I also explained that they didn’t tell everyone at the time, but they were socialising, but because people would have just said, “Oh, are they going to get back together again?” they probably thought, “Just leave us alone.” So yes, they socialised the whole time.

How do you think Ginger looked back on the Cream years?

I think he was so proud because it was his band. I think when he did look back he only ever wanted to play Cream songs with Cream, which was why he didn’t really like BBM [the group that featured Jack, Ginger and Gary Moore] that much. He felt quite strongly about that.

I think the legacy of the band is immense. I’m proud to have managed to document it because no-one’s done that. They’ve just fallen down the rabbit hole of ‘Oh, they all took drugs and hated each other,’ which is just completely and utterly not true; even the drugs they get wrong.

There was one heroin addict, which was Ginger, and most of the time in Cream he was not taking it. And when he did, in his own autobiography, he held his hands up. I think they did have some sort of [trauma] afterwards. 1968 wasn’t a happy time for them. They really didn’t want to break up.

• Cream Chronicled is out 20 March via Wymer UK
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

We know the guitars Eric Clapton played in Cream. All of them Gibson: the ‘Beano’ Les Paul, the ‘Fool’ SG, the cherry red ES-335 and the sunburst Firebird I.

While that list is, of course, correct, dig a little deeper and a few oddities and anomalies poke their heads above the parapet. But as with anything musically historical, evidence is often vague or contradictory, so what follows here is as close as we can get with the sources available.

With Clapton only just having left John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, the ‘Beano’ Les Paul was predictably his instrument of choice in early Cream rehearsals.

It was used at the band’s initial get-together at Ginger Baker’s flat in Neasden, Northwest London in mid-July 1966, and the ‘secret’ two-set gig at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, over the evening and early hours of 29 and 30 July respectively.

Sadly, though this guitar, with its recognisable double-cream open-topped neck humbucker and all-black bridge pickup, was stolen soon after.

Eric then played some early Cream shows, including the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival on 31 July, on a Bigsby-equipped ’59 Les Paul. From what we can gather, The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards loaned his Satisfaction Les Paul to Eric for some gigs and recording, then in 1967 Keith (or some say the band’s keyboard player, Ian Stewart) sold it to Mick Taylor.

Taylor used it during his tenure with The Bluesbreakers and, somewhat ironically, when he was conscripted into The Stones in 1969. It’s almost certain that the guitar also appeared on Cream’s debut album, Fresh Cream.

It currently resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (The Met). Taylor has asserted it to be his own Les Paul that was stolen in the legendary heist of Stones guitars at Villa Nellcôte, in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, and is in dispute with The Met. Meanwhile, the museum claims its provenance is well documented and that the guitar was never officially owned by Taylor.

Clapton’s Bluesbreakers Les Paul had been purchased for a meagre £80 after Andy Summers, later of The Police and owner of a Les Paul that Eric had coveted, had tipped him off about another’s whereabouts.

Upon the theft of this instrument, Clapton contacted Summers to see if he could purloin his original Standard, most likely a 1960 model as Eric’s first LP was also thought to have been (although some say Eric’s was a ’59). He has commented on how he liked its slim neck, a characteristic of 1960 models.

Summers recalled: “Knowing that I had the other one, Eric starts calling me and asking if I would sell it. I’d moved on to the Fender Telecaster by then, and also there was something wrong with my Les Paul; the back pickup wasn’t working. He was offering me £200 for it, more than twice what I’d paid for it.”

Apparently, Clapton didn’t have the bridge pickup fixed. It seems he used it (neck pickup only, the inspiration for ‘woman’ tone’, perhaps?) and Richards’ Bigsby Les Paul on the Fresh Cream album sessions. These began in early August 1966. It seems the ‘Summersburst’ suffered a headstock break and was eventually sold or stolen.

On 16 August 1966 Cream played London’s legendary Marquee club, and Eric is pictured playing a cherry red 1960 Les Paul Special double-cutaway with twin P-90s. He tells the audience that it’s a new guitar and he’s only just getting used to it. Was this a stop-gap (some say it was borrowed) between the ‘Beano’ Les Paul stolen in rehearsals and getting the Andy Summers guitar?

Playing The Fool

Clapton’s most famous Gibson and the one he was most photographed with in Cream is undoubtedly his 1964 SG Standard. Nicknamed the ‘Fool’ after the Dutch art syndicate led by Simon Posthuma and Marijke Koger who gave it its psychedelic paint job, the guitar underwent several changes during Clapton’s ownership of it.

The Maestro Vibrola’s ‘lyre’ chrome coverplate was removed, presumably to display the Fool’s artwork underneath. And although EC may have occasionally used the Vibrola for some light chord wobble (White Room, perhaps?), usually he preferred the arm swept back out of the way, especially when playing live. Later, he would remove it completely.

The Fool SG debuted on 25 March 1967 at the RKO Theatre in Manhattan. Eric loved its ‘access all areas’ neck and full-fat, fruity tones, and played it extensively until mid-1968, including on the brilliant live Crossroads and Spoonful from Wheels Of Fire.

On Cream’s demise, Eric gave the guitar to George Harrison, who in turn presented it to Apple-signing Jackie Lomax. Lomax later passed it on to guitarist/producer Todd Rundgren (who produced Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell among many others). The Fool SG sold for a staggering £1.023 million ($1.27 million) on 16 November 2023.

Another Les Paul that Clapton obtained during this time was a three-pickup, black Gibson Les Paul Custom, which he bought in Manny’s Music in New York, March 1967. Eric would often play this guitar during his Blind Faith period, but it also appeared on the album Disraeli Gears, released in November 1967.

Other instruments for the recordings include the Fool SG, and one or two unspecified electric 12-strings for the Byrds-like Dance The Night Away. These were possibly a Fender Electric XII and/or Rickenbacker 12-string. There’s no evidence to suggest it, but it would be lovely to think that George Harrison gifted Eric one of his Ricky 12s.

A more surprising guitar owned and played by Clapton in Cream was a Danelectro DC-59 Shorthorn, similar to the one played by Jimmy Page. Eric later used it in Blind Faith with what looks like a sponge-effect paint job, but he was pictured playing the original black-and-white Dano with Cream at the Swan pub in Birmingham, May 1967.

For Blind Faith’s free debut concert in Hyde Park on 7 June 1969, Clapton sported a 1962 bound-bodied Fender Custom Telecaster with a small-headstock maple Stratocaster neck. This was actually the neck from his Layla Strat, ‘Brownie’.

However, Eric had acquired the Tele in early 1968, and appeared playing it with Cream in the Danish film Det Var En Lørdag (It Was A Saturday Night). Interestingly, in the film the same Tele body sported a post-CBS large-headstock, rosewood-’board Strat neck. Whether it was ever played on a Cream album, we can’t say.

Clapton bought another Les Paul, originally a 1957 Goldtop that had been refinished in see-through cherry red by its second owner, Rick Derringer (Johnny and Edgar Winter, Steely Dan), who got it from Lovin’ Spoonful guitarist John Sebastian.

It’s not known whether he ever used it in Cream, but Eric famously gave the instrument to George Harrison and then played the solo on The Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps on it. Harrison christened the guitar ‘Lucy’ after American comedienne Lucille Ball, and used it for his solo on Something.

Clapton also acquired a 1953 Les Paul Goldtop around this time and played it with Cream at Hunter College Auditorium, New York City on 29 March 1968.

A Gibson guitar that Clapton enjoyed during this same year, but was not often photographed with, was his sunburst 1964 Firebird I. This instrument remained in the touring arsenal until Cream’s final shows on 25 and 26 November at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

The Firebird featured on the first of these shows, and the ES-335 on the second. Eric is said to have bought the guitar on 13 April 1968, remarking that he loved the guitar’s bright and articulate single bridge pickup. He notably used it for his blistering intro and solos in the live rendition of Sitting On Top Of The World from the band’s farewell album Goodbye.

Another Les Paul that surfaced during Cream’s dying days was a 1958 Les Paul known as the ‘Darkburst’. Eric played it on some 1968 US Cream concerts, but in 1969 while Free was supporting Blind Faith on a few US shows, traded it to Paul Kossoff for his Les Paul Custom. It ended up with that band’s singer, Paul Rodgers, who later sold it at auction, with Clapton verifying its provenance.

Seeing Red

We’ve left Eric’s cherry red 1964 ES-335 until last, not only because it was the final six-string he played with Cream at the 26 November Royal Albert Hall farewell concert, but also because questions abound regarding the guitar’s past.

Did Clapton really buy it new in 1964 while in The Yardbirds, as he has proposed? The fact that there are no photos of Eric with the guitar either in The Yardbirds, with John Mayall, or at any time prior to his last run of Cream shows suggests not.

Would he have borrowed guitars for gigs and albums had he owned this rather special guitar? Tele-master Jerry Donahue is adamant that this is not the case and that he personally sold Eric the ES-335 while working at Selmer’s music store in London in 1968.

Jerry asserts it was bought for the Royal Albert Hall farewell concerts. This story seems plausible, even though it flies in the face of auction records and what many, including Clapton himself, believe. Whatever the case, the guitar sold at Christie’s in New York in 2004 for $847,500 (£645,197).

Gibson has released modern recreations of Clapton’s ‘Beano’ Les Paul, the ‘Fool’ SG, Firebird I, ‘Lucy’ Les Paul and ES-335. There has been a Danelectro remake of the painted Blind Faith Shorthorn, and Fender even released a Blind Faith bound-bodied Tele-Strat. Such is the esteem in which Clapton’s Cream guitars are held, today these instruments exchange hands for eye-watering sums.

So, that’s the story of Eric Clapton’s guitars from the short but extraordinary, musically spectacular period between July 1966 and November 1968. While the details of some of the guitars might remain sketchy, one thing we know for certain is we’ll never see a combination of such talents – Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker – again.

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

By the mid-’60s, as jazz bands slowly faded from the front pages of the music press, they were gradually replaced with rhythm and blues bands.

One such band featured Graham Bond, a complicated figure and musical innovator who would go on to inadvertently pave the way for many bands over the next few decades.

We go back to the beginning – including the bust-ups and band-member swaps – to detail the rise of one of Britain’s most revered supergroups.

The name’s Bond

Bond started his career in jazz, playing with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated. He left the outfit in 1962 and formed the Graham Bond Quartet with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, both from Alexis’s band, along with guitarist John McLaughlin.

By the mid-’60s Bond decided to move toward the more-successful blues scene, keeping members of the quartet together and adding Dick Heckstall-Smith to the line-up. Dick replaced Bond on sax as Bond switched over to Hammond organ and vocals. As the Graham Bond Organisation, they very quickly established themselves, and released their first album in February 1965.

By this time, drugs had become an issue for the band, and Bond, in particular, found it difficult to deal with the associated problems. On top of that there were a lot of arguments between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, sometimes getting violent.

A stressed Bond decided to hand over leadership to Ginger Baker, who saw this as a perfect opportunity to fire Jack Bruce. The band limped on as a three-piece, but the magic had gone. Although Ginger stayed in the band for a time, he decided to quit when Bond’s increased drug habits made him too unreliable.

Ginger was now at a loose end and was keen to form a band, and set about finding like-minded musicians. He was already familiar with Eric Clapton and his guitar playing when they frequently met on the London club scene, and so he wanted to approach him first. It’s worth knowing that at that time graffiti would often be spotted in London proclaiming that ‘Clapton is God’, such was the strength of his loyal following.

Part of the reason for Eric’s popularity was the tone he achieved with his beloved 1959 sunburst Gibson Les Paul played through a JTM45 Marshall amp.

He had bought the guitar from the Lew Davis shop in London’s Charing Cross Road in 1965 with money he earned playing with John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers from 1965 to 1966. It was the album cover of Freddie King’s Let’s Hide Away and Dance Away that influenced him to buy the guitar, even though Freddie was, in fact, holding a Goldtop.

A New Trio

Ginger went to see The Bluesbreakers at a gig at the Town Hall in Oxford on 13 May 1966 and asked if it would be okay to have a jam. Ginger and Eric had an immediate musical chemistry and got on well, too. After the show, Ginger gave Eric a lift home and asked him if he would be interested in joining the new band he was forming.

By this point, Eric was tiring of copying his blues heroes and he, too, was looking for new opportunities. It didn’t take long to make a decision, but his only condition was that Jack Bruce would have to be in the band. Eric had no knowledge of the past tensions between Jack and Ginger.

Ginger was taken aback but highly respected Jack’s musicianship – he could see the potential for the three members coming together as a band. After some persuading from his wife, Ginger went to visit Jack to find out if he would be interested in putting the past behind them and joining the band.

At the time, Jack was under contract with the group Manfred Mann but was not happy at the pop direction they were pursuing. Jack was also familiar with Eric and his guitar playing as he was also in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers for a short period in during late 1965.

Both he and Eric enjoyed the experience of playing together, and later even recorded a few tracks for a blues compilation album, What’s Shakin’, for the Elektra label in March 1966. Jack was in and Ginger immediately suggested Robert Stigwood as their manager, having known him from his time with Graham Bond.

The three musicians wanted to be collaborative, rather than act as three soloists competing with each other. Originally, Eric Clapton had visions of being the lead singer but conceded that Jack had a far more powerful voice with a wealth of experience behind him. Eric considered the band to be ‘the top of the milk’ in terms of musicianship, and suggested it made sense to call themselves ‘The Cream’.

Initial rehearsals took place at Ginger’s ground floor maisonette in Neasden, North London, before moving to St Anne’s Brondesbury Church Hall in West Kilburn. As soon as they started to jam, all three felt the magic. They instinctively knew they were on to something.

Melody Maker’s Chris Welch was at the hall and during a break joined the band at a cafe opposite. Robert Stigwood attended the rehearsals and asked Chris if he thought they were any good.

Luckily, he said yes. Had he said he wasn’t that moved, it could have been the end of the band before they even started. However, Stigwood did have a contribution and that was the band should simply call themselves ‘Cream’.

A few days in, Eric’s beloved ‘Beano’ Les Paul was stolen from the rehearsal hall. His distinctive leather guitar strap with the names of his blues heroes carved on was attached to the guitar; that was also gone.

With a view of getting the public’s help, Eric gave interviews in the music press, sharing details of the guitar as well as mentioning the carved names: Buddy Guy, Big Maceo and Otis Rush. With that information, it would be easy to detect the stolen items should anyone try to sell them.

As for the guitar, Eric described it, precisely to Record Mirror as “a Les Paul Standard, five or six years old, small and solid. It has one cutaway and is a red-gold colour with Grover machineheads. The back is very scratched and there are several cigarette burns on the front”.

It’s worth noting that toward the end of 1965, Eric had removed the metal pickup covers to reveal the bobbins: double-white at the neck, double-black at the bridge. In early 1966, he told Beat Instrumental: “You’ve probably heard about me taking the covers off my pickups: this is something I would definitely recommend for any guitarist. The improvement, sound-wise, is unbelievable.”

To this day, despite rumoured sightings on the East Coast of America, nothing ever materialised. Later, Eric confirmed this Les Paul was the best he’d ever had.

Although he also had a Gibson ES-335 from his time with The Yardbirds, he loved the sound achieved with the Les Paul. So for the first few months of Cream he borrowed a Les Paul, possibly from Keith Richards, before buying another ’Burst from Andy Summers.

To twist the knife further, his original Les Paul case was later stolen from a Cream show at Klooks Kleek. Eric surmised that the person responsible for taking his guitar had now come back for the original case.

Perhaps the most surprising piece of information was that Eric seriously considered getting a Rickenbacker shortly after the theft, as Les Paul guitars were hard to find at the time. It would seem a strange decision as the sound would have been very different from a Les Paul.

Waxing History

Stigwood set about organising press releases, tour dates and recording studio time for a single and album. The biggest issue was that Ginger and Eric were not songwriters. But Jack was a good composer and joined forces with lyricist and beat-poet Pete Brown for a selection of collaborative songs to feature on Cream’s first album. It was a mix of pop numbers with a selection of well-chosen blues covers.

They spent three days in August 1966 recording at Rayrik Sound Studios in Chalk Farm with a view to getting an all-important single in the record shops and hopefully the charts. The studio was relatively primitive and better suited to demo recordings, but during their time there they recorded four songs: Coffee Song, Beauty Queen, You Make Me Feel and Wrapping Paper.

After much deliberation they decided to release Wrapping Paper, a somewhat bland and presumably unrepresentative song with no commercial appeal. It was more a whimsical music-hall folly than a blues or pop number, at least as far as the public were concerned. Coffee Song had also been considered for release but lost out.

It was disappointing and Stigwood’s label, Reaction, pulled 10,000 copies from shops as they could not give the single away. Eric tried to explain to Record Mirror at the time: “I’m tired of being called a specialist musician. People thought Cream was going to be a blues band, but it’s not – it’s a pop group, really.”

Eric also told Melody Maker’s Chris Welch: “Most people have formed the impression of us as three solo musicians clashing with each other. We want to cancel that idea and be a group that plays together.”

Whipped Cream

Cream’s tour started with a warm-up show on 29 July 1966 at the famous Twisted Wheel in Manchester, with another set in the early hours of 30 July. The next day, they played the 6th National Jazz and Blues Festival at the Royal Windsor Racecourse in Berkshire – their official debut.

They played a 40-minute set in the pouring rain, but despite the weather, some 10,000 fans cheered the band on through the electrifying and powerful set. There were several highlights, including Ginger’s epic drum solo in Toad, which drove the crowd crazy and demanding more.

The tour carried on throughout the year around the UK, and the band often played two shows a night. Cream were not known to invite guests on stage with them, but there was one exception during a show on 1 October 1966 at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London.

Jimi Hendrix, the new kid on the block, asked if he could jam on a couple of numbers. Eric and Jimi admired each other, so although Ginger was not so keen, the band allowed the guitarist to come on.

They played a powerful version of Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor to the delight of the crowd. As word spread about the jam that evening, the glowing reputation of both Cream and Hendrix were now a done deal.

The recording sessions for Fresh Cream, the band’s debut album, were fitted in during rare days off on the tour, at Ryemuse Studios in Mayfair. I Feel Free, backed with N.S.U., was released as their second single as a taster to the album in December 1966. Completely different in feel to the first single, it screamed ‘pop’ song and went as high as No 11 in the UK charts, creating plenty of anticipation for the album.

The album cover varied with different typefaces for the UK, Europe and the US. Another change was the addition of the UK single I Feel Free to the later US release in 1967, replacing Spoonful, meanwhile Europe had the benefit of having Wrapping Paper and The Coffee Song added as a bonus.

Perhaps the most exciting release was reserved for the French market, though, where Polydor released a four-track EP containing a unique take of Cat’s Squirrel with a totally different guitar solo by Eric. Needless to say this grew to be a major collectors’ item over the years. Luckily, it is now readily available on the deluxe editions of the album at a reasonable price compared with the original EP.

In the days before social media, bands would promote their records by doing radio sessions for the BBC as well as appearing on popular youth-orientated television shows such as Ready Steady Go!. Cream’s many BBC Radio sessions sealed the deal on their popularity, and over the years their debut album has grown in stature and remains an essential album to this day.

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

The late Jack Bruce was a force of nature. His bass playing in Cream’s legendary live jams liberated the instrument for generations of players who followed.

Improvising freely within (and beyond) the chord progressions, Bruce created lines that linked the blues-inflected guitar of Eric Clapton with the jazz-inspired drumming of Ginger Baker.

“My concept during live Cream jams was to start off supporting Eric, all the while playing with Ginger,” Bruce told Bass Player back in 2001. “Then I would build and almost goad Eric to reach the heights of his playing – and when that happened, I would take off, as well.

“If you think of the first live version of Crossroads – which was maybe the best example of what the band was like live then – we start up high and stay up high.

“On others, like Spoonful, we were trying to get this primeval big vibration that just lasts. I would use 5ths, chords and countermelodies to fatten things up, because when Eric would play high, above my bassline, it left a lot of space in the middle. But it was with more of a lead-bass attitude.

“My goal was always to create a bassline where, if you took away or changed one note, the whole song would collapse. I tried to carve the bass part out of the music, like a statue, so that I knew it would last.”

Once they had the freedom of eight-track recording, Cream began to embrace the studio as a space for experimentation – layering parts, adding keyboards, and expanding their sound. While their live performances pursued a rawer, more volatile energy.

“When we got to eight tracks on Disraeli Gears, we saw the possibilities of the studio, with overdubs and my ability to play keyboards – while live, we saw the opportunity to achieve something completely different.

“The great aspect of recording is you have time to work out the basslines. You perfect the part on run-throughs. Badge is a good example; we had the whole day to get it down – it was the most number of takes we ever did.”

Despite Clapton being Cream’s most recognizable star, Bruce was often the voice behind the group’s most enduring songs, even as record company executives openly questioned his place beyond the rhythm section.

“I don't want to give the impression that people were falling all over themselves to record White Room or Sunshine of Your Love. Nobody believed in them. People at Atlantic Records told me, ‘Eric should be the lead singer and the writer, and you are just the bass player.’

“So I cried in the corner while they came up with Strange Brew, which was actually Hey Laudy Mama with a new song grafted on. In the end, the only reason my songs were done was because Eric couldn't come up with anything.”

Bruce also launched the concept of “covering the top and the bottom,” something he loved doing. Of course, it meant having to deal with singing and playing independent parts.

“I very much enjoy being the top and bottom at the same time. It gives you a tremendous opportunity to be a catalyst; being the bass player and singer gives me two chances to make that happen, but it takes a bit of work.

“The first time I had a problem with it was when Cream did Politician. The very first time we did it, we were recording at the BBC. I just had the riff and Pete Brown had written some lyrics. At the time, the BBC had 3-track recording, so the song was improvised and recorded separately – I overdubbed the vocals, in other words. And when I came to play it with the band, I realized I couldn’t.

“It was simply a matter of working it until I got it, and that was a breakthrough because after that I was able to do a lot more where the vocal and the bass part were in opposition. It's just like being a drummer and having independence. You don't want to think about what you're playing; you just want to feel it.”

Ever the risk-taker, Bruce left it all onstage and in the studio, with every performance and recording. That spirit, along with his considerable musical contributions as a vocalist and composer, is what Bruce left for the rest of us.

The Fool SG is one of the most iconic guitars in rock, playing a starring role in Eric Clapton's Cream career.

It was the guitar with which his infamous ‘woman tone’ was cultivated, and can be heard on seminal tracks such as Sunshine of Your Love, White Room and I Feel Free.

Built in 1964, the Gibson received an eye-catching paint job courtesy of Dutch design collective The Fool, and became a totem of the psychedelic era and 1967's Summer of Love.

Following Cream's demise, Clapton passed the guitar on to his close friend George Harrison, who in turn gave it to guitarist and singer-songwriter Jackie Lomax.

And it was at that point that another rock legend, Todd Rundgren, stepped in to save it from a seedy death in Woodstock, NY, snapping it up for just $500.

The guitar would remain in his possession until 2023, when it was auctioned and sold for $1.27 million – making it one of the most expensive guitars ever sold at auction. Not a bad return on investment.

Do you remember the first time you saw The Fool?

“It was the first time that Cream played in the US. They were doing the Murray the K Show at the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn. I hadn’t seen a lot of pictures of Eric, but everyone remembers the photo on the back of the Bluesbreakers record, where he’s sitting there with his Les Paul.

“I expected that, but he came out with this psychedelic SG, and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s weird!’ And he had his hair in an afro, which was equally weird! I saw The Fool up close a lot in the early days because Cream would play in these tiny underground clubs, and I was six feet away from his Marshall stack. So I knew Sunny pretty well before I ever met Sunny personally.”

Why did you call the guitar Sunny?

“Because of Sunshine of Your Love, and because it’s got a sunrise on it.”

What led to you owning the SG?

“I’m in Woodstock years later and somebody says, ‘Jackie Lomax has the original Fool guitar, and wants to sell it.’ I went over to visit him and there was The Fool – in the worst possible shape you could imagine.

“The paint job was flaking off. Eric had sweated through the paint job and into the wood; it was like balsa at that point. The bridge had been replaced with a wooden bridge, and the action was super-high because they were using it as a lap guitar.

“Jackie said, ‘If you give me the money I’ll loan it to you, then I’ll buy it back from you.’ He never showed up to buy it back – until like three decades later, when he thought he could give me $500 and get it back!

“That’s what it cost me: I gave Jackie Lomax $500. But it was really beat up; it wasn’t long after that that the headstock just snapped off the guitar altogether.”

How did you go about restoring it?

“The first thing I did was change it back to a standard bridge. I got rid of the wooden bridge and it didn’t have the original bridge anymore, and I played it as-is for a while.

“There were very few pictures of the back and the back of the neck, so we had to fake a joint for a new headstock. I played it for a very long time after that, but it was rarely my main instrument because it was kind of fragile. I got nervous about taking it out on the road – something might happen to it or it might get stolen. So I kept it off the road for a long time.”

What was the guitar like to play?

“You could get up there on the neck without any wood getting in the way. I liked to do that – go up to that double-high E, and choke it, baby!

”But pickup winding became an issue. The range of what you could get was hampered a bit. And it was a Gibson, so it had that characteristic Gibson humbucker sound. So if you wanted a different sound, you had to play a different guitar.”

Why did you auction it?

“In the ’90s, Eric auctioned off a bunch of his guitars, and one that he’d played a lot, called Brownie, went for about half a million dollars. I was – as I often am – in trouble with the IRS, so I thought, ‘This is probably the time.’ I had Sotheby’s auction the guitar off and all the money went to the IRS. By then I had a replica.”

What’s the story behind that replica, given to you by a fan in the ’80s?

“A Japanese guy showed up at a show with it. It was a dead-on replica, except he’d never seen the original one. He’d painted it from pictures in a magazine, and the colors in the magazine were much brighter than the ones on the guitar.

“So, Sunny II – I guess – was a brighter-looking guitar. But it also had a different sound because, on the original Sunny, they’d unwound the pickups a bit to give it a sharper sound. So the replica with original pickups sounded a bit better than Sunny did!”

Does the replica play the same as the original?

“They were very similar to play. They were equally top-heavy; if you put your hands up the headstock would fall down, depending on how you had your strap! It was not balanced like a normal guitar, so you had to get used to that.

“Once you did, the luxurious part was the length of the neck, and that there was no obstruction all the way up to the top of the neck. You could get close without a whole lot of effort.”

• Todd Rundgren is on tour now.

Whatever your preferred style of bass playing, you owe a debt to the late Jack Bruce, who is most famous for his bass explorations with Cream but whose importance in our world can’t be summed up in a single genre tag.

Few bassists have managed to successfully develop a style and then skilfully weave it through decades of radically changing music, but Bruce made it look easy, and was lauded as the 11th best bass player of all time in our rundown of the all-time greatest.

Having come to popular music from jazz, Bruce brought with him the sensibility of a fearless improviser. In Cream, he didn't just bend notes and stretch harmonies – he pushed the limits of what was possible on his instrument.

Even if Bruce claimed that Cream was actually a cleverly disguised form of his first musical love, jazz, his own solo releases spanned a wide range of sounds that make him almost impossible to categorise.

“Jack was one of the greatest ever,” Jeff Berlin told Bass Player. “He was an influence on everybody. He was the first virtuoso the electric bass ever had.”

No history of Jack Bruce however would be complete without a mention of his meeting with another bass guitar superhero, Jaco Pastorius – widely hailed as one of the greatest of all time.

“I met Jaco while I was rehearsing in Manhattan around 1984,” Bruce told Bass Player back in 2001. “I had seen him at the Rainbow in London with Weather Report a few years prior, and he was magnificent.”

“He sent a message to the studio saying he'd like to meet me at a little club in the Village called 55 Grand. I went down and it was him and Jerry Jemmott, so the three of us started playing.

“Jaco thought he'd put one over on me and started calling Ellington tunes and jazz standards, not knowing about my jazz upright background. Each time I knew the song, he'd go, ‘hummph!’ because he couldn't stump me.

“We talked a bit afterward, and he told me I had influenced him – but I don't know if he was just schmoozing me.”

Bruce continued the story in Bill Milkowski’s book, Jaco: The Extraordinary And Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius, “He was kind of crazed at the time. He was going up to people in the bar and yelling, ‘Hey, here's the guy who wrote Sunshine of Your Love.’ He seemed to be going in all directions at once.”

“At one point he told me there was going to be an after-hours jam at a recording studio and asked if I would come. I said, ‘Sorry, I can't. I've got something to do, but it's been really nice meeting you.’ He got really upset and ran off down the street. He turned the corner, and I never saw him again.”

In a 1998 Bass Player interview, Jeff Berlin mentioned that according to Jaco's brother Rory, Jaco was influenced by Bruce's midrange sound and aggressive lead style, and that he had bought Bruce's early solo discs and studied them.

Recalling attempts at getting his famous tone, Bruce told Bass Player, “The way I play is very personal, it’s some techniques I’ve developed because I was a cellist and then an acoustic bass player, and all of those things are not really much good to anybody else.

“Frank Zappa wanted the most outrageous Jack Bruce sound when I did his album Apostrophe – not the Cream Bruce sound, which was sort of a fart, but an extremely cranked buzz. People comment on what a great sound it is, but I was ashamed of it!”

Bruce may have been all about change musically, but his gear remained a constant. One of his early basses was the Fender IV, which he used into the early Cream days until he switched to a short-scale Gibson EB3. His main instrument became his signature fretless Warwick Thumb Bass, which he helped design.

Bruce backed off a bit on the neck pickup “for some bite,” kept the active tone knobs “basically flat,” and had the volume knob up only halfway, “because I play pretty hard.”

Despite their enormous success and equally profound influence on the development of rock, Cream disintegrated barely two years into their existence.

That very success had taken a heavy toll on the trio, which teamed Eric Clapton up with the famously always-at-loggerheads rhythm section of bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker.

Tired, among other things, of being sandwiched in between the volatile personalities of the latter two, Clapton was particularly eager to exit the fold.

“On the last US tour, after a gig in Texas in 1968, Eric came to me and said, ‘I’ve had enough.’ And I said, ‘So have I,’” Baker told Guitar World in 1997. “And that was it. We decided, for different reasons, that it was all over. When Cream died, it died. Short of murder, we couldn’t solve a problem between us.”

Grief, of course, has many stages, and according to Dónal Gallagher, brother of guitar legend Rory Gallagher, Cream's management – when faced with the lucrative band's breakup – definitely went through a pronounced denial stage.

According to Dónal, the band's representatives, aware of Clapton's disillusion, decided to try and nab a replacement: his brother.

Though held in high esteem in guitar circles (An oft-repeated, perhaps apocryphal story goes that Jimi Hendrix was once asked how it felt to be the greatest guitar player in the world, to which he said, “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Rory Gallagher”), Gallagher hadn't followed Clapton's road to commercial triumph. A gig with Cream would certainly have given him a push in that direction.

Nonetheless, the fiercely independent Gallagher had no interest.

“It was very much a management thing – ‘Find somebody to replace Clapton,’” Dónal Gallagher told Guitar World in a 2009 interview. “Rory was known to them, and they got on well. But Rory wouldn't have any of it. He said, ‘Musically, there's no way I'd try and fill somebody else's shoes, especially Eric's.’”

But what of the potential rewards – the fame, the money?

“Yes, it would have been a fast track,” Dónal said. “But he felt that he would never be his own man.”

Though quite a bit of it sadly only came after his untimely death in 1995, Gallagher has now received widespread recognition as one of the great blues-rock guitar heroes of his or any age.

Proof of this newfound recognition could be found last October, when Gallagher's most beloved guitar, a heavily-worn '61 Strat, sold at auction for an incredible $1.16 million.

The sale of the guitar was seen as so significant that it attracted the attention of significant figures in the Irish government, who endorsed a grassroots fundraising effort to keep the guitar in Gallagher's native country.

The guitar was purchased for that princely sum by Live Nation Gaiety Ltd, with the intention of donating it to no less than the National Museum of Ireland.

The Gibson EB-1 bass guitar that Jack Bruce played during Cream’s reunion shows in 2005 is set to be displayed at the Gibson Garage in London to celebrate the location’s first anniversary.

To mark the occasion, a series of in-store events will take place February 18-24, with exclusive product launches mooted.

Bruce’s iconic four-string, a 1950s Cherry Red violin model, will be on display for four weeks from February 20. The EB-1 was Gibson’s first electric bass build, and this particular example was also used in BBM – Bruce’s power trio with Cream bandmate Ginger Baker and blues guitar legend Gary Moore.

But it’s the Cream reunion shows that took place across four sold-out nights at the Royal Albert Hall in London for which the bass will be best remembered and revered for. Gibson has called that quartet of shows “arguably one of the biggest rock reunion performances of all time”.

It was a historic run worthy of such gushing hyperbole. At the time of the concerts, Bruce spoke to Bass Player magazine and discussed just how special the reunion felt.

“The Royal Albert Hall was incredible,” he said. “I'm always nervous before a show, but this one took my breath away, sent shivers up my spine, the whole bit. Eric said, ‘Okay, you go first, Jack,’ because I was on the far side of the stage however, my legs didn't seem to want to do that!

“But the warmth of the audience was phenomenal, and when we began playing, that was it – no problems.”

The EB-1 will be unveiled during an intimate event entitled 'Jam For Jack' on February 20. The event promises live performances from Mark King, Phil Manzanera, Gary Husband, and plenty more.

The display is in aid of the soon-to-be-established Jack Bruce Foundation, which will support young people facing barriers to accessing music education.

Tickets are available from Gibson, with proceeds going to the Jack Bruce Foundation. A special, currently unspecified bass guitar will also be auctioned during the event.

A statement from the Bruce family reads: “We are very excited to be collaborating with the Gibson Garage Fest to celebrate Jack’s incredible legacy and to aid the new Foundation, with the display and ‘Jam For Jack’.

“It will be wonderful for Jack’s fans to be able to view his iconic EB-1 violin bass in exhibition. This bass guitar has always been on display at the family home, it meant a great deal to him and remains one of our most beloved of Jack’s treasures.”

The Gibson Garage London, the firm’s first flagship store outside of the US, opened in early 2024 with a little help from Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi, and Brian May.

Head to Gibson Garage London for more.

Ask any bass-playing great of the last 50 years who their heroes are, and you can bet that James Jamerson will feature high up the list. A bass-playing pioneer, some might say a visionary.

“The first time I met James Jamerson was in 1974 at the Record Plant in L.A.,” recalled Jack Bruce in a Sept/Oct '01 Bass Player interview. “He was there to do a Stevie Wonder session, and I was next door, coincidentally doing a tribute-to-Stevie track called Keep On Wondering for my album Out of the Storm.

“I was overdubbing my bass part in the control room, and suddenly the door burst open. It was James, who was late and had come into the wrong room. He started listening and said to me, ’No, no, that's not the way you do it,’ and he grabbed my EB-3 and started playing to show me how it should be done!”

“I was there for months doing my record, so I saw him a lot. We had some good talks, and he eventually asked if I wanted to do some of his session load. He was a really nice guy, but he was a little bitter because he felt exiled from Motown.”

“Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder… he’s on all those great tracks, but they tried to muddy the waters a bit sometimes and say it was another bass player. He played on 30 number ones, which is not a bad record.”

Bruce hit a milestone of his own back in April 2010 with the release of his authorised biography, Composing Himself. The highlights are numerous, with stories from his days with Alexis Korner's Blues Inc., the Graham Bond Organisation – an incarnation of which featured the young John McLaughlin – John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and, of course, Cream, in which he created a mesmerising rock spectacle alongside Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton.

As a bassist, Bruce reached creative maturity with Cream. If you listen to his early work on records like the Graham Bond Organization's The Sound of '65 (with Bruce on Fender Bass VI, an instrument he continued to play through the making of Fresh Cream) you can hear his innovative style beginning to emerge.

Bruce explained it this way in a 1993 Bass Player interview: “I was trying to find different sounds and different approaches. I was trying to play it like a guitar.”

This wasn't just a matter of cranking his amp, flinging out lots of notes, and bending strings – although he certainly did those things. Bruce fervently believed that basslines should be melodic as well as supportive, and in asserting this concept in Cream he elevated the role of the rock bass player to new heights.

That tone's evolution is easy to follow thanks to a 1997 Cream boxset, Those Were the Days, on which the bass moves from the polite studio sound of Fresh Cream to the power of such 1968 live tracks as Spoonful and Sweet Wine.

The latter has one of the most striking examples of Bruce's “like a guitar” concept. About eight minutes into the jam, Bruce and Clapton reverse roles, with Bruce playing high on the bass neck as Clapton lays down bass figures on guitar.

We had to ask about the offer he received in 1965 from none other than Marvin Gaye to join his band. Does Bruce ever wish he'd said yes? “Around that time, I was suffering a lot of criticism for playing too many notes, or playing in a certain way. He loved my playing, though, so I must have been doing something right.”

“Yes, it would have been amazing to see a white guy go there and be a part of that scene: it could have changed a lot of things and would have been wonderful. But I was too young and you wouldn't have had Cream. What happens happens, and I'm not too sorry in the long run.”

While never setting any ‘loudest concert’ world records, Cream were undoubtedly one of the most deafening rock bands of their day, awing onlookers with Marshall amp stacks at a time when the term ‘heavy metal’ meant, well, literal heavy metal.

During their incredibly brief run – barely two-and-a-half years, from 1966 to late 1968 – Cream essentially invented the concept of the rock power trio, while injecting an improvisational, free-form approach to blues standards that helped invent the ‘blues-rock’ genre as we know and understand it today.

Featuring the titanic rhythm section of jazz/blues veterans Jack Bruce on bass and Ginger Baker on drums, and, of course, Eric Clapton on guitar, Cream featured three virtuosos who, let's face it, weren't shy about demonstrating just how deep their talents ran. Inevitably, with this mindset, ego was a factor from the beginning.

Baker and Bruce, in particular, never had a particularly easy relationship – Clapton once said that the two got into a heated argument at the band's very first meeting, never mind their first session or live performance.

As the band grew increasingly successful, they were better placed to afford the sort of amplification they needed to fill the ever-larger venues they were playing in. Without Marshall stacks of his own, though, Baker began to grow impatient with what he saw as Clapton's, and especially Bruce's, excessive onstage volume.

“When we started in 1966, Eric and Jack had one Marshall each. Then it became a stack, then a double stack, and finally a triple stack,” the late drummer told Guitar World in 1997. “By 1968, I was just the poor bastard stuck in the middle of these incredible noise-making things. It was ridiculous.

“I used to get back to the hotel and my ears were roaring. That final year damaged my hearing. The incredible volume was one of the things that destroyed the band. Playing loud had nothing to do with music. There was, in fact, one gig where Eric and I stopped playing for two choruses. Jack didn’t even know. Standing in front of his triple stack of Marshalls, he was making so much noise he couldn’t tell.”

It would be almost 40 years before Cream reunited, for a series of concerts in London, and later New York. Despite the light-years of advancement in amp and sound system tech in the intervening decades, the issue of volume reared its head once again during the band's reunion.

Asked in a 2006 interview why Cream passed on scheduling any more reunion gigs after their New York concerts in late 2005, Baker echoed his complaints about the band's final shows four decades prior.

“He [Bruce] shouted at me on stage, [and] turned his bass up so loud that he deafened me on the first gig,” Baker said.

Of course, though, there are two sides to every story. Speaking to Bass Player in 2005, Bruce justified the band's eardrum-flattening late '60s-era volume, saying, “On 90 percent of the gigs there was no proper PA or any monitoring, so the sound we got was the sound onstage. In order to generate the kind of excitement we wanted, we had to play really loud and create that sound with our gear.”

Though the interview was conducted prior to the New York shows during which Baker took issue with the late bassist's volume, Bruce said at the time, “Nowadays, sound technology is spectacular, and we aren't loud at all onstage.”

Just as he did on most topics during the band's heyday, Clapton, when reflecting on the band's live muscle, shied away from taking sides.

“I think we were one of the early heavy metal bands without knowing it,” the guitarist once said. “After we disbanded, Led Zeppelin filled the void.”

Those skeptical of Cream being classified as a proto heavy metal band need only turn to one of the pioneers of metal bass playing, Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler, who considered Bruce to be his greatest influence (appropriate, given Sunshine of Your Love ranks as one of the heaviest songs before Black Sabbath).

“I knew about Eric Clapton’s guitar playing because I’d followed him since he was in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. I was a guitarist at the time, so I’d never thought about bass – and Jack completely floored me,” Butler told Bass Player in a 2006 interview.

“I’d never seen anyone use bass as a sort of semi-lead instrument, while at the same time being perfectly linked to the drums and the guitar. The way he bent the notes and came down the fretboard was amazing, too.

“At the time,” Butler continued, “he was playing a Fender [Bass] VI, which I’d never seen before – they were terrible! I couldn’t even play one note on them, let alone the way he used to play them. He must have incredibly thin fingers, or something…”

Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker gave birth to the power trio, redefined rock improvisation and sold millions of albums. For all their success, nothing could stop the Cream from curdling.

The year was 1968, and guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce, and drummer Ginger Baker were sitting on top of the world.

Or so it seemed. In three short years, their band, Cream, had recorded a slew of brilliant hit singles, sold an astonishing 15 million records, and redefined the role of the instrumentalist in rock.

Their concerts, which usually sold out immediately, had become legendary for the trio’s ferocious virtuosity and wild, blues-based improvisations that exploded with a jazzy sense of adventure.

But all was not well in Cream. The problem, it was whispered, was ego. And as the individual musicians’ reputations grew and heads swelled, their amp rigs ballooned accordingly.

“Cream’s last year was extremely painful for me,” recalls Baker. “When we started in 1966, Eric and Jack had one Marshall each. Then it became a stack, then a double stack, and finally a triple stack. By 1968, I was just the poor bastard stuck in the middle of these incredible noise-making things. It was ridiculous.

“I used to get back to the hotel and my ears were roaring. That final year damaged my hearing. The incredible volume was one of the things that destroyed the band. Playing loud had nothing to do with music. There was, in fact, one gig where Eric and I stopped playing for two choruses. Jack didn’t even know. Standing in front of his triple stack of Marshalls, he was making so much noise he couldn’t tell.”

But while the band came to a crashing halt after three volatile years, it’s nearly impossible to exaggerate the importance of Cream.

They were rock’s first power trio: they gave birth to the notion of the “rock virtuoso,” laid the foundation for heavy metal, and inspired several generations of bands, from Black Sabbath to Van Halen to Smashing Pumpkins. And while they are best remembered for their sophisticated instrumental work, Cream also recorded some remarkable pop singles, including Sunshine of Your Love, White Room, and Badge.

Cream came together in mid-1966, when Baker left the respected British rhythm-and-blues ensemble Graham Bond Organization, Bruce (formerly of Graham Bond) left Manfred Mann, and Eric Clapton, already a legend in Britain, left John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.

The group’s formation was set in motion by Baker, who reached out to Clapton and won him over with his grand vision of “becoming the biggest pop group in the world.”

“I had always liked Ginger,” explained Clapton. “Ginger had come to see me play with John Mayall. After the gig, he drove me back to London in his Rover. I was very impressed with his car and his driving. He was telling me that he wanted to start a band, and I had been thinking about it too. It was a sort of coincidence – synchronicity, really. We were thinking the same thing at the same time.”

Clapton agreed to join Baker’s new group, but he unwittingly threw a wrench into the drummer’s plans. Clapton made a special request that Jack Bruce be recruited as the group’s bassist.

Clapton had briefly played with Bruce at the tail end of his tenure with John Mayall and came away impressed by the bassist’s skill. Unbeknownst to Clapton, Baker and Bruce were like oil and water. The relationship had proven to be so turbulent that Bruce, uncomfortable with Baker, had left the Graham Bond Organization even as their fortunes were rising.

So eager was Baker to form a partnership with Clapton that, despite his misgivings, he agreed to have Bruce come aboard. Clapton, still unaware of the tension between his new bandmates, witnessed its volatile nature at the new group’s first get–together.

“We had our first talk-through rehearsal at Ginger’s house in Neesden,” remembered Clapton. “Those two had an argument right away. Jack had done an interview and let the cat out of the bag about the band. Ginger was upset about that, and the [argument] went along the lines of, ‘There you go, you’ve done it again!’

“I thought, ‘Wait, there’s something going back here that I’m not aware of.’ The ‘you’ve done it again’ implied that this was sort of a pattern that existed before I knew either of them.”

Dubbed the Cream by Eric Clapton, with a nod to their much-heralded reputations as soloists, the group accepted an invitation to perform at the July 1966 Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival. Barely a month old and with precious few original songs to their credit, Cream performed spirited blues re-workings that thrilled the large crowd and earned them a warm reception.

The group expanded their budding European following on the strength of the singles Wrapping Paper and I Feel Free, and Fresh Cream, their impressive 1966 debut album.

In America, Cream took longer to take hold. Despite the enduring popularity of songs such as White Room and Crossroads, they were hardly an overnight sensation. They arrived with little fanfare, and Fresh Cream struggled to find an audience. There was no Ed Sullivan Show, no Monterey Pop Festival – just hard work and a grinding tour itinerary filled with small club and college dates.

With the release of 1967’s Disraeli Gears, however, the group’s popularity exploded. Aided initially by “underground” FM radio airplay, Cream received an enormous boost when AM Top 40 radio, which had shunned the group as too hard and psychedelic, jumped on the bandwagon. That acceptance and exposure helped make Sunshine of Your Love, the group’s signature song, the largest selling single in the history of Atlantic Records up to that time.

Cream’s adventurous music directly reflected the incredible confidence each member had in his own abilities. The group successfully blended a variety of influences – spanning Delta blues, avant-garde poetry, and psychedelic pop – while forging a unique sound and style.

Heartened by their success, Cream followed Disraeli Gears in grand fashion with the lavish, 1968 double album, Wheels of Fire. While Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention had previously established the viability of double records for rock artists, Cream’s ambitious marriage of freewheeling studio recordings and raw live performances shot to the top of the charts.

On the surface, Cream were one hot and happy band. Unfortunately, despite their staggering success, they routinely teetered on the edge of destruction. The clashes between Baker and Bruce worsened and soon ensnared Clapton.

By the time Goodbye, their fourth album, was issued in 1969, the group had, in November 1968, already celebrated their farewell via a filmed finale at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Cream were finished, and neither Baker, Bruce, nor Clapton could summon the energy to resolve their differences.

As Clapton told Guitar World in 1994, “It was very intense; it actually seems like we were together for four or five years, but in fact it was very short. My overall feeling about it now is that it was a glorious mistake. I had a completely different idea of what it would be before I started it, and it ended up being a wonderful thing, but nothing like it was meant to be.

“It was meant to be a blues trio. I just didn’t have the assertiveness to take control. Jack and Ginger were the powerful, dominant personalities in the band; they sort of ran the show and I just played. In the end, I just went with the flow and I enjoyed it greatly, but it wasn’t anything like I expected at all.”

In 1997, around the time of the Complete Cream four-CD box set release, Guitar World caught up with Bruce and Baker, who had apparently resolved their longstanding differences to the point where they could discuss Cream and their friend Eric Clapton. Joining them were Cream lyricist Pete Brown and producer/engineer Tom Dowd.

Whose idea was it to form Cream?

Jack Bruce: “Forming Cream was absolutely Ginger’s idea. He asked Eric to join, and then Eric suggested that they get me to sing and play bass. I had only sung one or two numbers with Graham Bond, but Eric could see that there was some potential there. Ginger then had to come and ask me – which I thoroughly enjoyed!”

Ginger, when did you become convinced of Cream’s potential?

Ginger Baker: “I knew we had something special from the very first time we played together. We got together at my little maisonette on Braymore Avenue, in back of which was a park where all the local kids used to play. It was summer and, as we played anyway, the kids congregated on this little hill behind my place were boogying. They really enjoyed the music. It was total magic immediately. We were three people made to play with each other.”

What happened next?

Bruce: “There was a kind of plan in place when we started. We did some rehearsals in a church hall, learning how to play with each other. We were trying out songs and preparing for a couple of shows, including an unannounced gig at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester.”

Baker: “Cream went straight onto the same club circuit that Graham Bond had been doing. I went to Graham’s booking agent, Robert Masters, and said, ‘Look, you’ve got to charge more money.’ Masters said that no one would pay it, but I insisted that we be paid 45 pounds a gig instead of the 40 pounds that Graham was getting, and everybody paid it!

“I had to keep prompting them to ask for more money, and every time they did, people would pay it. The band’s reputation was huge before it was formed, really.”

When did the group begin to stand on its own?

Baker: “When Cream started to get going, our manager, Robert Stigwood, was paying a lot of attention to the Bee Gees. He would be taking out huge ads in Melody Maker for them, while the Cream would get a two-line mention. Stigwood was convinced that the Bee Gees were going to be the biggest hit of the Sixties. I don’t think he really started to get behind Cream until Fresh Cream was released in the U.S. by Atco.

“When the first album went into the charts in America – albeit at something like No. 198 or whatever – Stigwood was flabbergasted. Eric, Jack, and I were convinced. We knew what we had. But I don’t think Stigwood came around until he saw that we might actually make some money.

“It was pretty obvious that Cream was something special. I had been playing the circuit for three years with the Graham Bond Organization, and we would draw an average of 800 people for a big pub gig. When we went out with Cream to the same places, there was suddenly 1,500 people. The places were packed solid and there was often as many people outside gigs as there were inside. The venues just weren’t big enough to let all the people in.”

What was the first original Cream song developed by the group?

Bruce: “When Cream got started, I began to think about writing singles. I was very enamored of the Beatles, like everybody else at the time. I was impressed by what they were doing with their two-and- a-half-minute singles. However, what I came up with instead was N.S.U., which was pretty freewheeling. It was unusual because of the length between the verses, but I was quite pleased with it.”

Besides writing original material, you were also busy reinterpreting a series of blues masterworks, which became a major component of Cream’s repertoire.

Bruce: “Because of the interaction between the three of us, our version of the blues just naturally took on a different structure. I’m So Glad, written by Skip James, was one of the first examples, and certainly Willie Dixon’s Spoonful was something that we made our own.

“At that time, bands like John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Fleetwood Mac were trying to recreate the sounds of Chicago blues. Doing that was completely valid, but it was just something I didn’t want to do. Those original blues records had been done so well, which meant you could only ever be second best. But, if you treated those songs with a great deal of love and respect, you could remake them into your own.

“When we later got to meet people like Muddy Waters in Chicago, they were knocked out by our approach and how highly we regarded their music.”

How did lyricist Pete Brown, who was responsible for the words of songs like Sunshine of Your Love and Tales of Brave Ulysses, become part of the creative team?

Baker: “We needed someone to help us with songwriting, and Pete Brown immediately came to mind because I had played some gigs that fused jazz and poetry. As the jazz players sat onstage, the poets would come up and read their work in front of the audience. Pete Brown was one of the poets I really liked.”

Bruce: “Yeah, I was sort of given Pete Brown by Ginger. Ginger and Pete were at my flat, trying to work on a song, but it wasn’t happening. My wife Janet then got with Ginger, and they wrote Sweet Wine while I started working with Pete.”

Pete Brown: “I received a call from Ginger, who said that his group had completed a song but needed to have words. I didn’t really like rock and roll at that time. I didn’t even like the Beatles – I just couldn’t understand it. I was an avid jazz and blues fan. I had loved the Graham Bond Organization because it was made up of all these elements that I enjoyed.

“Based on my admiration for the Organization, I went to see Cream, not knowing what I was about to get into. I knew something about song form, not very much, but I had listened to a great deal of music and developed good ears. Jack played me his song, and I understood the shape and rhythmic organization.

“I proceeded to unload every cinematic image that I had ever stored into this song. For some reason, he actually accepted it and the song became Wrapping Paper, the band’s first single.”

So Wrapping Paper was the first successful Bruce/Brown composition?

Bruce: “Yeah. But I’m not sure that we actually ‘succeeded’ with Wrapping Paper. What I was trying to do musically was play with people’s expectations of us as a blues band. It is a blues song, but it doesn’t have very obvious blues changes.”

Baker: “In retrospect, Wrapping Paper was pretty pathetic [laughs]. Especially when the credit came out as Bruce/Brown. We had all been involved in that. It was an attempt to do something really pop-styled. The whole object of Cream was to become a huge pop band.”

How did you feel about your next single, I Feel Free?

Bruce: “I was quite pleased with the way that I Feel Free turned out. Even though I hadn’t had much experience in recording studios prior to Cream, I had very definite musical ideas about the songs I had written.

“I wrote all of I Feel Free out on paper, because that was the way I was still working in those days. Because of my classical background, it was easier for me to write things down and then try to realize them in the studio. I know that Ginger thought the song could have been recorded better, and we recut it, but after a little – shall we say – ‘discussion,’ it was agreed that we might end up losing what we liked by trying it again.”

What was it like recording Fresh Cream?

Baker: “We recorded the first album very quickly. It took something like 10 days. We were in complete control of our destiny. Robert Stigwood [credited as the album’s producer] was rarely there at the start of the sessions. He turned up when the album was nearly finished.

“The first album was something I was completely pleased with, to be quite frank. A lot of that album was made up of blues things that Eric brought to the table, like Cat’s Squirrel and Rollin’ and Tumblin’. We played those numbers live from the outset, and they always got the public going.”

What do you remember about Cream’s first American tour?

Baker: “We were playing mostly at colleges for what seemed like extremely small money – only about three thousand bucks a gig. The first place we ever played was Murray the K’s Music in the Fifth Dimension show in New York, and it was a fiasco. Murray was an influential New York DJ who put together these huge package shows that would feature dozens of bands. They wanted us to play three numbers and thought it would only take three minutes!

“There were supposed to be four shows a night, and on the first night there was only time for three. The Who were also on the bill, and the show ran over by something like 80 minutes. Murray the K was freaking out. After the second show, he came to our dressing room to try to get us to cut down our set. I was lying under the table, having consumed a bottle of Baccardi. Murray saw me and said, ‘How’s he gonna play?’ I told him not to worry about me.”

Bruce: “It was very bizarre. The complete show by all the artists was only supposed to last two hours. We had been given three songs and were buried at the bottom of the bill. After the first show, we were cut back to I’m So Glad. Then they wanted us to cut the length of that! Meanwhile, the spot for the Jackie the K Dancers, led by Murray’s wife, seemed to get longer and longer. It was so wild that Murray the K had security guards to keep us in the building. That was our introduction to New York and the United States.”

What do you recall about engineering Cream’s second album, Disraeli Gears?

Tom Dowd: “I got a call from [Atlantic Records label chief] Ahmet Ertegun late one afternoon, asking me to record a group that Robert Stigwood had sent over from England. Ahmet told me to get whatever I could out of them before their visas expired.

“When I arrived at the studio the next morning, the roadies were loading in these double stacks of Marshall cabinets and double-bass drums, and I thought, ‘What the hell is this?’ I hadn’t known anything about them except the fact that they were a three-piece and that two of the three could sing lead.”

In addition to Tom, Felix Pappalardi, the late bassist and songwriter, made significant contributions to the group’s sound. How did Felix get involved?

Baker: “That came about during Disraeli Gears. We had no real game plan for making the album.

“The first thing we cut was the traditional blues Hey Lawdy Mama, and Felix was at the session as a guest of Ahmet Ertegun. At the end of the session, he asked if he could take a copy of the tape away to write some words for it. He came back the next day with Strange Brew. Felix got Eric to sing the lead because he had done so for Hey Lawdy Mama. All of this didn’t go down so well with Jack, because he considered himself to be the lead vocalist.

“Anyway, Eric and I were both very impressed with Felix. We had some discussions with Ahmet and Tom Dowd and afterward got Felix to come in and produce the album. He got very involved musically. Ahmet was also at the studio almost every day. I was also extremely impressed with Tom Dowd, who was an absolutely amazing engineer. Actually, he wasn’t just an engineer – it was like having another musician around.”

Dowd: “Felix usually sat out in the studio while I was recording in the control room – especially during playbacks. He would point out certain things to each band member where he felt improvements could be made. There was a lot of dialog between Felix and the three of them. Some of it was specific to the session, but it also included exposing them to the styles of different artists and sounds.”

How did Sunshine of Your Love develop?

Bruce: “Pete Brown and I had been working all night, trying to write stuff, and we hadn’t got anywhere. I picked up my double bass and played the riff. Pete looked out the window, saw that the sun was coming up, and wrote, ‘It’s getting near dawn/And lights closed their tired eyes…’”

Brown: “Eric added the hook. Funny enough, I never liked it, although it makes a lot of sense, musically. I didn’t like the title, Sunshine of Your Love. I suppose, though, that it hit the mark with so many people because it was such a broad idea. In the long run, thank you, Eric! But in the short term, I must admit I was pretty miserable about it.”

Bruce: “I knew Sunshine of Your Love was going to go over well because both Booker T. Jones and Otis Redding heard it and told me it was going to be a smash. Their opinions really meant a lot to me.”

Where did Cream’s tradition of long, extended individual solos first take root?

Bruce: “When we started out, a typical rock band set lasted only 45 minutes. When we got to the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, the audience wanted us to stretch out. I remember them shouting, ‘Just play!’ That’s exactly when we started to play longer. It became a kind of trademark for us, which, in a way, was a mixed blessing.

“It was very difficult to do every time we played, and it took its toll. I used to think of it like the Who smashing their instruments: it’s expensive to have to do that night after night. For us to have to do very long improvisations every night was expensive on our brains!”

The Wheels of Fire sessions in June 1968 were really productive and yielded a number of classic Cream songs. How did White Room evolve?

Bruce: “I had written words to the song – almost scat words – which started off about cycling through France. I had a definite idea about the feeling I wanted the song to have, and Pete came up with a set of lyrics. Together, we rewrote and rewrote until we had something we were both very happy with.”

Brown: “My draft of White Room started its life as an eight-page poem. Because I had had some spurious journalistic training at college, I was able to pare my eight-page poem to a single page of lyrics.”

Bruce: “Musically, White Room was inspired by Jimi Hendrix. Jimi had a way of using chord changes and taking traditional ideas and modernizing them. He was a big fan of the band, and we certainly loved his music.”

The acoustic As You Said, from Wheels of Fire, was an interesting departure for the band.

Bruce: “I wanted Eric to play guitar on that track, but he encouraged me to do it. I was always embarrassed about my acoustic guitar playing – especially having Eric Clapton in the band. But Richie Havens showed me this great open tuning, and I wanted that guitar sound on the track. When I had the music completed, I went to Pete. He had these words already written which fit right on top of what we had done. It was perfect.”

Politician is another memorable track from those sessions.

Bruce: “We were scheduled to perform on the BBC and needed a song. Pete had given me the words, which had a great blues feel to them. Eric and I were jamming and trying to come up with a lick. There was no big writing session or anything like that. It came together quickly, and we performed it for the first time on that radio program.”

By the time Wheels of Fire was being recorded, the Bruce/Brown team had begun to outpace both Eric and Ginger as songwriters. Did that affect the band negatively?

Bruce: “The sessions for Wheels were very productive, but I think problems were beginning to emerge, because Eric and Ginger weren’t coming up with as much original material. I wasn’t even particularly happy that a lot of the songs were coming from Pete and me.

“Eric and Ginger were beginning to write some great stuff, but just not as fast. I would have preferred that management let us have a few months to work on new material, because that would have kept us moving forward.”

Brown: “My poetry background had me prepared for writing on demand. I had also stopped drinking and taking drugs, which helped a great deal. Jack was bubbling over, full of new ideas. Once he and I had established a way of working, there was a wellspring of material that came quite quickly.

“I tried to write with Eric and Ginger, but it didn’t seem to work out. Possibly it was due to chemistry, as Ginger was able to collaborate with Mike Taylor on a number of things, but we were never able to really connect.”

As engineer for most Cream sessions, Tom, did you notice tension in the band during the Wheels sessions?

Dowd: “With Disraeli Gears, once Ahmet felt that the group was comfortable, he left the details to Felix and me. Apart from my tape operator and a roadie or two, there was nobody else around.

“When the group came back to record Wheels of Fire, there was a whole different set of circumstances. I knew that there had been some animosity among the three players, but when we would listen to playbacks in the control room, there were times when I thought they were going to kill each other.”

Brown: “I know there was some resentment from Eric and Ginger, but songs were needed and Jack and I were there with the songs – good songs, which have stood the test of time.”

Baker: “The problem wasn’t that Jack and Pete were writing songs; the bone of contention was whether they should get all the credit for them. It still rankles me that I got no credit whatsoever for contributing heavily to the arrangement of two of Cream’s most popular tunes.

“The whole way Sunshine turned out was totally my input, and I’ve never even received a thank you for it. Also, the whole introduction to White Room – the 5/4 ‘Bolero’ thing – was my input to the tune. When both songs came out, I wasn’t even mentioned. This happens to many drummers.”

With the group’s tremendous success, couldn’t anything be done to mend the personal disputes?

Baker: “Not really. The problems started very early on. Actually, the only thing that held the band together was its success.”

Bruce: “In addition to the band’s creative tensions, there really was a lack of foresight or belief on behalf of the management. We worked much too hard. Three guys on the road, away from their friends and families for three long tours – that can be pretty destructive to a band. We certainly weren’t the first band that wasn’t helped by those circumstances.”

Was Clapton’s discovery of the Band’s Music from Big Pink a factor in the group’s breakup?

Bruce: “Like a lot of people, Eric was deeply influenced by that album. We fell in love with the economy of that record and began to think that what we were doing was okay, but maybe kind of florid. I think the idea of us getting back to the roots indicated to me that we had lost a bit of our confidence in what we’d been doing.”

Clapton has often spoken of Rolling Stone magazine’s condemnation of the band as another factor behind his decision to leave. [In the May 11, 1968, issue, writer Jon Landau delivered a lengthy critique of Cream in concert, citing “one-dimensional” improvisations that “made no use of dynamics, structure, or any of the other elements of rock besides drum licks and guitar riffs.” In July that year, the magazine printed editor Jann Wenner’s assertion that “Cream is good at a number of things, unfortunately songwriting and recording are not among them.”] Was this really an issue?

Baker: “The article had a very detrimental effect on Eric because he thought Rolling Stone had a lot of credibility. He was a very sensitive fellow, and I’m convinced the article did him a great deal of harm. It was his favorite magazine, and to read something like that in it hurt him.”

Bruce: “I remember that article very well. That certainly contributed to the end of Cream, but it was really quite silly. It tried to say that Eric Clapton couldn’t play the guitar. That was the kind of thing one would expect from the English music press, not Rolling Stone. It certainly hurt me, because they questioned our integrity. We were always sincere about music, right up until the end.”

Baker: “On the last US tour, after a gig in Texas in 1968, Eric came to me and said, ‘I’ve had enough.’ And I said, ‘So have I.’ And that was it. We decided, for different reasons, that it was all over. When Cream died, it died. Short of murder, we couldn’t solve a problem between us.”

While Cream decided to disband, you agreed to record Goodbye, a farewell album, and perform a November 1968 farewell concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Why?

Baker: “We wanted to go out on an up note. That’s why we did the album and the show at the Albert Hall. In fact, when we performed that last show, we were just blown away by the emotion from the audience. It went so well that we all wondered – just for a moment – if we had made the right decision, to split up.”

This article was originally published in Guitar World in 1997.

Though he’s insisted he won't write a book about all his rock ‘n’ roll war stories, Ritchie Blackmore has done the next best thing: he’s started a new YouTube series, during which he’ll recall the tales he’s been telling his closest friends over the years.

The first episode finds the Deep Purple electric guitar legend look back on the time he first met Eric Clapton when his band supported Cream back in 1968 – as well as a far more awkward encounter he had with Slowhand and his security team some time later.

Though Blackmore had given Clapton a good first impression, a subsequent impression wasn’t quite so favorable, after Blackmore and his friend decided to protest some noisy hotel maintenance by cranking their Marshalls at 3am.

Unfortunately, Clapton happened to be staying in the room next door to them, and wasn’t especially impressed with the high-gain antics.

“We were in a hotel, I think it was Melbourne, Australia,” Blackmore explains. “What happened was, I knew that Eric was with his band in that hotel. 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. The next day 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.

“As soon as he started playing we were so loud we got a bang on the door and it was Eric's security.”

Unfortunately, Clapton wasn’t staying on a different floor of the hotel, as Blackmore had believed. He was, unfortunately, right next door – and Blackmore was left feeling embarrassed by both the loud noise and the unimpressive playing.

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

"The next day we had some words with his security and I said, 'I'm really sorry, I didn't realize 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.”

Head over to Ritchie Blackmore’s YouTube channel to follow the ongoing series.

Some people believe rock ’n’ roll should never leave the cozy three-chord confines of the garage – and then there's Jack Bruce. The late Cream bassist, who died in September 2014, wouldn't have had it any other way.

“There are specialists who remain in one idiom for their entire careers, and no-one respects them more than I do,” Bruce told Bass Player in 2001. “But there also have to be artists willing to go out on a limb in order for the music to grow and go somewhere new.”

Ignited by the influence of James Jamerson, Bruce developed an aggressive, lead-bass style in the bands of blues rockers Alexis Korner, Graham Bond, and John Mayall. This culminated in the 1966 formation of Cream, the legendary power trio with Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton that permanently altered the face of rock.

Bruce's bass innovations – first with his Fender VI and then with his Gibson EB-3 – provided a cornerstone in the instrument's development.

In his post-Cream career, Bruce collaborated with artists as varied as Leslie West, Robin Trower, Frank Zappa, Lou Reed, Carla Bley, John McLaughlin, Bernie Worrell, and Billy Cobham. His solo albums comprise an audio diary of his unmistakable bass playing, singing and writing.

The following interview took place in New York City and was first published in the September 2001 issue of Bass Player, with Bruce promoting his 12th solo album, Shadows in the Air.

How did you get the concept for Shadows in the Air?

“After a long solo-album hiatus – which was really just the result of me not having anything inspiring enough to record – I got the idea to do a trilogy of Latin-influenced albums. I must admit the crossover popularity of Latin artists plays a little part in it, but mainly I've just grown to love the music.

“I was a big fan of Chano Pozo's work with Dizzy Gillespie in the late '40s. Dizzy brought Afro-Cuban music to jazz, and in my own small way I'm trying to do that now by bringing it to rock – the same way Cream brought the blues to rock.”

The percussion on Sunshine of Your Love sounds like it's always been there.

“Right, like the song was written for this instrumentation – with percussion and Andy Gonzalez on upright – and this playing style. I wanted Eric to sing on this with me, so I figured he should bring his guitar along! We sang it just like the original, but now you can really hear the difference in our voices.”

White Room is more of a departure from the original.

“It was more of a challenge, too. The percussionists all worked their magic, and El Negro added some little ‘out’ beats that are absolutely ridiculous. Eric was a bit taken aback because there's no real backbeat except for me playing quarter-notes, but once he got into it he had no problem.”

How did your relationship with producer Kip Hanrahan figure in?

“We first hooked up in 1982 when he called me to sing on his album Desire Develops an Edge, and we've been working and writing together ever since.

“Kip and I had four other songs demoed for a total of six, which we brought to the core band: Milton Cardona, Changuito, and Richie Flores on percussion, Robby and El Negro on drums, and Vernon Reid on guitar. We culled the rest of the material from their input, suggestions, and improvisations. I was surprised that many of them knew my music, right down to the solo albums.

“We recorded the album during three weeks in New York – one week to cut the tracks, one week for overdubs and vocals, and one week for mixing. Eric Clapton and Gary Moore did their parts at Olympic Studios in London.”

Were you concerned about playing within the clave, considering your supporting cast?

“No. I'm not totally knowledgeable, but I've learned how to play and sing in the clave and to play a tumbao. On this album, though, it's about those guys coming over to my music and my bass playing. It's kind of like I paid my dues playing their music with them over the years, and now they’re reciprocating.

“I had some odd meters and other things they don't normally do, but they were bursting with ideas and enthusiasm. And incredibly, once we started playing, I never had to say a word or direct them – it just happened.”

The opener is a cover of your 1973 West, Bruce & Laing tune Out in the Fields.

“That was at Robby Ameen's request. We wanted to do a drum-n-bass-style take on it, though there's only a hint of that on the finished version. There are two tracks of bass; in the breakdown I add a second note in harmony with the original bass part. Actually, I recorded the basic track on piano. That's how I usually do it on my solo albums – all the way back to my first, Songs for a Tailor.”

“I usually cut with piano, drums, and maybe guitar, and I put the bass guitar on later, which is fun. Stevie Wonder let me look in on a session for an album he was making in the early '70s. He laid down an electric piano part and guide vocal, and then he overdubbed drums and then bass. That gave me ideas.”

What's the story behind Boston Ball Game 1967?

“I wrote that in Boston when I was with Cream, during the World Series between the Red Sox and the Cardinals. We were playing a club called the Psychedelic Supermarket and were holed up in a hotel.

“It was a difficult time for us to be on the street in a town like Boston because of the way we looked, so there was a lot of anger, which is reflected in the screaming vocals. I had always imagined the tune with horns, so instead of using it with Cream, I held it for Songs for a Tailor.

“It's a written arrangement done like the original, with the addition of percussion and Andy Gonzalez doubling my bassline while I gradually get loose with it.”

You've described its 6-against-4 feel as a Scottish version of African rhythms.

“I believe it's all tied together. The Scots have something called puirt à beul (pronounced porsht-a-bayle), which means ‘mouth music’ – people were so poor they didn't have instruments, so they invented dance music that was just clapping, stamping, and singing. And much like traditional African music, it goes between very heavy 12/8 or 6 to straight 8 or 4. I grew up with that.”

Dr. John plays keyboards on This Angel's a Liar and Windowless Rooms.

“I wrote those tunes with him in mind. I've admired Dr. John for many years, but we had never played together. He was great – the first thing he said was, ‘These songs are right up my alley.’ I also wanted to have material on the album that showed the relationship between Afro-Cuban and Afro-Caribbean music, and how it all came together in New Orleans.”

Both songs establish your ever-present connection to the blues.

“The blues is a great American expression of something that exists everywhere. I hear it in Indian music and African music. There's something called the Free Church Of Scotland which is so strict they're not allowed any musical instruments, so they only can sing – and you can hear it in there, too.”

How was Directions Home put together, with its multiple bass tracks?

“It was mainly improvised in the studio, as was Mr. Flesh and 52nd Street. All I had was the hand-clapped rhythm, which is the same clapped rhythm as Boston Ball Game played twice – but the second time it's pushed forward by an eighth-note. The percussionists were stunned when I first played it for them, but in seconds they were all over it.

“On bass, I played the chord roots with the band, and then I went back and overdubbed two more harmony lines and a lead-bass part that sort of decorates in between the vocals.

“Recording multiple bass parts is something I've done a lot over the years, inspired by Steve Swallow. I love the sound; I think of it as a sort of giant, warm acoustic guitar strumming away. I featured that approach on Childsong from my 1993 album, Something Els.”

You dedicate the track to Tony Williams and Larry Young of Lifetime. What are your thoughts on that band?

“Lifetime was, in many ways, a high spot for me. Cream was, too, of course – but you could say Lifetime was a later version of what Cream was doing. I was very proud to play with the late, great Tony Williams, and Larry was an absolute genius; one of the very few I've worked with. He's like the Coltrane of the organ. I'd have to say Lifetime was the most amazing band I was ever a part of.”

The album's three ballads are intriguing.

“I wrote Heart Quake with Pete Brown last year. It's in three with a minor tonality and long descending phrases. I cut the basic tracks with percussion while playing piano and singing a guide vocal, which we kept.

“I wrote Dark Heart with Kip; it goes back and forth between major and minor, and the percussion gives it more of a backbeat than a ballad feel. I'm quite pleased with the moving harmony in the bridge, too; that took a bit of work.

“Milonga, written with Kip, is the name of a popular Argentinean rhythm that's not as well known in the U.S. as the tango. The track is rubato, with me singing and playing piano and then overdubbing bass.”

Dancing on Air shows your R&-B/funk roots.

“The funk is just in my bones; I've always been naturally open to it. I attribute it to growing up in Glasgow, which is a lot like Detroit or Chicago, with its poverty and urban industrial setting – along with my early love of black music.

“I did a couple of TV shows with Marvin Gaye when he came to London in 1965. We hung out all night talking music, and he asked me to join his band, which I couldn't do, because I was getting married.

“I was getting a lot of criticism at the time for playing freely and melodically in pop and rock settings because of James Jamerson’s influence, so Marvin's approval meant a lot to me. Actually, Dancing on Air was on my 1980 album I've Always Wanted to Do This, but that was a more open version.”

Your remake of He the Richmond has a Jaco-with-Joni Mitchell vibe.

“People have told me that, and they've also mentioned Marvin's album What's Going On. I think the main reason – other than the melodic, filling approach I took with the bassline – is that I wrote it on acoustic guitar, which I play on the track using an open D tuning: DADF#AD.

“Before I was aware of Joni, I was very influenced by Richie Havens, whom we used to work opposite in Cream's early days. He showed me some of his open tunings, and it inspired me to write a few songs, including Rope Ladder to the Moon. For that I used an Em7 tuning he taught me, which is EBEGBD.”

“I can remember sitting in a London coffee bar with Eric Clapton, when we first formed Cream, and telling him how I wanted us to take the language of the blues and develop it further,” Jack Bruce told Bass Player. “How presumptuous – this kid from Glasgow, talking about an African-American art form that transcends music!” 

Of course, in retrospect, Cream rose to its own lofty level as the world's first supergroup. In its brief (1966-68) initial incarnation, the pioneering power trio not only expanded the blues and exposed the idiom to the masses, it obliterated rock & roll's boundaries, extending improvisation and shattering the supposed sonic limitations of three rock musicians.

Cream scored huge hits with Sunshine of Your Love and White Room. Clapton became a guitar god, and Ginger Baker a confrontational force on and off the drums. But it was Bruce – at times overshadowed by the two, even though he was the lead vocalist and main songwriter – who stirred this strange brew with a heaping spoonful of vision and an equally progressive bass style.

And while it took only 28 months and four albums to forge the a new musical foundation for countless like-minded bands, it took 36 years (not counting a three-song performance at Cream's 1993 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony) to get the trio back together for a series of shows in 2005. 

The 21st-century edition of Cream reflected each member's post-Cream career experiences. Although the energy of their youth will never be duplicated, Clapton – through his numerous collaborations and solo CDs – had never been a brighter star or more profound guitarist, and Baker, though living in semi-retirement in South Africa, sounded better than ever.

Bruce had traveled the most interesting route, from his brilliant piano-oriented early solo albums, and other power trio formats, to his cutting-edge work with Tony Williams Lifetime, Frank Zappa, Kip Hanrahan, and his Afro-Cuban-infused band, the Cuicoland Express. He also endured a liver transplant in 2003 due to cancer, which eventually took his life in 2014. All told, the onstage result was a new bass approach: wider and deeper in support, range, and tone.

We spoke with Bruce in 2005 just before the trio's three New York shows at Madison Square Garden, to get the inside story on life and bass playing in Cream, now and then.

Can you compare and contrast your thoughts at the first reunion rehearsal versus the first night at Royal Albert Hall?

“Both were indescribable, and completely different. For me, the stress and tentativeness started before I went into rehearsal. It was raining, and I knew Eric wasn't there yet, but someone said Ginger was inside. So I went in to see what the vibe was, and it was great – very pleasant, and it continued like that.”

“The Royal Albert Hall was incredible. I'm always nervous before a show, but this one took my breath away, sent shivers up my spine, the whole bit. Eric said, ‘Okay, you go first, Jack,’ because I was on the far side of the stage however, my legs didn't seem to want to do that! But the warmth of the audience was phenomenal, and when we began playing, that was it – no problems.”

How did the rehearsals go?

“When I knew they were coming up, I went through all the albums, demos, gig and rehearsal tapes – anything we'd ever tried. I wrote down everything we played and I was surprised; I always thought Cream knew only a handful of tunes, but there were quite a lot of songs. 

“In rehearsal we discussed each song and whether we wanted to try it; we tried a lot of songs that didn't end up among the 19 we performed. There were songs I felt we should do, like I Feel Free, that other members of the band vetoed – obviously it's a democracy now! 

“We rehearsed five days a week for three weeks, but opening night was the first time we played the set from beginning to end, so there was some adventure there.”

How has your bass playing changed since Cream, and how did that affect the way you approached the bass parts?

“At the Royal Albert Hall shows I realized it has changed more than I ever thought. I found myself playing this sort of flamenco bass style with strums and chords and drones, not just lines. It just kind of happened, as a way of fulfilling the role I feel I have in the band now. A good example is the solo sections on N.S.U, Deserted Cities of the Heart, and Badge.

“Because it's a trio, it's almost like I'm playing a big rhythm guitar – as opposed to the first time around with Cream, when I played a more lead bass style. I'm hoping to develop the concept further.”

You used your middle finger a lot.

“I had a terrible blister on my index finger, and I was using whatever was working! Normally, I'd be alternating my first two fingers more.”

You sounded strong vocally, and all of the songs were in their original keys.

“We didn't change any keys, not even Badge, because I'm a great believer in a song's key having a real meaning in its own right. I was quite surprised at how strong I was vocally, considering that after my illness about a year earlier I couldn't even talk. I'd had tubes in my throat, and when they were taken out I wasn't able speak; I had to re-learn how. 

“When they asked about a Cream reunion I said yes right away, but I probably had to write it! As rehearsals drew closer, I found this amazing voice teacher in London, Mary Hammond, and we worked on vocal exercises every week.”

How did you choose your basses for the shows? Did you consider using your Gibson EB-3?

“I had tried the EB-3 some years ago, and I found the short scale length to be like playing a toy. I literally couldn't do it anymore – was hitting wrong notes because it was just too small. I've been using my fretless Warwick forever; it's my favorite bass, and I've been playing Cream songs on it with my own band, so I knew I would stick with it in some capacity. 

“As for the Gibson EB-O, I've just fallen in love with it over the years. It's got a real deep, woofy sound. I think I got it from luthier Dan Armstrong, and I had some work done on it to keep it in shape. Then when I was playing with Ringo Starr in the late '90s, I discovered you just can't play a fretless on those old Beatles songs. On tunes like A Little Help From My Friends, Paul had a certain sound and feel on his Hofner, so I started playing the EB-O to recreate that. 

“With Cream, I was going to switch between the two, tune by tune – but that seemed silly, so I looked at the setlist and decided to start on the EB-O and switch to the Warwick halfway through, after Rollin' and Tumblin', where I just play harmonica. 

“Also, I had suggested to Warwick that they make a special bass – a nod toward my old EB-3 – to celebrate this event. We haven't gotten it quite right yet, but the prototype was onstage and can be seen in the DVD.”

How did you select your amplification?

"I hired a big rehearsal room in London and I got Beet, my bass tech, to bring in every bass amp in existence. It was great fun; I had a wireless setup, so I could switch quickly from one amp to the other. And what I ended up liking the best was my Hartke gear. I've known those guys forever, and in addition to Jaco's input, their gear was developed with me in mind. They used to do my sound quite a bit, when I was using all sorts of components and blowing speakers right and left. 

“The main change is that I'm using their paper-cone 8x10 cabinets, along with the aluminum 1x15s and the heads. It all sounds great – like a good Marshall stack back in the '60s. Most of the other amps I tried were very good, but they just didn't sound like me.

“In the original Cream we had Marshall stacks with only one or two speakers working; that's what gave me my trademark distorted tone. On 90 percent of the gigs there was no proper PA or any monitoring, so the sound we got was the sound onstage. In order to generate the kind of excitement we wanted, we had to play really loud and create that sound with our gear. Nowadays sound technology is spectacular, and we aren't loud at all onstage. Technology has caught up with and surpassed the music.” 

What did you think of how the band sounded at the Royal Albert Hall?

“I was astonished. It felt really fresh and natural – that was what amazed us all, from the start of rehearsals. It sounded different; it sounded like now. It reflected how much we've grown, and how much we brought back to the band from all the projects we've done.”  

“I would say, with certain reservations, that it's a better band now than it was then. Our time and feel is better and we've matured; we're not trying to prove anything to anyone or to each other. There's a lot more respect and honesty, in a way – and, not to get maudlin, but there's a lot of love as well. After one of the shows, Ginger said to me, ‘You are a great bass player after all.’ I couldn't believe it – he’d never once said that in all the years.”

You've played with Ginger on and off since Cream. How was he the same and how was he different?

“He's still Ginger – but he has a precision about his playing now that's difficult to put into words. He was always great, but he's even better. When we did BBM in the early '90s, he was well ahead of his Cream days, but there's something more he's brought to his playing. I think he's the key to the band sounding good now.”

Do you and Ginger naturally play in the same place in the pocket?

“I don't think we ever analyzed that; if we did, we might not be able to play together! I've always found it very easy to play with him, so I would say yes. I know that in Cream we both used to speed up; we'd get to the end of a long improv and I'd be wracking my brain to remember what the song was! Now it feels more relaxed and settled, like the way we're doing Crossroads: It's not an uptempo killer number anymore. It's more reflective.” 

“I've always subscribed to Charles Mingus's concept of time, which he called rotary perception. It says there's a constant, metronomic time in your head. When you have a medium tempo, you play right in the middle of the meter in your mind; when you have a fast tempo, you play slightly in front of the meter; and when you have slow blues or a ballad, you play slightly behind the meter. The key is the ability to move within that meter. You can slow down or speed up phrases and accents, all while your internal time is constant.”

What's the same and what has changed about Eric Clapton's playing?

“Eric is quite incredible; sometimes I would find myself just standing there watching him, because he hasn't played like this since back then. I don't mean he hasn't played great, but he hasn't had to play the demanding role in Cream, where he just can't stop or take a break ever! 

“He's playing rhythm and lead all at the same time, more or less. Recently, he's had proper bands with keyboards and other guitarists, so he can sing and play lead, but here he's back to covering it all. He's definitely better, too, but again it's hard to explain how. We added Stormy Monday, which Cream never covered, as a vehicle to showcase Eric as he's become.”

The band didn't make many changes to the forms of the songs, and you avoided long improvisational sections that were a trademark of Cream shows.

“Most of the songs were sort of carved in stone, and to change them made little sense. As for the solo sections, we wanted to improvise, but we didn't want to go too long. That was a thing of the time, and I don't think it would be valid now. We wanted to avoid a nostalgia trip, where we break out the Marshall stacks and the psychedelic clothes. We didn't want to be a tribute band to ourselves!”

Some critics maintain that Cream's long jams in the '60s were self-indulgent and overshadowed the band's best side – the concise studio recordings of forward-thinking original songs.

“I tend to agree. There were two sides to the band. Once we got to eight tracks on the second album, we saw the possibilities of the studio, with overdubs and my ability to play keyboards – while live, we saw the opportunity to achieve something different. Both sides were equally valid, when they worked.

“In a sense, the band lost its way with the long jams, and that became a sort of albatross. It was our version of the Who smashing gear. They got tired of that quickly, we didn't get tired of it, but it got tedious. I'm sure there were times when Ginger thought, ‘Oh, now I've got to play this long drum solo.’”

What was your bass approach on Cream records?

“Well, the great aspect of recording is you have some time to work out the basslines. You're not improvising; it's sort of re-composition, if you like. You perfect the part on run-throughs. 

“Badge is a good example; we had the whole day to get it down-it was the most number of takes we ever did. My goal was always to create a bassline where, if you took away or changed one note, the whole song would collapse. I tried to carve the part out of the music, like a statue, so that I knew it would last.”

How about your approach during the live extended jams?

“I would start off supporting Eric, all the while playing with Ginger, and then I would build and almost goad Eric to reach the heights of his playing – and when that happened, I would take off as well. 

“If you think of the first live version of Crossroads – which was maybe the best example of what the band was like live then – we start up high and stay up high. On others, like Spoonful, we were trying to get this primeval, big vibration that just lasts. I would use 5ths, chords, and countermelodies to fatten things up, because when Eric would play high, above my bassline, it left a lot of space in the middle. But, as I said, it was with more of a lead-bass attitude.”

That brings to mind the way you bent your strings by a step-and-half. 

“That was from seeing the way Eric played. When I got the EB-3, my thinking was: Well, it's a bass guitar. I wanted to emphasize the guitar aspect, which is why I put light-gauge La Bellas on it, for string bends. I was familiar with traditional forward-and-backward vibrato from playing cello and string bass, and I played the Fender VI with Graham Bond, to cover the guitar range when John McLaughlin left the band – but with Cream it was a whole new direction.”

Any chance of an album of new Cream material?

“It's something I'd love to do; it would be a challenge to try to create music that would stand up to the classic songs. I've got a few ideas already – in fact, I wrote a song yesterday that I think would work. I just don't know if it will happen.” 

“We've had offers you wouldn't believe – didn't believe – for long world tours, and it's tempting. But none of us wants to accept because it would take away from the rarity and special nature of getting together. I'd like to do it every now and again and just play somewhere, but we could do an album amidst that, and I'm going to suggest it.”

What light can you shed on your illness?

“It was quite an ordeal. The liver transplant was successful, but then I developed infections and it was touch and go for a while. The experience didn't make me any more religious, but I now believe in the power of prayer. So many people were rooting and praying for me, and I could literally feel that, even when I was in a coma. My wife would constantly whisper all of those good thoughts to me. I want to encourage other people that you can actually go through a terrible illness and recover and get back to your life.”

What other projects and plans lie ahead?

"I've got to do the third in my series of Latin-themed albums with my own band, which I'm hoping to do early next year. I have some material in the can, and I'd like to do some recording in Cuba. Otherwise, I'm just very happy to be here, and to be a member of a band. Right now, that's the best feeling of all.”

For many years a double bass player influenced more by jazz and classical music than rock, Jack Bruce brought an acute melodic awareness to the bass guitar from the moment he picked one up. 

Classically trained at Scotland’s Royal Academy of Music, Bruce had been playing upright in London jazz clubs – but also listening to James Jamerson and “striving to play melodies … while maintaining the bass’ function as an anchor.” 

He found the perfect vehicle for his vision of the instrument’s expanded role in Cream, where he could create basslines that linked the jazz-inspired drumming of Ginger Baker with the blues-inflected guitar of Eric Clapton. 

Speaking to journalist Jim Clash in 2015, Bruce recalled his first encounters with Clapton. “Eric was so obviously ahead of everybody else at that time, with his approach and his knowledge of the blues. He was also very fashion conscious.” 

“Because of that, we started the hairstyles and flared trousers. I remember Eric saying after we met Jimi Hendrix that one of us had to have that kind of afro. I said, ‘It ain’t going to be me, mate.’ So Eric got the perm. Things happened in that band by default.”

Although the internal dynamic of Cream made for some of the greatest musical moments of the 1960s, Jimi Hendrix was ready to put the scene on red alert. Speaking to Bass Player in 2003, Bruce recalled the moment he first brought Hendrix on stage.

“We’d heard of him through a friend who had claimed to have seen him play in New York. Cream was playing at – I think – St. Martin’s School Of Art, and I was having a pre-gig pint. This guy came up and said, ‘Hi, I’m Jimi Hendrix, can I sit in with your band?’ And I said, ‘Well, I dunno, let’s go and find out.’

“So we went across the road and Eric was very keen for him to play and Ginger, of course, was completely against it. But he did play, and he blew us all away, playing with his teeth and all that. Eric was stunned. There’s a demo that we did the next day, and you can hear Eric trying to emulate some of that stuff.”

Bruce also talked with Hendrix about forming a band together. “That was actually going to happen. Jimi was all for having a play. At that point he was trying to find a new direction, musically, and that could easily have been it. I was all for it because I think one of the problems Jimi had was that he didn’t play with people who kicked him up the arse, basically.

“I’m not knocking Mitch Mitchell, but to me he was like a British jazz player, he was kind of laid-back. He played a lot of rhythms but I don’t think it pushed Jimi in the way that we would have.”

After Cream split in late 1968, Bruce went on to release a string of solo albums which demonstrated his trademark blend of jazz, rock and blues influences.

While C.C. DeVille – and, briefly, Matt Smith – set their fretboards alight for Poison in the ‘80s, and Richie Kotzen held things down in the early ‘90s, it was supremely talented shredder Blues Saraceno who ruled the roost from 1993 through 1996.

Saraceno was made for the gig in many ways, with his big hair, wide smile and cache of hod-rodded six-strings quivering under his nimble fingers. He’d broken into the biz as a teen in the late ‘80s before hopping on tour with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, taking the place of Eric Clapton in a quasi-Cream off-shoot, and recording with Cher and Taylor Dayne.

By the time he joined Poison at 22, Saraceno was already a verifiable industry vet, even if he was nearly a decade younger than his new bandmates. His time with Poison lasted three years and included just one album, Crack a Smile… and More!, which was shelved until after C.C. DeVille returned in 2000.

These days, despite the miles logged, Saraceno is a young 52 and has made a name for himself as a composer of TV, film and videogame scores. He’s come a long way since being heralded as the next big thing in Guitar For The Practicing Musician at 16; it hasn’t always been easy, and maybe not as he’d imagined, but he’s thankful for all of it.

“The best part is for all those years, it was guitar and vocals,” Saraceno says. “That’s a different challenge, but I’m not just a guitar player now. I work on melodic content, lyrical content, vocal performance; the game keeps changing.”

He adds: “I’m no longer just a guitar player – I’m having to flex and express my full artistry in new and exciting ways. Now it’s this multi-dimensional thing where I utilize all my skills. I’m thankful for where I’ve been and all I got to do, but I love what I’m doing now.”

You were featured in Guitar For The Practicing Musician during the golden age of shred at 16. What got you to that point?

“I refer to the way I grew up as a combination of The Sopranos and The Deer Hunter! My parents kept me grounded; but still, I got to a point where, I was going to be a guitarist or a professional BMX racer. When I was 12 I broke my left elbow, which kept me off the bike. So I said, ‘I guess I’m gonna stick with this guitar thing.’

“I decided to be a full-throttle, bare-knuckle type of player. At 15, I flew myself out to the NAMM Show and met Rich Lasner with Ibanez, who was launching stuff with Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Paul Gilbert.

“They decided to take a chance on me, even though I didn’t have a guitar pick – I had to show them what I could do with just my fingers. From there I got an endorsement, made a demo, and ended up in guitar mags.”

Not long after, you featured on hits by Cher and Taylor Dayne.

“That was funny, because I never even met Cher. I was recording with Michael Bolton and I was driving to Manhattan for this session – which was crazy as I’d only been driving for four days! Through that connection, I ended up working with Cher and Taylor Dayne.”

Being an admitted rock guy, how did you approach those pop tunes?

“At that point I knew that this was what I should be doing, and I needed to make it happen. Working with them, I knew it would require a very different approach, where I’d have to come in and serve a purpose on the track rather than stand out.

“I’m glad I learned to do that early because it’s precisely what I’ve had to do while working on scores. I was still in school, and the kids found out about it and things went crazy. And after the Taylor Dayne thing [Can’t Fight Fate], things took off. I decided this would be a viable, longterm option for me.”

How did you end up touring with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, becoming the ‘kid who replaced Eric Clapton?’

“I was doing a photoshoot for my record, Never Look Back, in Staten Island, and I got a phone call from my manager about this audition in Manhattan with Jack and Ginger. So we hop in the car the next day – it was only a one-day thing – and it’s all New York, heavy-hitter session guys. Then there’s me, in prime Guns N’ Roses and Van Halen mode!

“I rolled in two hours late because my car broke down, so I’m the last guy to play. I plugged into a Marshall JCM800 and figured, ‘It doesn’t matter; there’s no way I’m getting this gig anyway.’

“I just did my best and respected the situation, even though I was so stressed. I turned everything on the amp to 10, tilted it away to not blow them away, and smoked the guitar so hard that it would rattle teeth.”

And how did that go over?

“They were all looking at me, and I’m like, ‘Fuck. Not only am I late, but I just completely blew this gig.’ They said nothing, and then Jack Bruce looked over to signal me out, and I did like this walk of shame on the way out.

“I was like, ‘Fuck. Maybe I shoulda had the amp on 8 rather than 10,’ and all that stuff. So, I thanked them, figured, ‘That could not have gone worse.’ But when I got home, a message said, ‘Jack would like you to come back.’ I returned on Monday, learned three songs, locked it in, and slayed it. That’s how I got the gig.”

Once on the road, did you feel like you were living in the shadow of Clapton?

“It was weird in some ways, but I kinda loved some elements of the gig, too. I wasn’t trying to be Clapton, nor could I be. No-one can touch what Eric Clapton has done. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime talent, and Jack knew that.

“He loved the fact that a kid like me, with a blue mohawk and a plaid guitar, was up there making the songs my own. I was just standing there, playing Cream songs and doing divebombs in the corner; it was the coolest thing.”

You mentioned your plaid guitar, a Yamaha RGZ820R. How did that come to be, considering Ibanez endorsed you?

“I had gone to Japan for some shows, and I’d been playing Ibanez custom-made guitars you could not buy off the rack in the States, but in Japan you could. I showed up to a gig and this guy had the same guitar down to the knobs and pickups, which I didn’t like because it looked like we were copying each other.

“I decided if people were going to copy me, I’d get a plaid guitar and make them work for it! I thought it would be like Eddie Van Halen’s striped guitar, where people would recognize me. Yamaha was into it, and I had a good run with them.

“We only did it for a minute, but having a guitar that was synonymous with me was super-enjoyable. Ultimately I stopped it because I always wanted to be genuine – I never wanted to feel like I was wearing a costume in the form of a guitar.”

Before joining Poison in ’93, you auditioned in ’91 but lost out to Richie Kotzen, right?

“Yes. At that time, Richie and I had paralleled each other’s careers, and we even had the same endorsements. We ran in the same circles and were friendly. I gotta say I’ve always gotten along with Richie.

“But in short, the Poison auditions after C.C. left came down to Richie and me, and we had different approaches, and they just decided Richie was the better fit.”

Did they say what they preferred about Richie?

“They needed a songwriter. In Poison, C.C. DeVille was a huge part of the sound. When he left they didn’t just lose a guitarist – they lost a songwriter. Richie was a songwriter and all about that stuff.

“With me, each record was never about guitars as much as it was about moving forward and making what I do quantifiable as a product; as an artist, it’s about your skillset. It’s not just playing the guitar; it’s the whole thing.

“I knew hair metal was over and grunge was happening, and I walked up to the guys in Poison, saying, ‘Here’s the deal: you guys are a lifestyle band, but you want to be taken seriously,’ and I gave them my take. But Bret Michaels, the singer, wanted the Rolling Stone accolades.

“I was like, ‘Fuck that. I’ve been there and done that. I don’t care about that shit.’ So they went with Richie, who could be a songwriter in a band about good times and all that. I was too much of a high-energy tornado for them then. Ironically, that part of my personality was a lot like C.C.’s.”

And yet they called you two years later after it didn’t work out with Richie.

“I was sad it didn’t work out with Richie after they did the one record [Native Tongue] with him. But after it didn’t work out, I was told that the guys in Poison ran into Rudy Sarzo, and he’s the one who said, ‘Hey, you should call Blues back up.’

“Everybody respects Rudy, so they called me. They called me like 12 times, and my phone was ringing off the hook! So, I went back, I was already comfortable, I knew the songs, and I was in.”

What led to the Crack a Smile record being shelved and C.C. being asked back into the band?

“Honestly, the big reason I took the gig was because they offered me a lot of money to tour. They offered me one sum, and I said, ‘Double it, and I’ll do it.’ They did, and I was in the band. But there was a lot of internal stuff going on – a lot of drama.

“It was your typical rock ‘n’ roll bullshit that had nothing to do with me. In essence, I was the trophy wife of that situation. Don’t get me wrong – I had a great experience. I got along with them and they were nice guys. It was drama-free for me; but it was a marriage of convenience, to be totally honest with you.

“And after we got signed to do the record, and we recorded it, one day, I go into a meeting – after buying a big, expensive new truck – and I’m told, ‘The record is being shelved and C.C. is back.’ That was it.”

From there, you moved into session and soundtrack work. 

“I do television and film now, and honestly, I love it. I’ve done solo albums, been in big bands, and done all the tours. It all felt stagnant. I needed a new challenge to keep the feeling of excitement around. If I’m not doing that, I don’t feel like I’m being sincere to myself.”

Has that been as fulfilling as your former life as a rockstar?

“What’s the hardest thing to do? Make a living. I have a skillset – I’ve been able to take my guitar and use it to survive. I bought a house. I bought a car. I have medical insurance, and my family is taken care of.

“I’ve kept up despite the game changing because I chose not just to be another guitar player. I get to leave sonic footprints and do things that grab attention, and let people feel emotion. It’s different and a challenge – but I still get to be an artist, so it’s fulfilling.”

At the tail end of the 1980s, a reunited Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were back in the market for a new electric guitar player, one who could join them to tour Cream’s repertoire almost two decades after the supergroup disbanded. 

It would be a tall order for any player, who’d not only be tasked with filling the shoes of a non-returning Eric Clapton in this new-look post-Cream trio, but also with bringing their own flair to the table.

The role ultimately went to Blues Saraceno – at the time a young phenom who, after capturing the music world’s attention with a feature in Guitar for the Practicing Musician mag at the age of 16, began to grow his credits list as a prolific session player.

It proved to be a successful appointment for Baker, Bruce and Saraceno, who would embark on a handful of tours playing Cream’s repertoire together over the years. 

Such was the success of Saraceno and his famed plaid guitar, he was eventually anointed as “the kid who replaced Eric Clapton”. However, despite the heights the trio reached, the origin of the story isn’t quite as straightforward.

Speaking in a new interview with Guitar World, Saraceno reflected on how he ended up ‘replacing’ Clapton and became Bruce and Baker’s guitarist – and recalled how his audition got off to a rather rocky start.

Rocking up two hours late due to his car breaking down in Manhattan, Saraceno found himself surrounded by “heavy-hitter session guys”. It was quite a contrast to himself, who – in his own words – “was in prime Guns N’ Roses and Van Halen mode”.

But he thought he’d give it his best (and most memorable) shot: “I plugged into a Marshall JCM800 and figured, ‘It doesn’t matter; there’s no way I’m getting this gig anyway,’” he said. “I just did my best and respected the situation – even though I was so stressed. 

“I turned everything on the amp to 10, tilted it away to not blow them away, and smoked the guitar so hard that it would rattle someone’s teeth.”

Apparently, it made quite the impression.

“They were all looking at me, and I’m like, ‘Fuck. Not only am I late, but I just completely blew this gig,’” he continued. “They said nothing, and then Jack Bruce looked over to signal me out, and I did like this walk of shame on the way out. 

“I was like, ‘Fuck. Maybe I shoulda had the amp on eight rather than 10,’ and all that stuff. So, I thanked them, figured, ‘That could not have gone worse.’

“But when I got home, a message said, ‘Jack would like you to come back.’ I returned on Monday, learned three songs, locked it in, and slayed it. That’s how I got the gig.”

Despite believing he’d made an unfavorable first impression, Saraceno would become a linchpin in Bruce and Baker's post-Clapton years, and was wholly unfazed in the face having to follow in Clapton's footsteps.

As for how he managed to juggle those expectations, and whether he felt like he was living in the shadow of his predecessor, Saraceno went on: “It was weird in some ways, but I kinda loved some elements of the gig, too.

“I wasn’t trying to be Clapton, nor could I be. No one can touch what Eric Clapton has done. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime talent, and Jack knew that, so he loved the fact that a kid like me, with a blue mohawk and a plaid guitar, was up there making the songs his own. 

“I was just standing there, playing Cream songs and doing dive bombs in the corner; it was the coolest thing.”

Read our full interview with Blues Saraceno for more on his stints with Clapton and Poison, and why he gave it all up to become a composer for film, TV, and videogames.

You may know him as the guy who fronts The Police, or the solo artist who sold a gazillion copies of songs like Fields Of Gold, Russians, Englishman in New York and all the other tunes that are now in your head because you just read their titles. Or you may recognise him for acting in Quadrophenia, Dune, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and what have you. Your kids know him as the funny levitating guy from Bee Movie. Everyone knows Sting for something.

In bass world, though, we know the guy as Gordon Sumner, the ex-teacher born in 1951 who played in jazz and fusion bands before forming The Police in 1977, playing whopping great bass guitar parts and being a massive rock star. Fretted, fretless, double bass, eight-string – the man was unstoppable on bass, filling up the empty spaces within the trio format of The Police with a variety of lines, from the simple to the finger-threateningly complex.

After The Police split in 1984, Sting dominated the 1980s and '90s with a sequence of rock and jazz albums that we all know, beginning with The Dream Of The Blue Turtles in 1985 and finishing up with Brand New Day in '99. After that he moved in different, less popular directions, doing the R&B-influenced Sacred Love in 2003, plus classical and folk releases after that. His 2016 album, 57th & 9th, saw a return to rockist form. 

This interview from the Bass Player archives took place in October 2016, following the release of the album's lead single, I Can't Stop Thinking About You.

Your tech, Danny Quatrochi, sent us the details of your bass rig.

“That's good, because I never really look behind me. I'm kind of busy up front, so I trust Danny to get me the right equipment and the right strings, but one thing I'm particular about is my P-Bass, which I've had for a quarter of a century. It's from 1957, which is almost as old as me. It's very, very battered looking, but it has a growl that a modern bass guitar simply does not possess. I imagine Leo Fender himself put it on a lathe to make it.”

What's your backup bass when you tour?

“I've got a '54 P-Bass which I don't use as often, and so is less responsive, but it's still a beautiful bass. I don't have that many instruments.”

You've been through a lot of basses over the years, though.

“Yeah. I started with a Fender Jazz, which I still have. I bought it in Newcastle for about 150 quid. It was a lot of money back then. I don't know what it's worth now. Then there was Ibanez, Hamer.. what was the one with no headstock?”

Steinberger?

“Steinberger... but I found my true love eventually.”

Are you equally happy playing guitar and bass?

“Yeah, I'm happy on both. I mean, I started as a guitar player and continued to play guitar, mainly acoustic guitar, but the bass seemed to offer a kind of quiet heroism. And also, playing bass and singing at the same time is much different to strumming along four in the bar, you know. So learning how to do that was important, because my mentors were Paul McCartney and Jack Bruce and Phil Lynott, who could do it. And I enjoy it.”

The obvious example of a tricky bass part is Spirits In The Material World.

“A lot of very sophisticated musicians have no idea where one is in that song! Which makes me very happy. Where the fuck is one? It doesn't matter.”

You had chops from an early age, didn't you?

“I was playing with jazz musicians, and I was playing Stanley Clarke lines from Return To Forever songs. When Jaco came, about that time, he totally recalibrated what it was to be a bass player. He could play Charlie Parker chromatic lines on the bass guitar: nobody had thought of that before.”

Did you sit down and figure Jaco's stuff out?

“Yeah. In fact, I remember when I got Teen Town, which is an amazing piece of bass playing. It really is. In soundcheck I'd just sit and play it, because it's so fun. I knew Jaco. He used to come and see The Police when we played in Miami.”

What kind of guy was Jaco?

“A beautiful man. Really, a beautiful cat. A little crazy. He would call me at four in the morning in London and say 'Hey man, how are you doing?' And I'd say 'Jaco, it's four in the morning!' And he'd say, 'no, it's only like 11pm!' And I'd say, 'you're in Miami!' His death was appalling. Unnecessary. I'd love to know what he'd be doing now, if he survived his problems. It would have been remarkable.”

Do you ever play slap bass?

“Not really. I play with my thumb and two fingers, like an apoyando style. Most of the work is done with the thumb and that goes up and down the neck. I'm also pulling a lot. I was with Tony Levin one summer and he said he'd never noticed how I play, and that it was odd! I told him to try it, and he did! The great Tony Levin... I could see him practising using two fingers and a thumb.”

You play both fingerstyle and with a pick.

“Playing with a pick down near the bridge really helped The Police. We were only a trio, and I needed the bassline to be very clear, rather than rumbling and vague. Often on record I would double the same part on guitar as well, so it was very clear what we were doing. I also like rumbly bass players, you know: I love Hendrix's bassists, that kind of atmospheric thunder that they created.”

Do you play five-string?

“No! It confuses the hell out of me. If I need a low D I'll tune down, but I don't want another string there. Having played the lute for a while, with 26 strings, I don't want the same issue when I'm trying to sing and lead a band. Four is enough. I don't feel the need to be flash. I think the band appreciate that.”

Would you say you're a good bass player?

“I could hold down a job. I've worked in an orchestra pit in a theatre. I've backed cabaret. I've backed comedians and strippers. I've worked on a cruise ship. I've played Dixieland jazz. I've played in a big band. Yeah, I'm a fucking good bass player! I had a wider musical education than most rock stars, who just play AC/DC riffs. I think that feeds into my process. I'm proud of all that work I did.”

Which bass players did you admire when you were starting out?

“One of the first bands I ever saw was Cream. I also saw the Jimi Hendrix Experience when I was 14, but then I saw Cream, and they kind of turned my head around. It was a very formative experience to see those two bands. And then I was in The Police, so the trio thing was prevalent.”

Do today's kids have an equivalent band like Cream to look up to?

“Don't ask me, I don't know! But I was always watching these trios, and then on a Saturday night I'd go and play with guys who were in their eighties, playing piano, drums and old-time dance music. You'd play standards for an hour non-stop. The only clue you got about what key would be next was a gesture with the fingers for the accidentals. So busking was important for me. I'd hear something for the first time and then be able to play it.”

I've been listening to a few songs by your pre-Police fusion band, Last Exit.

“Really? How did you find Last Exit?”

On YouTube, they're all there.

“Really? That terrifies me.”

How do you define yourself first and foremost? As a singer-songwriter, bass player, businessman...?

“My passport says musician, which I'm very proud of. I think it's a noble profession. To make a living without harming anybody, or exploiting anybody. I'm proud of my profession.”

Does inspiration for songwriting come as easily as it ever did?

“The music comes easily. I have a good relationship with my musicians. We know how to react to each other's ideas, and I can pretty quickly carve that into a song form. The inspiration for lyrics is difficult. I'm not terribly angry about many things, so how do you find inspiration? You're searching for a pathway, a muse, a story. That's difficult, but once I start, what's going on in the world – whether I want to write about it or not – unconsciously feeds into the writing process.”

Do you ever get sick of touring?

“I've toured all my life, so I'm used to it. You know, it's pretty comfortable out there, in the best hotels, and the best mode of travel. You walk out in front of thousands of people and they're all pleased to see you, and nobody asks for their money back. It's great!”

Do you have a long-term plan?

“Yeah. I want to keep making my living as a musician, and be better. I can do rock music. I know how it works, but I'm also interested in the upper partials of a chord and the way harmony works. You can do both. It's limitless.”

In late 1968, Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood had a conversation that would help define Clapton’s direction in the coming decade. 

“We discussed the philosophy of what we wanted to do,” Clapton recalled in his autobiography. “Steve said that for him, it was all about unskilled labor, where you just played with your friends and fit the music around that. It was the opposite of virtuosity, and it rang a bell with me because I was trying so hard to escape the pseudo-virtuoso image I had helped create for myself.”

Indeed, Clapton’s Sixties hadn’t been so much swinging as swashbuckling. From the Yardbirds to the Bluesbreakers to Cream to Blind Faith, he leapt from band to band, wielding Teles, Les Pauls, SGs, and 335s, while fanatics with spray-paint cans started a new three-word graffiti gospel across England – “Clapton is God.”

In the final days of Cream, the by-then reluctant messiah’s go-to escape for sanity was the Band’s 1968 debut album, Music from Big Pink. That, and the music of J.J. Cale, with its understatement, groove, and economy, became stylistic templates for Clapton, as did a brief tour in 1969 with Delaney & Bonnie, who encouraged him to focus on his singing and songwriting.

So began the transition from ‘God’ to ‘good all-rounder.’

Of course, it wasn’t just musical influences that were shaping him. He came into the decade with a developing addiction to heroin, which – after his first solo album – became so debilitating that it sidelined him for two and a half years. 

When he finally managed to get clean, it was only to trade one dependency for another. To read the chapters about the Seventies in Clapton’s autobiography is to almost feel contact drunkenness, so prevalent was his boozing. But like many alcoholics, he was high-functioning, and he continued to tour and make records. 

What follows is a roundup of those records and key moments, along with conversations with a few supporting players who were integral to Clapton’s Seventies.

Eric Clapton (1970)

Opening songs say so much. Released in August 1970, Eric Clapton, his first solo album, could have rung in the new decade with the heralding guitar chime of Let It Rain, the big brass gallop of After Midnight, or the kicked-down doors of Leon Russell’s Blues Power. 

Instead, he chose to slunk into the 11-song sequence with a funky instrumental jam called, well, Slunky. Led by Bobby Keys’ sax, it’s a minute-and-a-half before Clapton’s guitar appears, and even then, he’s mostly just idling on one note with wrist-shaking vibrato and repeating a six-note blues lick… So, what’s the message here? 

It’s very much about subverting, then redefining, Clapton’s guitar hero status. As he put it to Circus, “Until I’m either a great songwriter or a great singer, I shall carry on being embarrassed when people come on with that praise stuff about my guitar solos.”

To that end, this album really does make a steady move forward on those fronts. The lilting Easy Now, with its falsetto break melody and major-to-minor shifts, is an obvious nod to George Harrison (big strumming courtesy of “Ivan the Terrible,” Clapton’s beloved custom-made Tony Zemaitis 12-string guitar). 

Bottle of Red Wine shuffles with searing, less-is-more blues licks. Lonesome and a Long Way from Home features one of Clapton’s most soulful, confident vocals. And even though he’d later complain that his voice sounded “too young” on this record, he strikes a balance between the grit and laid-back phrasing that would define his style. 

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970) 

Released just three months after his self-titled debut, Derek and the Dominos’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs marked the last of the five legendary bands that Clapton would join or lead before officially going solo. 

With classics like the title track, Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?, Bell Bottom Blues and his blazing cover of Freddie King’s Have You Ever Loved a Woman, the record was an exorcism for Clapton, working through his tortured love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of George Harrison. Because Clapton’s name and image was absent from the sleeve (the label later added stickers explaining that “Derek is Eric!”), the record initially didn’t sell. 

Friendly Gunslinger: An interview with Chuck Kirkpatrick

Engineer Chuck Kirkpatrick – one of the last surviving members of the team behind Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs – spoke to us about his impressions of Clapton’s playing and his “friendly gunslinger” competition with Duane Allman.

What was your impression of Eric Clapton in 1970?

“From day one, he just wanted to play the blues, in a pure sense. He was trying to escape all that ‘Clapton is God’ stuff. He just wanted to be in a band. Because he was the most famous, he was the bandleader. But he didn’t dictate.”

How did Eric and Duane meet?

“We all went to see the Allman Brothers perform in Miami, and afterwards, Eric invited Duane back to Criteria Studios. At midnight, Duane walks in. Moments later, they were sitting down with guitars, laughing and trading licks.”

Were they competitive? 

“Well, I remember the session for Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad? Duane and Eric came in to overdub solos. Eric went out, while Duane stayed in the control room, and he played a great solo. Then Tom Dowd said, ‘Now, Duane, you go out there and do one.’ So Duane played a great solo, came back, and Eric says, ‘Well, I want to do mine again!’ This went on for at least an hour or two. [Laughs] It was a gunfight, but a friendly one.”

What gear did Clapton use? 

“His ‘Brownie’ Stratocaster into a Fender Champ. He would crank it all the way up, and that was the sound he liked. It was very easy to record because it really didn’t make all that much noise in the room. He also used a blonde Fender Bandmaster for cleaner, fatter rhythm parts. But all the solos are played through the Champ, with no effects.” 

Did you have the sense during the making of this record that it was going to be as successful as it eventually became?

“When it came out, Atlantic either didn’t get behind it, or people were confused by the band name. The record didn’t take off until a few years later. What I thought then is what I still think – it’s one of the greatest guitar records ever made.”

1971 to 1973: I Looked Away

From 1971 to ’73, Clapton was in “self-imposed exile,” as he slipped deeper into heroin addiction. He admitted that, initially, he was swayed by the drug’s romantic mythology, surrounding the lives of musical heroes Charlie Parker and Ray Charles. 

“But addiction doesn’t negotiate, and it gradually crept up on me, like a fog,” Clapton said. He half-heartedly tried clinics and therapies, but mostly spent his days “eating junk food, lying on the couch, and watching TV.” 

His guitar skills atrophied. There were only two musical interludes during this period – George Harrison’s August 1971 Concert for Bangladesh in New York and a January 13, 1973, concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre, which was basically a rescue mission led by Steve Winwood and Pete Townshend “to prop Eric up and teach him how to play again.” 

Finally, a stint on the family farm of his then-girlfriend, Alice Ormsby-Gore, helped Clapton “trade isolation for gregarious living” and rediscover the guitar and music. While he admitted that he traded one abusable substance for another, Clapton said he left the farm “fit, clean, and buzzing with excitement at the possibilities ahead.” 

461 Ocean Boulevard (1974)

The title of 461 Ocean Boulevard represents the oceanside Miami address where Clapton started redefining himself musically. At Clapton’s request, Derek and the Dominos bassist Carl Radle had put together a core band, including Tulsa-based drummer Jamie Oldaker and pianist Dick Sims.

They were joined by local session guitarist George Terry, keyboardist Albhy Galuten and backing vocalist Yvonne Elliman (Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar) at Criteria, with Tom Dowd in the producer’s chair.

For three weeks, working mostly through the wee hours, Clapton and the band jammed on blues covers by Robert Johnson and Willie Dixon and worked up three originals. There were a few extroverted moments, especially on Mainline Florida and Motherless Children, which retooled a 1927 gospel standard into a steamrolling romp. But mostly, the record sustains a slow-burn intensity – much influenced by J.J. Cale – especially on Give Me Strength, I Can’t Hold Out, and the gospel-esque Let It Grow. 

The set’s surprise hit came via a cover of Bob Marley’s I Shot the Sheriff, which Clapton fought to leave off the record, but which helped make said record a Number 1 platinum-seller. Re-learning to play, his guitar solos are tasteful and simple throughout, more melodic than the “gymnastic playing” he’d come to resist. Clapton said, “I knew I could still play from the heart, and no matter how primitive or sloppy it sounded, it would be real. That was my strength.”

The Turning Point: An interview with Albhy Galuten

Best known for co-producing the Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Albhy Galuten also worked with Diana Ross, Dolly Parton, and Jellyfish. 

Starting as Tom Dowd’s assistant on the Derek and the Dominos record, Galuten joined Clapton’s studio band as keyboardist for 461 Ocean Boulevard, remaining part of the team for the rest of the decade. He also co-wrote Slowhand’s closing track, Peaches and Diesel, with Clapton.

Why was 461 Ocean Boulevard such an important album for Clapton? 

“When Eric came back, he was clean, more relaxed and done with wanting to be famous. 461 was a turning point. He was leaving the bombast behind him. It was more like, ‘I just want to play with my friends in a band and make a nice record. We’re not going to worry about hits.’ He even said to me, ‘If I knew what hits were, then all blues records would be hits.’ Even though the album is laid-back, there’s an intensity to it, and that came out of his history of very emotional situations in his life.”

You’d worked with Clapton a few years earlier. How had his guitar playing changed? 

“When he was younger, I think he was trying to impress people. Then as he got older, he was just trying to play the song. Eric put in his 10,000 hours to get his technique to where it was flawless. And then once he let it go, he was like Oscar Peterson or Ella Fitzgerald, where your instrument is second nature. He could play whatever he thought of.”

How did you come to write Peaches and Diesel with him? 

“I had this little riff on a guitar and Eric liked it. He was very generous to develop it with me and give me a co-writing credit. But then, he’s always been that way. Years later, he’d make sure his producers got paid royalties from SoundExchange when most big artists never bothered.”

What do you think of those Seventies Clapton albums now?

“They stand up – for their realness and their humanity.”

And your lasting impression of Eric during that period?

“The main thing about Eric is he always loves playing. That’s his whole reason for being.”

E.C. Was Here (1975)

“C’mon, Eric, do some Cream!” yelled a disgruntled fan at a show in 1974. Such catcalls weren’t uncommon in the Seventies, and they got under Clapton’s skin. 

Clapton admitted that his 1975 live album, E.C. Was Here, was a way of “filling that space that people were complaining about.” Of the six tracks, four are straight-ahead blues, and the other two from Blind Faith. Most top out over seven minutes long.

Robert Johnson’s Rambling On My Mind, more than any, proved that Clapton was still an inspired architect. For three-and-half minutes, over four separate key modulations, Clapton leans into Blackie with deep bends and a fiery abandon that recalls the Bluesbreakers’ “Beano” album from nine years earlier. 

There’s One In Every Crowd (1975)

Clapton wanted to call 461’s sequel E.C. Is God: There’s One in Every Crowd, but his label failed to see the humor. Returning to Miami’s Criteria Studio with the same creative team and his road band well-tightened would have seemed to ensure success. 

But despite a couple of memorable songs – the sinewy Singin’ the Blues and the buoyant, Allmans-like High, with Clapton and George Terry on tandem leads – the material doesn’t measure up. Both Swing Low Sweet Chariot and Don’t Blame Me try to replicate the reggae vibe of I Shot the Sheriff, while Opposites and Better Make It Through Today meander without quite arriving.

No Reason to Cry (1976) 

Clapton told Crawdaddy in 1975, “I think I’ve explored the possibilities of that laid-back feel. The next studio album will be stronger, with stage numbers.”

And was it? Well, sort of. Upping stakes to the West Coast of the U.S.A., No Reason to Cry included a sprawling cast of contributors, including Bob Dylan, Ronnie Wood, Billy Preston, and the Band. But Clapton didn’t leave much room for himself, sounding more like a guest than the confident leader (his bandmates called him “Captain Clapton”) he was on the previous two albums. 

On the Dylan-penned Sign Language, the two share lead vocals, though it sounds like neither claims the mic; meanwhile, the Band’s Robbie Robertson plays the (bizarre) guitar solo while his Band-mate, Rick Danko, sings lead on All Our Past Times. Newcomer vocalist Marcy Levy gets the most spotlight here, doing her best Linda Ronstadt on Innocent Times and Hungry. Overall, it’s an album that goes by pleasantly enough, but hardly invites repeated listens. 

Slowhand (1977)

The front-loaded Slowhand is the purest distillation of everything Clapton was aiming for in the Seventies. His spirit guide, J.J. Cale, resides in the cover of Cocaine and the slippery country-blues groove of Lay Down Sally. And there’s the happy-ever-after sequel to Layla, the gentle Wonderful Tonight. 

Apparently written in frustration while he was waiting for Pattie Boyd to get dressed for a party, Clapton delivers it in dewy tones, both vocally and with his Strat. As a contrast to the lean economy of Side 1, polished by new producer Glyn Johns, Clapton stretches out for The Core, an eight-minute response to all those frustrated fans who missed his extended solos.

The other highlight is John Martyn’s May You Never, which is one of Clapton’s warmest, most affecting vocals from any of his albums. Glyn Johns wrote in his autobiography, “It was like falling off a log working with this lot. Because they had been on the road for a few weeks, Eric and the band were in great form. There [was] a camaraderie between them socially as well as musically, Eric’s sense of humor was leading the way.”

Backless (1978)

“For most of the Seventies, I was content to lie back and do what I had to do with the least amount of effort,” Clapton said. “I was very grateful to be alive.” Clapton’s final studio album of the decade, Backless, brims with that feeling as it returns to the winning formula of Slowhand, with Glyn Johns producing 10 easy-to-like songs. 

There’s a J.J. Cale cover (I’ll Make Love to You Anytime), a Marcy Levy duet (Roll It), a Lay Down Sally sequel (Watch Out for Lucy), two Dylan tunes and an eight-minute traditional blues that gives Clapton and George Terry room to stretch out on solos (Early in the Morning). 

But it’s the final song that’s most memorable, a rocking tribute to the musical city that influenced so much of Clapton’s Seventies work – Tulsa Time. 

When E.C. was Livin’ on Tulsa Time

In 1978, Nashville-based songwriter Danny Flowers was playing guitar on the road with country star Don Williams. The band had a night off in Tulsa. “It was the middle of blizzard, and I wrote Tulsa Time, in about 30 minutes in my hotel room while watching The Rockford Files – like you do,” Flowers says with a laugh. “I was thinking about my musician friends who lived there – Jamie Oldaker and Dick Sims, who played with Eric – and the vibe of the place.”

The next day, at a rehearsal, the band started working up Flowers’ new song. Williams heard it and loved it. Flowers says, “He said, ‘Get me the lyric, I want to record it.’” A week later, they were opening a concert for Clapton in Nashville. Flowers says, “Eric used to come to our shows and was a big fan of Don’s.” Afterwards, Flowers was hanging out with Williams in Clapton’s hotel room. 

“We were playing guitars, and Don says, ‘Danny, play that new song.’ So I’m doing it, and Don’s playing rhythm and Eric’s playing Dobro. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. When I got through, Eric said, ‘I love that song and I want to record it right away.’ Don said, ‘No, you can’t record it. It’s mine!’ They were play-arguing. I said, ‘If you’re gonna fight, I’m not gonna let either one of you have it.’”

A few months later, Flowers bought a copy of Backless. “And there it was, my name on the back of a Clapton album,” he says. “It was a beautiful thing.”

Knowing that much of Clapton’s music in the Seventies felt like a tribute to Tulsa’s J.J. Cale, Flowers says, “One of the biggest compliments I ever got about Tulsa Time was somebody who knew J.J. asked him if he had written that song, and he said, ‘No, but I wish I had!’”

It is difficult, in retrospect, to convey the impact that Eric Clapton had on the world of electric guitar playing in 1966. 

For one thing, Clapton himself has spent most of his career since 1970 in denial about his achievements in revolutionizing the sound and status of the instrument, and he has been only too happy to let the spotlight fall instead on those who followed in his footsteps, including Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and too many others to count. 

But even allowing for Clapton’s latter-day reticence, it takes a supreme effort of either memory or imagination to fully appreciate how different the state and sound of electric guitar playing was prior to the release of John Mayall’s Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton in 1966.

The prototype guitar heroes of the Fifties and early Sixties were either moody types such as Link Wray and Duane Eddy, or bands like the Ventures and, in the U.K., the Shadows, whose guitar star was the clean-cut Hank Marvin. 

What they shared was a guitar sound that seemed to have been recorded at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Layers of echo and reverb were added to a precise plectrum and fingering style that placed the ability to conjure a haunting melody cloaked in a deep, twanging tone above all other considerations. 

Clear enunciation of individual notes played cleanly in tandem with a deft tremolo bar technique was central to the sound of records ranging from Wray’s Rumble to any number of Shadows hits, from Apache to Man of Mystery.

As the new wave of beat groups got into their stride, particularly in the U.K., guitarists became emboldened and started to take a more unfettered approach, often informed by the stylings of the original American blues guitarists. 

Brian Jones supplied a loud, super-aggressive slide guitar part to the front of the Rolling Stones’ I Wanna Be Your Man. Dave Davies offered a raw, runaway solo on the Kinks’ first hit, You Really Got Me. Pete Townshend introduced some startling feedback effects on the Who’s Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere. Jeff Beck layered experimental, Eastern-sounding, psychedelic solos across the Yardbirds hit Shapes of Things and its B-side, You’re a Better Man Than I. 

But none of these early outliers had truly captured what a full-blown, modern electric guitar sound could be – or was about to become. 

Clapton, meanwhile, had been not-so-quietly working up to his piece de resistance for some time. As the guitarist in the Yardbirds from 1963 to 1965, he gained a cult following that was out of proportion to the traditional status of a non-frontman musician in a band. This was thanks in part to his cool fashion sense and stage presence, but in even larger part to his incendiary soloing skills. The band’s debut album, Five Live Yardbirds, released in the U.K. in December 1964, was both a blueprint and a harbinger of what was to come.

A raw, scrappy, low-budget production, Five Live Yardbirds was recorded without fuss or fanfare at one of the band’s regular shows at the Marquee Club in London on March 20, 1964. 

It was notable for many things; the incredible energy of the performance was evident from the opening surge of Chuck Berry’s Too Much Monkey Business, in which Clapton and bass player Paul Samwell-Smith engage in a whirling, skirling, insanely propulsive blast of soloing that had a foretaste of the punk aesthetic about it. 

Clapton’s developing skill as a soloist was clearly on display throughout numbers such as Eddie Boyd’s slow blues Five Long Years and a rip-roaring take on John Lee Hooker’s Louise. 

The recording also captured several extended improvised passages – what the band referred to as their “rave-ups” – in songs such as Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning and a ragged version of Bo Diddley’s call-and-response epic Here ’Tis, in which Samwell-Smith and Clapton performed a high-speed duel amid a closing sequence of indistinct aural mayhem from band and audience alike. 

These rave-ups were quite unlike anything that any other “pop” or beat bands of the pre-rock era had committed to tape and were a precursor of the working practices that Clapton would later pursue with monumental results in Cream.

What Five Live Yardbirds did not possess was anything remotely resembling a modern lead guitar sound. Throughout his tenure with the Yardbirds, Clapton mostly played a red Fender Telecaster through a Vox AC30. The sound this produced, although perfectly acceptable for the period, was comparatively thin and trebly with virtually no sustain. 

Clapton continued to use the Telecaster when he initially joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in April 1965. But the following month he bought a sunburst 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard with humbucking pickups, which turned out to be a game-changer. 

This instrument, which became known as “the Beano Burst” after the nickname of the album he recorded with the Bluesbreakers the following year (Clapton is reading a Beano comic in the cover photo), has acquired a mythical status in the guitar world – not least because it was stolen soon after Clapton joined Cream in 1966 and has since vanished into a swirling mist of rumors as to its whereabouts, rumors that continue to surface to this day.

“The Les Paul has two pickups, one at the end of the neck, giving the guitar a kind of round jazz sound, and the other next to the bridge giving you the treble,” Clapton explained in his 2007 autobiography. “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.

“I also used amps that would overload. I would have the amp on full and I would have the volume on the guitar also turned up full, so everything was on full volume and overloading. I would 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 could call ‘my sound.’”

While the heavy, humbucking resonance of the Les Paul was key to the overall sound, so too was the new Marshall amplification that Clapton also bought into at this time. A small, innovative business run by Jim Marshall, an ex-drummer, the company was at that time based in Hanwell, West London, from where Clapton acquired a Marshall model 1962 2x12 combo based on the JTM45 design. 

This new setup produced a much fuller, more powerful sound than his Tele-and-Vox combo, and even before the release of the Beano album, it was clear something special was in the air.

Mayall’s Bluesbreakers didn’t tour, exactly; they simply played six or seven nights a week as a matter of course. “We were paid £35 a week,” Clapton recalled. “It was a set wage no matter how much work you did. The idea was that you would play a gig, and when you were done you might have to play again that night. 

A not un-typical night might involve traveling up to Sheffield to play the evening gig at eight o’clock, then heading off to Manchester to play the all-nighter, followed by driving back to London and being dropped off at Charing Cross station at six in the morning.”

It is not altogether clear when the graffiti proclaiming that “Clapton is God” started to appear on the streets of London. But the equipment overhaul and the intense gigging schedule had clearly elevated the guitarist into an exalted zone as a performer. 

There is a live recording of the Bluesbreakers playing Call It Stormy Monday at the Flamingo Club on March 17, 1966 – two weeks before Clapton’s 21st birthday and a month before the Beano album was recorded – that has been hailed by several commentators as one of the best blues guitar solos ever. 

Clapton’s tone, along with the outrageous timing and aggressive phrasing on this recording, is little short of supernatural. Nashville guitar great Kenny Vaughan [Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives] spoke for many when he called it “just the most wicked-ass… frantic, most intense guitar solo you ever heard on a blues in your life.” 

It sounds phenomenal in every department – even today. But imagine how it must have sounded to the guy who had just wandered into the bohemian neighborhood of nightclubs, strip joints and coffee bars on Wardour Street in 1966 and happened to hear that solo. It must have been like hearing music from another planet. 

Against the odds, the Beano album caught something of the thrill of that moment in time, making it one of the most successful exercises in the art of capturing lightning in a bottle yet undertaken in the modern recording era.

“We went into the Decca studios in West Hampstead for three days in April [1966] and played exactly the set we did on stage, with the addition of a horn section on some of the tracks,” Clapton said. “Because the album was recorded so quickly, it had a raw, edgy quality about it which made it special. It was almost like a live performance. 

“I insisted on having the mic exactly where I wanted it to be during the recording, which was not too close to my amplifier, so that I could play through it and get the same sound as I had on stage.”

That was all very well for Clapton. But for producer Mike Vernon and engineer Gus Dudgeon, it wasn’t quite that simple, as Mayall recounted in his 2019 autobiography. 

“I recall that the engineer, Gus Dudgeon, was horrified that Eric was intending to play through his Marshall amp at full volume,” Mayall said. “This simply wasn’t the acceptable way to do things in 1966. However, Eric stood his ground, refusing to turn his amp down. Mike Vernon had to mediate in order for us to start.”

“It took a while to get a sound that everybody was happy with, especially Eric, but everybody had to take on board that we were going into an unknown era,” Vernon told Harry Shapiro in 2011.

“Nobody in Decca studios had ever witnessed somebody coming into the studio, setting up their guitar and amp and playing at that volume. People in the canteen behind the studio were complaining about the noise. Normally they’d never hear it, but this was travelling around the studio complex. People were saying, ‘What the bloody hell is that?!’ and coming to see what was going on.”

The resulting album – Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton by John Mayall – marked Year Zero for the modern electric guitar sound. Clapton’s tone was nothing short of revolutionary and, harnessed to the skill and visceral emotional quality of his solos (especially on slow numbers Have You Heard and Double Crossing Time), produced an effect of a different magnitude to anything that had gone before. 

Kudos to Mayall for assembling a great collection of new and traditional blues songs and stamping his singular English mark on them. And respect to the fine rhythm section of John McVie (bass) and Hughie Flint (drums). But this album was all about Clapton using his Gibson/Marshall setup to redefine the sonic and technical norms of electric guitar playing.

Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton ushered in a new era, not just in the playing of music but also the marketing of it. It was released July 22, 1966, with little fanfare, and promptly rose to Number 6 in the U.K. albums chart.

This was unheard of for an act that had enjoyed no previous success in the singles chart, and its unexpected yet emphatic progress was a key moment in the process whereby albums started to take over from singles as the barometer of a band’s success.

With its revolutionary guitar sound and compelling spiritual vigor derived from the musicians’ deep love and knowledge of American blues forms, the impact of the album was seismic on many levels. A generation of guitarists received the wake-up call of their careers, and within a year the British Blues Boom would be in full swing. More than that, it was effectively the first “rock” album.

“When we heard the Beano album, that was like… Nobody had ever heard a guitar sound like that,” Kenny Vaughan said. “Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson records from the 1950s had some wicked-ass sounds. And, of course, Guitar Slim and Earl King – they both had great sounds. And Link Wray had a brash, rude sound. But they weren’t like that. Nobody had that Eric Clapton sound on that record.”

Nobody had it – and now everybody wanted it. Unfortunately for Mayall, by the time the Beano album was released, Clapton had already left the group. Ever the pragmatist, Mayall immediately recruited Peter Green to replace him and continued his eight-days-a-week schedule playing to ever-expanding audiences. 

Clapton, meanwhile, had embarked on another project that would further define the role of the modern guitar hero and redraw the boundaries of the rock genre he had already done so much to invent.

Cream were the first power/guitar trio and the first group of any kind to bring a flamboyantly virtuoso musical technique to bear on the traditionally basic structures of popular music. Drummer Ginger Baker and bass player/vocalist/harmonica man Jack Bruce were highly evolved musicians with backgrounds in jazz, where the impulse to experiment and improvise at length was taken as part of the basic motivation for performing.

To play with musicians like these gave Clapton an opportunity to deploy his technique to its full extent and explore musical avenues that took him far beyond the confines of performing in a regular band. 

Cream were a short-lived and volatile combination of individuals, but it’s worth remembering the spirit of optimism that brought the group together. “Musically we are idealistic,” Clapton told Penny Valentine in July 1967. “When I first met Ginger and Jack I realized they were the only two musicians I could ever play with.”

Cream played their first gig at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester on July 29, 1966, the night before England won the World Cup, and the trio’s first album, Fresh Cream, was released just five months later on December 9. 

The chronology of the 1960s gets a bit hazy after all this time, but it is worth noting that Jimi Hendrix released his first single, Hey Joe, one week after Fresh Cream. 

Indeed, when Hendrix’s manager, Chas Chandler, was trying to persuade Hendrix to move from New York to London, one of Chandler’s key bargaining chips was to promise that once they were in London, he would arrange for Hendrix to see his hero, Eric Clapton, playing with Cream. It was perhaps no coincidence that Hendrix also elected to form a trio as opposed to a conventional four-man band on his arrival in London. 

With Fresh Cream, Clapton further extended the range of sounds and musical sensibilities available to the modern guitar hero. On Sweet Wine, he constructed a latticework of interlocking guitar lines – some of them little more than wails of feedback, others hauntingly melodic – to create a passage that was more of a soundscape than a guitar solo.

He developed an extraordinary sense of narrative in his solos – which even on the extemporized blues rumble of Spoonful or the two-chord chant of I’m So Glad seemed to hang together as if they were totally spontaneous and carefully structured at the same time.

As they toured America, the trio’s facility for improvising around a commonly understood framework became ever more finely developed. They played many times at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, where promoter Bill Graham gave them carte blanche to play for as long and as loud as they liked, even if the show went on until dawn the next day.

“It was very liberating,” Clapton recalled. “We’d go off in our own directions, but sometimes we would hit these coincidental points… and we would jam on it for a little while and then go back into our own thing. I had never experienced anything like it. It was nothing to do with lyrics or ideas; it was much deeper, something purely musical. We were at our peak during that period.”

This semi-improvised approach led to one of the most celebrated guitar solos of all time, in the shape of the comparatively concise and structured live version of Crossroads recorded on March 10, 1968, on a mobile studio parked outside the group’s gig at the 5,400-capacity Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, and first presented to the wider world as the opening track on the live disc of the double-album Wheels of Fire, released on August 9 of that year in the U.K. (June 14 in the U.S.).

Clapton’s phrasing, timing and choice of notes on this version was sensational, as he started in a low register and gradually climbed over two verses building tension and excitement. After another verse of vocals, he came back in for a second stretch of solos, doubling the intensity in all departments for another three verses. 

Never repeating himself or losing his way through the intense three-way wrestling match going on between the guitar, bass and drums, he pulled out a succession of soaring blues licks and double-stop bends to create a thrilling climax that was both super-aggressive and intensely focused. In the many polls, lists and tabulations of Clapton’s greatest guitar solos, this is the one that invariably comes out at the top.

Surprisingly, by modern standards, all the sound of the guitar (and the bass, for that matter) at Cream’s shows was generated from the back line. None of the speakers for the instruments were miked up and put through the PA, even in venues of 5,000 capacity or more. 

The PA systems of the time were still unbelievably rudimentary; a couple of WEM columns or a Marshall 200-watt system for the vocal mics and maybe a couple of overhead mics for the drums was considered sufficient for a gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

The incredible sound that Clapton got with Cream (as with Mayall before that) was a function of the outrageous volume at which he played his Gibsons, which were usually either the 1964 SG Standard affectionately known as “The Fool,” a ’63/’65 one-pickup Firebird 1 or a ’64 ES-335. 

He generally used two 100-watt Marshall stacks, each comprising a model 1959 100-watt head, a model 1960 angled 4x12 cabinet and a model 1960B flat-fronted 4x12 cabinet. 

“I set them full on everything,” Clapton told Rolling Stone in 1967. “Full treble, full bass and full presence, same with the controls on the guitar. If you’ve got the amp and guitar full, there is so much volume that you can get it 100 miles away and it’s going to feedback – the sustaining effect – and anywhere in the vicinity it’s going to feedback.”

Clapton gradually introduced various pedals into his setup. He was the first “name” guitarist to release a track featuring a wah pedal – the Vox V846 (later reissued as the Clyde McCoy) – which he used on Tales of Brave Ulysses, released as a U.K. B-side to Strange Brew in June 1967. 

Although Hendrix ultimately made much more extensive use of the wah and did far more to popularize it, his first use of the pedal wasn’t heard on record until Burning of the Midnight Lamp, a U.K. single released in August 1967. 

Clapton also used a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, notably to beef up the iconic riff of Sunshine of Your Love and to add extra saturation and sustain to his sound on White Room and others. 

He used other pedals and effects – including the revolving (Leslie) speaker sound heard on Badge – but often his amp and guitar settings, combined with his extraordinary touch, were all it took to generate a specific sound, such as the high, pure “woman” tone he conjured on Outside Woman Blues and others.

The huge popularity and acclaim that greeted Clapton and Cream inspired a transformation in popular music on many levels. The sheer volume at which they played and the heavy, riff-based style of songwriting they developed paved the way for Black Sabbath and Deep Purple – both founded in 1968 – and the subsequent birth of heavy metal. 

And Cream’s fondness for improvising unleashed a tsunami of extended jamming among the heroes of the heavy rock genre they had done so much to create. It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that by their example Cream transformed a concert and record industry previously dominated by the three- or four-minute song structure into a world where long-form improvisation and instrumental free-for-alls became commonplace, if not the norm. 

Hendrix certainly took it as the model for his live performances, as did Led Zeppelin – who, of course, started life as the New Yardbirds and thereby carried forward the legacy of the original Clapton rave-ups that got the ball rolling in the first place. And over the next few years, bands such as Ten Years After (at Woodstock), Mountain, Humble Pie and many others piled in with ever more extravagant performances that trod an increasingly erratic line between grand musical visions and wanton grandiloquence.

In 1968 Canned Heat filled two sides of their double-album Living the Blues with one track, Refried Boogie, a 40-minute epic of non-stop noodling and nebulosity.

It all got to be a bit too much for Clapton. He was particularly affected by a negative review of a Cream show in Rolling Stone by Jon Landau, who described the band as “three virtuosos romping through their bag… always in a one-dimensional style” and Clapton as “a master of the blues clichés of all of the post-World War II blues guitarists.” 

“And it was true!” Clapton said later. “The ring of truth just knocked me backward.” 

By that point, Clapton had been performing for many years at a level of intensity that had become impossible to maintain. There was an emotional cost to digging so deep into his reserves of musical creativity night after night, not to mention the physical toll of doing so at such punishingly high volumes.  

“When you’re in your mid-20s you’ve got something that you lose,” Clapton reflected in an interview with Q magazine in 1986. “If I was a sportsman I would have retired by now. You’ve just got a certain amount of dynamism that you lose when you turn 30. You have to accept that otherwise you’re chasing a dream.”

Looking back on that period much later, he recalled that, “There were times too when, playing to audiences who were only too happy to worship us, complacency set in. I began to be quite ashamed of being in Cream, because I thought it was a con. Musically I was fed up with the virtuoso thing. Our gigs had become nothing more than an excuse for us to show off as individuals, and any sense of unity we might have had when we started out seemed to have gone out of the window.”

Clapton made one last roll of the guitar hero dice with the ill-fated supergroup Blind Faith, which came into being, recorded and released a U.S. and U.K. chart-topping album, headlined a massive show in Hyde Park, toured in Scandinavia and America and then split up – all between January and August 1969. 

“I think just playing the guitar isn’t enough,” Clapton told Rolling Stone the following year. “If I was a great songwriter or a great singer, then I wouldn’t be so humble about it. I wouldn’t be shy.”

So saying, Clapton very firmly stepped down from the pedestal onto which he had been placed and turned his back on the world of rock virtuoso superstars he had been instrumental in creating. 

He (along with George Harrison) instead joined forces with Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett, a husband-and-wife duo from Los Angeles whose loose-knit band had supported Blind Faith on their tour of America. Delaney & Bonnie’s soulful blend of Southern rock, blues and gospel music was a soothing balm to Clapton’s troubled spirit. 

“You really have to start singing, and you ought to be leading your own band,” Delaney told Clapton. “God has given you this gift, and if you don’t use it he will take it away.” 

Clapton took Delaney’s advice to heart, and his subsequent campaign since the 1970s to reinvent himself has been so successful that as far as many casual observers of the rock world today are concerned, he is now regarded as a singer who also plays a bit of guitar. 

And yet the influence that Clapton had, whether directly or indirectly, on just about every electric guitarist who followed him is undeniable. Just listen to Mick Taylor playing Snowy Wood on the Bluesbreakers’ 1967 album Crusade. Or check out the incredible off-the-cuff recording of Eddie Van Halen conjuring a note-perfect recreation of Clapton’s solo from Crossroads during a 1984 radio show called The Inside Track. 

Then there’s John Mayer’s emotionally charged playing (and soulful singing) on Gravity. Mayer once described Eric Clapton as his “musical father” and has often performed Crossroads in his live shows, while many latter-day guitarists ranging from Joe Bonamassa to Gary Clark Jr. have testified to Clapton’s towering influence on their playing.

“Cream explored the outer reaches that three players could accomplish,” said Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, another trio that emerged from under the long shadow of Clapton, Bruce, and Baker. Gibbons nominated Fresh Cream as one of the albums that changed his life, no less, delivering his verdict on the group’s sound with a typical Texas flourish: “Killer tones.”

• With thanks to Geoff Peel, London.

As the son of Cream bassist Jack Bruce, Malcolm Bruce has done his part to preserve his father’s legacy with his Heavenly Cream project.

It’s important to him, even though it’s not always easy to explain why – but that doesn’t stop him trying. “To me, Cream’s music, aside from all these wonderful songs, is about just playing," he tells Bass Player.

“It’s about taking risks and stretching out into the unknown, with the songs just as a starting point. To me, that is where the potential lies. It’s a band of three musicians, all contributing equally. That’s a very important aspect of what made Cream work so well – lots of space to allow each musician to express himself.”

His father’s monstrous bass chops aside (which powered the contributions of Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker), the music Bruce helped make was a focus of cultural elements that would have boundless impact for decades.

“Cream was at such a unique moment in history from a creative perspective,” his son says, “and in that moment it displayed real musicianship within a pop context that paved the way for so much to come.

“My dad showed that the bass can move; it can play a melodic line or go between holding down the harmony and playing melodic invention. It can act contrapuntally too.

“But most importantly, my dad showed that the bass can play an equal role in melodic and rhythmic invention. It’s guided intuitively and responds to the other instruments’ sense of time and dynamics. All of this is shown as an expression of that unique personality on the instrument.

“I think my dad contributed to that understanding. Beyond that, he left us with a truly significant body of work built over a long and diverse career.”

What are the most challenging Cream songs to play and why?

“I’m not sure any of the songs are challenging to play; it depends on whether the goal is to reproduce the songs exactly as the original band performed them or to take the essence of the songs and make something from that. Some of the vocal parts are challenging.”

Do you have a favorite Cream album? 

“It's hard to choose between Fresh Cream and Disraeli Gears. Fresh Cream does have a freshness to it, an innocence; whereas Disraeli Gears is a more confident and consistently accomplished album –possibly to some degree due to the influence of Felix Pappalardi producing at Atlantic Studios, or that the band had a lot more experience by that point in time.”

And how about your favorite song?

“There are so many great songs! N.S.U. is fun to play and has great energy and unusual harmonic progression. I love the openness of We're Going Wrong, a perfect song to improvise and stretch out to. And As You Said, which has a Scottish folk music influence, pointing to where my dad was heading in terms of the diversity of his writing. And how he was thinking like a composer, using composed elements rather than purely strophic form.”

What's Cream’s most underrated or overlooked song?

“Any of the above mentioned – many don’t get mentioned in the same context as the more well-known songs like Sunshine of Your Love. That said, Dance the Night Away and Take It Back come to mind.”

What do you admire most about your dad's technique?

“His singing voice and his ability to play the bass and sing simultaneously. He had his own personality in everything he did musically.”

Is there a nuance in your dad’s playing or Cream’s music that you feel is essential, but which the average person might not notice?

“One aspect to understand is the range of influences appearing in the music. There are blues, rock, jazz, pop, psychedelia, folk, and classical elements. And the nuance in the music, the choices of dynamics, where and how a note or phrase is placed, when to tighten up, and when to be looser. The sound that three musicians of that caliber can make together is the equality of that dynamic in the sonic spectrum.”

Did your dad leave you any of his gear?

“I don’t use any of my dad’s bass gear. I’ve been using Warwick basses, and sometimes Fender, with Hartke amps. I’m using Framus guitars into Marshall amps with a selection of pedals. I’m getting a great sound with this setup.”

“If people are looking for that old ‘60s Cream bass sound, then the Gibson EB-3 into a Marshall 50-watt head should do the trick. Or maybe 100-watt!

“My dad subsequently developed his fretless technique, eventually using Warwick basses for many years. Wonderful instruments. But the sound is ultimately in the fingers, how we approach the fretboard, and the choices we make with timing and touch.”

Have you had to make any adjustments to play Cream’s music?

“I think it’s easy for me to play Cream’s music – although stylistically, my own music is quite different. I think Cream’s songs are a part of the tradition of popular music we all share, so it feels natural to understand them almost intuitively.”

How does your style differ from your dad’s?

“When I have played these songs, I tend to want to stay in the moment and allow for spontaneity. It’s not so much about my style being different, which is inevitable. It’s more about getting inside the music and finding a level of flow that allows it to be born anew every time it is played.

“There are still all the essential parts to play – the form of the songs, the motivic elements and so on. It’s a balancing act, but the music lends itself to spontaneity, which is the music’s heart.”

How do you view your dad’s legacy overall? 

“His legacy is working through one of the most interesting periods in music; and, like many great artists, he helped evolve significantly throughout his career. He maintained his creative voice in everything he was involved in and crossed boundaries uniquely and substantially. 

“There are many significant projects and collaborations beyond his short tenure with Cream. But in the end, my dad came to terms with being known for the songs he wrote that became hugely successful, and he was proud of that achievement. But to anyone who knows my dad’s work, there’s much more to explore.”

Where would rock music be without him? 

“That may not be easily quantified. The qualities that made Cream so unique have yet to be fully explored. My dad’s approach – playing the bass as an instrument playing an equal part in the music – certainly contributed to developing new ways of seeing the bassist’s role.”

• Heavenly Cream’s An Acoustic Tribute to Cream is on sale now. Visit malcolmbrucemusic.com for full details and tour dates.

Despite a long and varied career, Jack Bruce is still best known for those years he spent alongside Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker in Cream. “What we did with Cream was to take our jazz roots and apply it to a kinda rock, and came up with a new music,” Bruce told BP back in 2004. “The three of us developed a style, but the real chemistry was between Ginger and myself. So, really, it was a jazz band, we just never told Eric that he was Ornette Coleman!”

After Cream split in 1968, Bruce released a string of solo albums, and toured in Ringo Starr’s band, before joining forces with Ginger Baker and guitarist Gary Moore to form the power trio BBM (Bruce, Baker and Moore). Baker and Bruce had a famously volatile relationship. “I got a great insight into the chemistry between Jack and Ginger,” Moore told Louder in 2017. “I think Jack really looks up to Ginger, and Ginger knows it, so he’ll never tell him he’s any good. They’re like two brothers, just winding each other up.”

In 1998, Bruce released an instructional video for bass players. “I don’t think of myself as a technical player, so I don’t think I’ve got anything like that to pass on, but I was playing with two of my favourite people: Gary and Gary. Gary Husband is a wonderful drummer and I love Gary Moore's guitar playing, always have. In fact, I think one of the best bands I've been fortunate to be in was BBM. ” 

Sadly, BBM was quite short-lived for a few reasons. “We made the album, which was very successful, sold a lot, had a hit single and everything – but it's a similar story to Cream. That band kinda soured, if you like, when there was this terrible article in Rolling Stone where they were deliberately trying to be controversial. They said some terrible things about Eric and about me and Ginger and it hurt.

“And certainly the same thing happened with BBM, 'cos Gary Moore was just being compared with Eric, with phrases like 'He's no Eric Clapton’ – which is fairly obvious, really. He's himself, and for my money he's a more exciting player. I mean, Eric’s a great player, but I think Gary's got this passion about his playing. I love playing with him because he just turns you on, and Ginger was really playing great in that band, some of the few live gigs we did were really fantastic.”

While Cream’s debut album, Fresh Cream, had its roots in the blues, Bruce was never comfortable about being described as a blues bass player. "I would never consider myself a blues musician. We took the language of the blues and tried to use it in our own circumstances, but none of us were born in the Mississippi Delta. We took the language and made it our own, but there were still some good, memorable songs in there. I always wanted to write the ultimate pop song and I think if Cream is remembered in the future it'll be for those songs.”

Memorable is certainly an appropriate phrase for the 1967 hit Sunshine Of Your Love. “When I wrote the riff we didn't know what to do with it. Eric came up with the chords at the end, I remember, and it was in the studio that he came up with that first little turnaround, which made it into a song really. It certainly worked and is probably the most well-known track: it's certainly the one that's been played the most and the most covered one too.”

At that time, British bands were taking American blues and turning it into a new genre. As a result, royalty payments actually helped some of the original blues men who had never made much money out of their music. “That's true. At the beginning of Cream we didn't have much original material, so we covered a lot of blues, most of them not very well known at the time. There were people like Skip James who were very neglected and because we did a couple of his things he got some attention which was nice. We were just in love with the blues.”

Bass players don’t come much bigger than the late Jack Bruce. Looking back at his early days with Cream – not to mention his stints with Alex Korner, Graham Bond and the Bluesbreakers – he was one of a short list of pioneers who were challenging the traditional concept of what a bass guitarist could play. Perhaps the best way to sum up his considerable achievements is to note that, alongside his contemporaries Paul McCartney and John Entwistle, Jack Bruce is jointly responsible for the way that the bass guitar is played in modern rock music.

Looking back in 2010, Bruce told BP “I’m strange in a way as I don’t consider myself as a bass player although that’s what I do. I sing, play piano and a bit of acoustic guitar, so I don’t usually buy records because of the bass playing. I suppose The Beatles’ Rain was an influential track, but the biggest influences on me were always the jazz players. 

“There was one record called The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever, and it’s Charlie Parker with Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell and Max Roach. I'd recommend that to anybody. Also any of the Tamla Motown records, anything by James Jamerson. Another one was The Band’s first record, Music From The Big Pink. It’s hard to think who the greatest players of today are. You could say Flea, who is a great player and a friend of mine, but he doesn’t need the plug!”

Back in 2010, on the release of his authorised biography, Composing Himself, Jack Bruce revealed the five albums that shaped his sound.

1. Johann Sebastian Bach – Great Organ Works.

“There are so many of these collections, but I’d choose anything that includes Toccata And Fugue, the famous one. If you want to know anything about bass playing, it’s all there. It’s perfection. The bass parts are contrapuntal, but they’re also melodic; if you took away the bass part the whole thing would fall apart. Those parts are great if you want to learn to play melodically. You don’t need a lot of theory to understand them; the ultimate rip-off is Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade Of Pale. That’s just one example, though – there are hundreds of them.”

2. Dizzy Gillespie Band – Showtime At The Spotlite: 52nd Street New York City, June 1946.

“This album has Ray Brown on bass, and the particular song I’m thinking of is called One Bass Hit. This was very influential to me, because I listened to that music and loved it very much – and the very first audition I had for a big professional band, the Murray Campbell Big Band, was that piece. It was all transcribed, but they were quite impressed because I was straight out of college and I sight-read it, and I got the job. There’s a very dense Ray Brown solo right at the beginning.” 

3. Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um.

“This is self-explanatory, really. Mingus was a really great composer and bass player, which was obviously something I wanted to emulate – I wanted to do both those things. I didn’t discover him until I was 17 or 18, and it changed my life. Also, his music was a very early fusion, if you like, of country, blues and bebop – it was very exciting. His book Beneath The Underdog is the greatest autobiography ever written. It’s full of lies and exaggerations, but why not?”

4. Various Artists – Motown 50.

“James Jamerson did everything, didn’t he? Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder…he’s on all those great tracks. They tried to muddy the waters a bit sometimes and say it was another bass player, but he played on 30 number ones, which is not a bad record. It’s said that he never changed his strings, which is one of two approaches to strings. I like to change mine a lot – if I’m on tour, it’s for every gig – because I like the sound and the feel of brand-new strings. But the other way is to leave them on forever.” 

5. Living Colour – Stain.

“This has Doug Wimbish on it. He’s just amazing. He sums up all the great things about modern bass playing. The last time I saw him was when Living Colour played the Jazz Cafe in London, and he did this solo which was just so entertaining. The things he can do with effects are astounding. He’s taken them to a new height, which is great. It’s really hard to think who the greatest players of today are, because there’s quite a few – but he’s a bit underrated. You could say Flea, who is a great player, but he doesn’t need the plug!” 

As the driving force behind ‘60s supergroup Cream, the late Jack Bruce needs little introduction. Over four decades of album releases, Glasgow-born Bruce became a master of many styles of music, with his own solo releases spanning a wide range of sounds that made him impossible to categorise. 

A 12-bar psychedelic blues, Politician appears on Cream’s 1968 album Wheels of Fire, with a later version cut for the 1969 post-band release, Goodbye Cream. It’s the perfect way of experiencing the many facets of Jack Bruce’s bass playing abilities. Studio recordings Born Under a Bad Sign and more significantly Politician, also necessitated Bruce to sing in a different time frame from his bass.

“The relationship between Jack Bruce’s vocals and his bass playing was unbelievable because sometimes it was disconnected,” Quiet Riot veteran Rudy Sarzo told BP. “He would sing the vocals as a lead singer would sing them, and he would manage the bass parts at the same time in a way that very few bass players could. He had his own voice and he made his own statement.”

Speaking to BP back in March 2005, Bruce was happy to shed some light on one of his favourite Cream bass tracks.

Bruce recalled, “Politician happened – I don’t think ‘written’ is quite the word – during a BBC broadcast. The BBC studio where we were recording had just installed a 3-track machine, and this enabled us to overdub. The bassline came about during an improvisation on Willie Dixon’s Spoonful just prior, and the major 7th-to-tonic interval had stuck in my mind. Pete Brown had given me a set of lyrics in blues form, and Eric and I simply played the line almost instantaneously in unison. As far as I recall, I then overdubbed an improvised vocal using Pete’s lyrics, and Politician was born.”

Bruce used his Gibson EB-3 bass guitar, strung with La Bella light-gauge strings, and plugged into a Marshall 4x12 stack with a 50- or 100-watt head. Although all the other recorded versions of the song – including the one on Bruce’s 2003 solo disc, More Jack Than God – are in the key of D, the original version appears to be in Db. “Unlike Jimi, we never deliberately tuned down. Bear in mind this was before electronic tuners. Live we would simply tune to my diatonic blues harp – and since we had no fixed pitched instruments in Cream, often the pitch would not be strictly A440, to say the least!”

Performing Politician on the road also meant Bruce had to master singing and playing two completely independent lines, a task that remains imposing for singing bassists covering the tune. “It was certainly the most challenging example of singing and playing completely independently that I had met to that point, and in fact, I had no harder task until I played with Tony Williams’s Lifetime. I simply got as comfortable as possible with the bass part until I could play it on automatic pilot, and then I gradually added the vocal.”

The track begins with two bars of the unison riff, leading to the first verse, and Bruce’s angular displaced lead vocal. Adding to the tension is Ginger Baker’s turned-around drum feel, courtesy of his drum pattern that has the kick on one and four and the snare on two and three. “I believe this is because of Ginger’s background in New Orleans-style jazz bands. The wonderful way he plays blues in general – using rolls and such – is inspired by this.”

An excerpt of Bruce playing the bass part from Politician features in the latest clip from a 1998 DVD, also highlighted on his YouTube Channel.

Bruce’s bass falls into its own pattern, alternating a bar of the main riff with a bar of improvised fills. These bars feature James Jamerson-like syncopation and chromatic movement. “If it’s funky, it’s from James! If not, it’s from Johan Bach!” Bruce, who was heavily influenced by the Motown legend, then adds a straight-up blues fill before adding more rhythmic bounce to the first V-IV turnaround.

The second and third verses mimic the first, with some notable changes – including Bruce’s first exaggerated string bend, and his use of the 3rd in the bass. “The 3rds are probably from the classical harmony I studied at school, but you also hear that in New Orleans sousaphone parts.”

As Eric Clapton’s guitar solo takes flight, Bruce instantly kicks up the support, moving higher in range on the tonic chord, adding motion through a galloping rhythm and bluesy fills, and issuing nasty string-bending vibratos. For the final verse, Bruce returns to his previous approach, with a few added high points. Among these are a cool broken rhythm and stops instead of tied notes. Asked for performance tips, Bruce said, “Think mellow marching band!”

Eric Clapton’s ‘The Fool’ Gibson SG – one of Slowhand’s most iconic electric guitars – is set to be sold at auction later this year.

It is without a doubt one of the biggest box office guitar auctions of 2023, not only because of its close historic association with Clapton, but because of the role this particular SG played in cultivating his famed “woman tone”.

Upon leaving John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers in 1966, Eric Clapton joined Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce in Cream. A year later – when the supergroup were piecing together the heavier, riff-oriented Disraeli Gears – Clapton took to playing a 1964 Gibson SG.

Painted by a Dutch art collective known as “the Fool”, the gnarly double-cut sported a wholly unique aesthetic, and in the hands of Clapton became an influential emblem of the psychedelic era and a key symbol of 1967's Summer of Love phenomenon. Indeed, it remains one of the world’s best-known guitars today.

The guitar also marks a significant historical milestone for the band, having been used by Slowhand when Cream made their live US debut on March 25, 1967, at the RKO Theater in Manhattan.  

However, The Fool wasn’t just a visual statement piece for Cream and their psychedelic direction – it was also a tonal powerhouse that helped Clapton refine the now-famed “woman tone” that he had begun to develop during this decade.

As heard on tracks such as Sunshine of Your Love, White Room, I Feel Free and countless others, the “woman tone” is noted for its harmonically rich and sustaining, yet warmly mellow, character, which is achieved through some choice manipulation of the pickups.

In Clapton’s own words from the August 1967 issue of Beat Instrumental (via Julien's Auctions), “It’s a sweet sound, something like the solo on I Feel Free. It is more like the human voice than the guitar. You wouldn’t think it was a guitar for the first few passages. It calls for the correct use of distortion.”

Clapton’s woman tone is one of guitar’s most enduring sounds, and is quite rightly described by auction host Julien’s Auctions as “one of the most influential and recognizable sounds in rock history”.

During an interview in 1968, Slowhand dived deeper into the mechanics of his signature sound: “The woman tone is produced by using either the bass pickup, or the lead pickup, but with all the bass off.

“In fact, if you use both pickups, you should take all the bass off on the Tone control,” he continued. “That is, turn it down to 1 or 0 on the Tone control, and then turn the Volume full up.”

Sometime after Cream broke up, Clapton passed The Fool onto George Harrison, who in turn gave it to Jackie Lomax. It then made its way to Todd Rundgren, who held onto the guitar until 2000, after which it was sold at auction and subsequently exchanged through the private collectors’ circuit.

Owing to its immense history, The Fool unsurprisingly heads to auction with a significant estimate attached to it: Julien’s Auctions expects it to sell for anything between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000.

Even if the eventual sale only reaches the lower end of that scale, it will still be enough for The Fool to be included on the list of the most expensive guitars ever sold at auction. 

In fact, if it sells for $1,000,000, it will overtake Bob Dylan’s 1964 Newport Folk Festival Fender Strat in 11th spot. On paper, though, The Fool looks to be worthy of a higher-placed finish on that list.

Clapton's '64 SG will be sold on November 16, alongside the Fender Mustang played by Kurt Cobain during Nirvana’s last show, which is also expected to garner between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000.

For more details on the history of The Fool – and the various mods it underwent – head over to Julien’s Auctions.

There are multiple moments in Jimi Hendrix’s short but eventful career that are hailed as iconic: his rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock, setting his Fender Stratocaster alight at Monterey Pop, blowing Eric Clapton away during his Cream guest spot.

However, ask the Hendrix cognoscenti and they’ll tell you that – from a playing point of view – it’s hard to top his extended version of Machine Gun, recorded live with Band of Gypsys at the Fillmore East on January 1, 1970.

Now, through a quirk of the internet, a fully colorised clip of the 12-minute performance has surfaced on YouTube.

It is, admittedly, intercut with the occasional bit of stock footage for rights reasons, but it brings to vivid life the greatest rendition of Machine Gun ever captured – an event, some would argue, is the single greatest electric guitar performance in rock history.

Indeed, in a new Guitar World interview, Vernon Reid of Living Colour breaks down exactly why the Fillmore East performance of Machine Gun is so important. 

“It’s the one electric guitar performance that stands out as being about more than just the notes he’s playing,” says Reid. 

“Jimi was playing the zeitgeist there and spoke to what the nation was going through. He was communicating with people who were walking in rice paddies in Vietnam thousands of miles away. He was in solidarity with the Vietcong and the American G.I.’s with Machine Gun.”

The 1970 recording captures the full blend of dark bravado, patriotism, disillusionment, confusion and violence that faced the country’s youth at the turn of the ’60s. You can hear it all in his playing.

“Jimi plugged into something cinematic,” says Reid. “Like a movie coming from his guitar. If you look at a song like [Eddie Van Halen masterpiece] Eruption, while extraordinary, it’s about the guitar itself, but Machine Gun is about the nation at a specific point in time. Jimi plugged into that at an unprecedented level.”

As Hendrix himself concludes amid the applause at the close of the clip: “That’s one we don’t wanna hear anymore, right?”

Last month, news emerged of a new Hendrix concert recording, Jimi Hendrix Experience: Hollywood Bowl August 18, 1967, which captures the guitar hero on the cusp of his fame, playing to an audience of open-mouthed Mamas and Papas fans.

Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp’s latest Sunday Lunch clip sees the husband and wife duo covering Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love. 

As ever, the stripped-down take on the Eric Clapton classic also incorporates some of their trademark prop-based comedy, thanks to the addition of some actual cream. 

This proves somewhat distracting to Fripp and the guitarist also receives a dairy dressing – though at least Willcox kindly asks the King Crimson man to remove his electric guitar before doing so. 

Musically, of course, it is perhaps not the most masterful rendition of Cream’s iconic riff, but by now we all know that when it comes to the Sunday Lunch clips, the music is really just a thinly veiled excuse for messing about. 

Indeed Fripp, said as much last year, in an interview with UK paper The Telegraph. 

“At age 76, why should I give a fuck?” commented Fripp, when he was asked if he was concerned about the perception of his YouTube antics.

“My wife insists performers have a responsibility to lift people’s spirits in hard times. Do I respect that? My answer is yes, completely and utterly I do... I’m not sure if that meets a criteria of serving what is highest in music, but for me, it’s a real undertaking that I respect. And I am quite prepared to strap on a guitar and rock out to a classic riff in order to achieve it.”

On the prospect of Fripp rocking out to classic riffs, the duo performed an acoustic set at the UK’s Glastonbury Festival yesterday and have also announced a run of UK Sunday Lunch Rock Party tour dates for the fall, kicking off on September 30 at the Tivoli Theatre in Wimbourne, UK. We assume there will be less dairy at the live shows.

To view the full list of Sunday Lunch dates, head to Toyah Willcox’s site. 

There have been few players as important to the shaping of the sound of blues-rock guitar as Eric Clapton. 

A true popular music superstar, the multi-Grammy winning Clapton has achieved iconic status, not only as a blues-rock guitar legend, but also as a mainstream artist who has enjoyed worldwide fame for decades, with songs such like the anthemic Layla, Wonderful Tonight, Rule the World, and My Father’s Eyes, as well as with his cover versions of songs including Bob Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff, or JJ Cale’s iconic Cocaine. 

Clapton’s effect on the development of blues-rock guitar is a matter of modern musical folklore. At a time when young blues disciples such as he, Jimmy Page, John Mayall and Keith Richards were discovering and devouring the music of original American blues artists, his subsequent success in bands such as Cream helped bring the sound of British blues to the USA, generating a resurgence of interest in the source music to new generations, as well as introducing his fluid, improvisation-based lead guitar style. 

Clapton was already a notable player in the UK, from stints in The Yardbirds and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, but as part of the so called ‘British Invasion’, he was exporting his loud, energy infused sound to eager new audiences, and by extension, to a legion of new guitar players.

After the breakup of Cream, Clapton embarked on other projects, such as Blind Faith, Delaney And Bonnie, and Derek and the Dominos. His first eponymously titled solo album in 1970 established him as a solo artist, and was the first of many over the ensuing decades to produce classics like Lay Down Sally, Bad Love, and Tears in Heaven, which cemented his status as a legend.

In this feature, I have written five Clapton-style pieces that represent his approaches through various seminal albums. Although his music has differing stylistic influences, he generally favours minor and major pentatonic-scale, blues-based lines, combining melodic phrases with bending, hammer-ons and pull-offs, with faster, flashier flurries when necessary. He also sometimes borrows notes such as the 2nd and b6th from the natural minor scale.

Piece 1: ‘Beano’ period. This piece focuses on EC’s time with John Mayall, and the album John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton (1966). The ‘Beano’ album showcases Clapton’s playing through various blues covers and Mayall originals, such as Otis Rush’s All Your Love, and Mayall bluesers Have You Heard, and Double Crossing Time. Eric played his Gibson Les Paul into a loud Marshall combo, instantly defining the sound of blues-rock guitar.

Piece 2: Regarded as the first ‘supergroup’, Cream blended blues-rock with the psychedelic sound of the times. You can hear his legendary ‘woman tone’ here, too, where Eric turned the guitar full up and the tone controls down, to create a thick, warm tone from his Gibsons and Marshalls.

Piece 3: Derek and the Dominos. Although only producing one album, here Clapton teamed up with Jim Gordon, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Duane Allman. With blues covers like Have You Ever Loved A Woman and Key to the Highway, the album is of course best known for the anthemic Layla, where Allman plays the famous slide parts. Also here EC started playing Fender Strats (notably ‘Brownie’) into a Fender Champ for the recordings. 

Piece 4: Journeyman has a much more pop-rock slant with its ’80s drum and synth sounds combined with Clapton’s creamy distorted guitar. By this time he was using the Fender Eric Clapton signature Strat with Lace Sensors and mid-boost circuit, which enabled him to achieve the thicker tones of humbucking guitars.

Piece 5: MTV’s 1992 Unplugged concert featured EC and band performing acoustic versions of classic songs like Layla, but also blues standards such as Nobody Wants You When You’re Down And Out and Before You Accuse Me. It also featured Eric’s perhaps underrated acoustic technique. The album and TV show achieved staggering success, becoming the most successful live album of all time, and also EC’s biggest-selling record.

Get the tone

Amp settings: Gain 7, Bass 6, Middle 6, Treble 8, Reverb 3

Clapton has used various electric guitars and guitar amps, but you can go for either a single-coil or humbucking guitar with an overdriven amp or overdrive pedal. Experiment with Eric’s fabled ‘woman tone’ by rolling down the tone control to almost off on your guitar, and then adding gain to thicken the sound. A splash of reverb will provide smoothness and ambience.

Piece 1. ‘Beano’ period 

This is a 12-bar blues in the key of D minor with a pick-up lick starting the tune. It mostly uses notes from D minor pentatonic (D-F-G-A-C). I played this on the bridge pickup of my Gibson Les Paul. For the pick-up lick, make sure you come in on the 1& of the second bar of the count-in with the D minor arpeggio (D-F-A). Aim to ‘wobble’ the whole chord without stifling any of the notes.

[Bar 6, beat 2] Re-pick the bent second-string, 13th-fret D note, but follow the vibrato with a quarter-tone blues curl while the string is still bent, pushing the note up in pitch slightly, so it becomes close to, but not quite making, a D#.

[Bar 7, beat 1] Hold the 10th-fret, third string F note (b3rd) and bend it accurately up by a semitone to the major 3rd F# note on beat 2.

[Bars 9-10] Make sure you pitch the minor 3rd interval accurately on the second string from the 15th-fret D note to the 18th-fret F note.

[Bar 12] When you add vibrato to the very last note, have a go at emulating Clapton’s vibrato technique. When vibrato-ing static notes on upper strings, he tends to keep his palm parallel to the neck, take his thumb off the back of the neck and move his hand up and down.

Piece 2. Cream period

This 27 bar-long piece has a key centre of C minor, although the tonal centre is F minor. It pretty much only uses notes from F minor pentatonic scale (F-Ab-Bb-C-Eb). I also played this on my Les Paul, but used the neck pickup, rolling the tone back for the warbling ‘woman tone’  that Eric developed around this time.

[Bars 1-8] The eight-bar chord intro needs to have a cleaner sound than the lead part, so roll the guitar volume back here to clean up the sound.

[Bars 19-20] Beat 4 of bar 19 contains a fast sextuplet across the first and second strings. It repeats through bar 20, and is pretty fast. Try an inside picking approach; downstroke pick on the first string and un upstroke on the second.

Piece 3. Derek And The Dominos period

The first section is 16 bars long and in the key of  G minor, while the second is 10 bars long and in Eb major. There are melodic phrases using notes from G minor pentatonic (G-Bb-C-D-F) and G natural minor (G-A-Bb-C-D-Eb-F) in section 1, and mainly Eb major pentatonic (Eb-F-G-Bb-C) in section 2. I played my Fender Strat.

Piece 4. Journeyman period

This piece has a key centre of D Major, but a tonal centre of E Minor. It is 17 bars long and demonstrates Clapton-esque approaches with the higher-gain sound of his later period. Again, I used my Fender Stratocaster here. The tune mainly uses notes from the E minor pentatonic scale (E-G-A-B-D), but also from E Dorian mode (E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D), and E natural minor (E-F#-G-A-B-C-D) in places.

[Bar 2] On beat 2&, note the sustained F# note (19th fret, second string). This is the major 2nd interval from the E Dorian mode and gives a melodic, non-pentatonic flavour to the phrase. This note appears again in bar 8.

[Bar 6] The second-string bend at the end of this bar is a major 3rd going from the G note at the 20th fret up to a B note on what would be the 24th. This is a hard interval to bend, so go easy if you’re not used to big bends.

[Bars 11-12] The rapid 16th-note phrase in these two bars are quite tricky to fret cleanly, so go slowly. Note again the use of that major 2nd, F# note in bar 12.

[Bars 15-16] The E Dorian (or natural Minor) scale based phrase in bar 15 shows Clapton’s non-pentatonic approach, and the pinched harmonic in bar 16 is reminiscent of his solo in Bad Love. Aim to hit the octave pitch accurately.

Piece 5. Unplugged period 

This acoustic fingerstyle piece is a straightforward 12-bar blues in E. It goes round twice, with a brief alteration in structure in the first four bars the second time round. 

We are in 12/8 time and rely heavily on the monotonic bass technique common in acoustic blues, which involves a consistent palm-muted pulsing bass (usually the root note) on each beat of the bar, played with the side of the picking-hand thumb, while the fingers pluck the rhythm or lead line. 

This technique involves considerable coordination, but is immensely satisfying as the guitar can sound like a mini orchestra, whether solo or with other instruments. 

When looking at the music, use your thumb for the notes with the stems pointing downwards and your fingers for the notes with the stems pointing upwards. As a general rule, use the first finger of your picking hand on the third string, your second finger on the second string and your third finger on the first string. Clapton, and acoustic blues players in general, often dig in hard, but I’d suggest learning the piece accurately before playing it with too much intensity.

Marcus King got reacquainted with one of the most famous Gibson Les Pauls of all time on Sunday, March 19, when he had a pre-show noodle on the 1955 Black Beauty once owned by Peter Kossoff and Eric Clapton.

King was in Paris to play a show at the Élysée Montmartre when he was presented with the Gibson Les Paul Custom, which is part of Matthieu Lucas’s personal collection. Lucas is the man behind Matt’s Guitar Shop, one of the most respected vintage guitar shops in the world – which presently stocks some seriously choice electric guitars, a number of which were acquired from Richie Sambora.

King duly ran the Black Beauty through a live rig dominated by his signature Orange MK Ultra tube amps, and even on a cameraphone Instagram video it sounded ridiculously good.

It is not the first time King has played this Black Beauty. In April 2020, King dropped by Matt’s Guitar Shop to jam on it, with rhythm played by the store’s own Antoine on a 1960 Les Paul Standard. 

King has always maintained that he is not a blues guitar player, and that is the sort of video that shows you why there’s something in that. Much of his work with the Marcus King Band is certainly adjacent to the blues, but it similarly references soul, rock, and whatever the song needs, and King’s rock-jazz phrasing in that 2020 video are more Carlos Santana than Muddy Waters.

The 1955 Black Beauty has quite the bio. Originally it was acquired by Kossoff’s father, David Kossoff, who brought it back to the UK for him in a time when Les Pauls were hard to come by. Kossoff was trading up from a 1957 Les Paul Junior, and used it in Black Cat Bones, his band before Free (you can see Kossoff pictured with the guitar in the back cover art of Paul's Blues and hear him play it in the video below). 

Fitted with a P-90 at the bridge and an Alnico V ‘Staple’ pickup at the neck, the Black Beauty predated the popularisation of the humbucker. Seth Lover’s PAF was only invented in ’55, making its debut on high-end Gibson electrics the following year. 

Tastes in tone were changing. When Kossoff took receipt of his guitar, it was the ‘60s, and the only objects that were getting passed around more freely than joints were guitars. Kossoff’s Black Beauty soon found its way into Clapton’s possession, around Disreali Gears-era Cream. The Black Beauty did the rounds, and was once under the ownership of Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan before Lucas purchased it. 

Kossoff would later become associated with a number of famous Les Pauls. The story of Kossoff’s ‘Stripped Top’ Les Paul Standard is legendary; it was the guitar of Free’s storming set at Isle of Wight in 1970, and by most Free superfans’ reckoning it was used to track All Right Now. Speaking to Guitarist in 2020, David Clayton of the Free Appreciation Society shed a little light on what Kossoff was using and when.

“There were three main Sunburst Les Pauls that Kossoff used: the Clapton one, the stripped-top one and a ’59 ’Burst that he acquired slightly later that went on to be owned by Arthur Ramm,” said Clayton. “Kossoff used the stripped one for All Right Now at the BBC in June and Clapton’s one for the Granada TV show on 24 July 1970. So he was basically relying on those two guitars before Arthur’s turned up.”

“I’ve played all three – and the thing with the ‘Stripped Top’ ’Burst is that it’s a really bright, fierce guitar,” Clayton continued. “It’s got a really lovely ring. If you play a nice big chord, the whole guitar just sings. That’s maybe because the finish is stripped away. I don’t think it had any finish on the top at all when Paul had it, so I’m assuming it was particularly resonant.”   

Besides giving us the lingering idea that Lucas should lend King that guitar for the run, the video also gave us a new look at King’s touring pedalboard, which has a few substitutions with the core lineup of pedals in place. He’s running a Voodoo Lab pedalboard power supply, on top of the ‘board because what you lose in space you make up for in piece of mind should anything go wrong and you want to fix it in a flash.

That pedalboard is stocking a Dunlop volume pedal, a Tru-Fi Two Face fuzz pedal, an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer, and a series of MXR stompboxes. There is the MXR Booster, the Studio Compressor, the single-knob Micro Chorus, the Phase 100 and the M300 Reverb.

Elsewhere he has a Dunlop Cry Baby wah pedal, a Dunlop Rotovibe for the heady swirl of a rotating speaker chorus/vibrato a la Hendrix, a Tru-Fi Ultra Tremolo, and a Dunlop Echoplex tape echo emulator.

For more pictures of the Kossoff/Clapton 1955 Gibson Les Paul Custom, head over to Matt’s Guitar Shop.

Jack Bruce was one of the most accomplished bass players ever to walk the Earth, and although he later played a Gibson EB-3 and his own signature Warwick Thumb, he made his bones with a Gibson EB-1. Now, an all-original EB-1, which proved to be a worthy competitor to Höfner’s Violin bass, has been listed for sale on Reverb.com.

According to the seller, Retrofret Vintage Guitars in Brooklyn, this particular EB-1 has a serial number that dates it to early 1954, which marks it as one of the first of this model issued. Gibson only made these basses for around five years and in fairly small numbers, which makes it something of a rarity. 

Built at Gibson's original headquarters in Kalamazoo, Michigan, this early model is a fine example and comes complete with a telescopic end-pin for stand-up playing and the original pink-lined hard case.

You could easily miss this at first glance, but the solid mahogany body has painted-on f-holes, a Royalite pickguard and a Royalite-covered single-coil pickup. The fingerboard is rosewood and the tuners are ‘banjo-style’ Kluson tuners with plastic buttons.

The EB-1 was Gibson’s first bass guitar (the ‘EB’ stands for Electric Bass), and was heralded as ‘a revelation in rhythm’ by Gibson's sales department when it was first launched back in 1953. Although it hardly offered the tonal range that Bruce or its other users later preferred, it did have a ‘middy’ sound that cut through the guitars if you turned it up loud enough. 

There have been many variants over the years; Gibson’s original was redesignated the EB-1 in 1958 when the semi-acoustic EB-2 was launched. Then came 1959’s curious-looking EB-0, which resembled a Les Paul with two cutaways and a pickup jammed up against the neck. To complicate matters further, following the transformation of their Les Paul guitar into the SG, Gibson created a sister bass model, the EB-3. The EB-0F with inbuilt fuzz tone also appeared in 1962, lasting until 1965.

Given its association with Jack Bruce and one of the biggest rock reunion performances of all time (remember, Bruce played an EB-1 for the Cream reunion shows back in 2005) this EB-1 has been listed for $7,250.

Visit the full listing to make an offer on this piece of Gibson history.

In the late '50s and early '60s, the bass guitar was a simpler, safer beast. You listened to your guitarist and plunked away at your root notes, taking care not to step on the drummer’s toes, of course. 

That was just the way it was, and that was the way it would always be – that is, until the bass guitar’s role was changed forever by a small group of pioneering players, including Paul McCartney and the late John Entwistle. And, of course, Jack Bruce. 

Born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1943, Bruce brought an acute melodic awareness to the bass guitar from the moment he picked one up. 

By the time he was 30 he was a veteran of Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, the Graham Bond Organization – an incarnation of which featured the young John McLaughlin – John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, innumerable sessions and, of course, Cream, in which he created a mesmerizing, blues- and jazz-laced rock spectacle alongside drummer Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton.

After Cream split in 1968, Bruce released a string of solo albums that demonstrated his trademark blend of jazz, rock, blues, and – latterly – world and ethnic influences. He also participated in a number of high-profile tours in Ringo Starr’s band and elsewhere, and worked with Gary Moore and Ginger Baker in the BBM project. 

In April and May 2003, Bruce’s solo albums Songs For A Tailor, Things We Like, Harmony Row, Out Of The Storm, How’s Tricks?, Jet Set Jewel, Jack Bruce And Friends Live At The Free Trade Hall, Manchester, and a compilation, An Introduction To Jack Bruce were reissued on CD, along with a Cream album, The BBC Sessions. 

Bruce was on fine form when we spoke to him that year, and why not? He was in the autumn years of a life well lived. 

Are you pleased with the reissues?

“Of course. It’s nice to have them out, but it’s especially nice to have Jet Set Jewel out at last because I never thought it would come out. I thought its time had come and gone. Basically it wasn’t a commercial enough album for what the suits wanted: Rob Stigwood was selling out to Polygram at the time, and I guess they wanted the Bee Gees.”

You obviously weren’t disco enough for them?

“Well, yes, although if you listen carefully there are some elements of pea-soup hi-hat in there. After that I parted ways with Stigwood, although I was stuck in limbo for two years – the old story of the record company saying, we don’t want to work with you, but we’re not going to let you work for anybody else! It was contractual, evil things.”

Jack Bruce And Friends Live is also previously unreleased.

“I’d forgotten all about that show being recorded. I think that was a pretty good example of that band. It’s very good playing, but obviously sound-wise it’s a little different to what I would have preferred. But there’s not much you can do about that.”

There’s also the Cream At The BBC CD. 

“The BBC guys were great. With the limited equipment they had – and the people there were even more limited than most people! – they got a tremendously good sound, I think. They were only allowed to use a certain amount of recorded music, so you had to play live.”

There are interviews with Eric Clapton on there, but none by you.

“Well, I guess in those days Eric was the spokesman. It was like that, wasn’t it? They didn’t want us rowdy lot, it was all contrived and controlled. At that time Eric was the face of the band. I don’t mind.”

You attended 14 different schools as a child. One of them was the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, where you had won a scholarship for cello and composition. But you left, reportedly because you were discouraged by the professors’ lack of interest in your ideas. 

“Well, yes. That sounds a bit arrogant, but then you are at that age. I got that scholarship when I was very young, I was 16, I think. I was still at school and going to the Academy part-time. 

“Some of it was great: I mean, the first harmony teacher was really good, but he was a complete Bach freak and he spent all his time looking for mistakes in Bach, like doubled major thirds and tritones and everything. And that was his life! Apart from that he liked to tap-dance on the bass pedals of the organ, so I wasn’t really learning a lot. Plus I’d discovered money and girls – more important things. Basically I was really interested in jazz, and they were so against it. 

“Charles Mingus was a big influence, as obviously he was a bass player and a great composer. There were these practice rooms with really nice upright Steinway pianos, and I used to spend hours improvising, but they’d come in and tell me to stop. I played a Modern Jazz Quartet EP to this guy at the Academy, and he just sneered at it, you know.”

The classical training you received there must have been useful, though.

“It was in the early days. It’s nice to be able to write things. All those early songs are written down – even things like Cream’s White Room were actually scored.”

Did other bass players influence you?

“Yes, very much so, like Mingus and Charlie Haden. I saw Ray Brown very early on, although he wasn’t an influence. Percy Heath was the first bass player I saw live.”

In 1962 you joined Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, with Charlie Watts on drums. I assume you and he made a good rhythm section?

“Oh yes, it was. I always liked Charlie’s playing. He hadn’t quite found his thing yet. He loves jazz, he worships it in a way, and I think he’s what you might call a gentleman drummer. He’s got a lovely backbeat. 

“I think drummers like to play with me because I make them sound good. That is the function of the bass player. I remember going to a clinic that Billy Cobham was doing and someone asked him who his favorite bass player was. 

“He didn’t know I was there, but he actually said ‘Jack Bruce’. I think the reason he gave was the rhythmic approach and the harmonic approach that I had picked things up in the right way.”

When did you switch from upright to electric bass?

“In about 1963, ’64. I always played upright with Alexis Korner. I got asked to do this Ernest Ranglin session and they said, we want bass guitar. So I borrowed one. It was an Epiphone semi-acoustic with black nylon strings, but for me it was great. I suddenly realized that I could play louder than the drums, so I immediately switched.”

You left your next band, the Graham Bond Organization, after three years because Ginger Baker said your playing was too busy. How did you feel about that at the time?

“I almost gave up. I was very hurt by the whole thing. I thought I was doing some interesting things. But I was getting a lot of criticism, not just from Ginger, but from a lot of areas, for this melodic, so-called ‘busy’ approach, instead of playing four in the bar or something. I was influenced by James Jamerson, for instance – people like that.”

What was it you liked about Jamerson’s playing?

“Everything – the way he was playing melodies rather than just root notes. That kind of polyphonic idea appealed to me on the bass, as opposed to just a supporting role.”

I bet Ginger changed his tune as the years went by.

“I don’t know if he ever did, really. He probably still thinks I should be standing there going thump, thump.”

Was there generally a view back then that melodic bass was intrusive?

“Well, there weren’t many people doing what I was trying to do. It just hadn’t happened yet, so it was down to people like me to make it happen.”  

You turned down Marvin Gaye’s offer to join his band in America because you were about to get married. Do you ever wonder what it would have been like to play with Marvin? 

“Of course. I wonder what might have happened, because much later on I became good friends with Jamerson. Marvin was very encouraging to me, to continue finding this style. But then, of course, Cream wouldn’t have happened, and that was my great opportunity for me to play too many notes and get away with it!”

Was it only with Cream that you were allowed to express yourself on the bass as much as you wanted?

“Well, I was always doing that, really. Obviously with Cream we were able to do that because it was a jamming-type band. Cream was like a jazz band, but we didn’t tell Eric that... we were like a little free-jazz trio with Eric as Ornette Coleman, but without him knowing it.”

You sometimes played a Fender VI.

“Yes. I started playing that with Graham Bond, because when John McLaughlin left it meant that I could do little guitar-type solos and stuff. It wasn’t really a very playable instrument because the strings were very close together for a bass, and the scale was too big for a guitarist. It was a kind of hybrid. I enjoyed it for a while, it was fun.”

What were your first impressions of Eric Clapton’s playing?

“He was so obviously ahead of everybody else at that time, with his approach and his knowledge of the blues. I also played with him briefly in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers – he was just leaving when I joined. He was just going on his famous world tour, but he only made it as far as Greece and came back after he saw some meat hanging up with flies on it... That’s the story, anyway.” 

You also played with Jimi Hendrix very early on in his career.

“I was the first guy to bring Jimi on stage. We’d heard of him through a friend who had claimed to have seen him play in New York. Cream was playing at – I think – St. Martin’s School Of Art, and I was having a pre-gig pint. This guy came up and said, ‘Hi, I’m Jimi Hendrix, can I sit in with your band?’ And I said, ‘Well, I dunno, let’s go and find out.’

“So we went across the road and Eric was very keen for him to play and Ginger, of course, was completely against it. But he did play, and he blew us all away, playing with his teeth and all that. Eric was stunned. There’s a demo that we did the next day, and you can tell in Eric’s playing that he’s trying to emulate some of that stuff.” 

You talked with Hendrix about forming a band together. How close did this come to reality?

“That was actually going to happen. Jimi was all for having a play. At that point he was trying to find a new direction, musically, and that could easily have been it. I was all for it because I think one of the problems Jimi had was that he didn’t play with people who kicked him up the arse, basically. 

“I’m not knocking Mitch Mitchell, but to me he was like a British jazz player, he was kind of laid-back. He played a lot of rhythms but I don’t think it pushed Jimi in the way that we would have.” 

At their peak, which was the better trio – Cream or the Jimi Hendrix Experience?

“Certainly I would say that Cream were a more interesting band, although obviously we didn’t have Jimi. But I would say that Eric was a better guitar player. Obviously Jimi was Jimi, and he could have played the Indian nose flute and it wouldn’t have mattered, because he was playing himself – I think he regarded the guitar as an extension of himself. But in an instrumental sense, I would argue that Eric was at least as good as Jimi, probably better. I think Cream had something quite magical as a band when we were playing live.”  

You described being in Lifetime, with John McLaughlin, as the musical time of your life. Why is that?

“It was the most challenging music, which I really enjoy. For instance, on one tune I’d be playing in E and singing in C, plus there were quite difficult things like polytonalities and so on, and it was rhythmically very advanced. So when that band gelled, there was nothing like it. People who saw it still tell me that. It was like Cream, but down the road a bit.”

From Songs For A Tailor onwards, you’ve combined rock, jazz and classical styles in your music, plus what we would call world music. Do you compose with a particular style in mind, or does it come out more organically?

“It just happens. The second album was written in one afternoon. The early ones were written almost as song cycles, although I hate to use these pretentious words. They were written in the order they came out on the record.” 

Are you more of a rock player than, say, a jazz player?

“Yes, if you have to put labels on it, although I think I’ve managed to come up with a style of my own. My own thing, as it were. But since the '50s, when rock ’n’ roll and R&B started to influence things, I think you’ve been able to forge your own style. Especially if you play the music that you write, you’re not constrained by other people’s writing.” 

I noticed you’ll be 60 this year. 

“Aaagh! So did I. But I don’t think musicians ever really retire. You just fall off your perch.”

Far from slowing down, your career seems to have accelerated in the last few years.

“Yes. I had some time off a while back and just thought, 'Oh, I might as well do some work while I can.' I’m not touring so much this year, I’m finishing off my new record and then I’ve got some things later on.”

Is BBM finished now or is there any likelihood of a reunion?

“I think it would be a BM-something else! One of the Bs might not be there next time. That was a great band, but there were some problems with one of the Bs... I speak to Gary Moore a lot. The last thing we did was the Remembering John Lee Hooker record, which was fun. We’re always talking about doing an album together.” 

Are you still playing fretless Warwicks?

“Yes, but more and more I’m using this old Gibson EB-1. God knows how old it is, I think it’s from the Fifties. It’s got this big, old-fashioned, woofy sound. I use that a little bit more, but my first love is still the Warwick fretless, and I’ve got loads of those. 

“I do like them, it’s just that when I’m playing songs like With A Little Help From My Friends with Ringo Starr, it doesn’t sound quite right on a fretless. So the EB-1 is more of that period, plus it’s violin-shaped.”

Didn’t you suggest the extended upper horn to Warwick when they were designing the Thumb bass?

“Yes, because the balance was terrible. I bought one and I thought it was promising, so I helped them out. Normally I go for the bubinga and wenge woods and MEC pickups.” 

Are you a five- and six-string bassist?

“Well, I’ve still got a Fender VI which they gave me, and a couple of five-string fretlesses, but I just don’t really see the point of a six-string for me. I like four strings: The limitations make you come up with ideas. If you’ve got all those notes, you can just play them. Obviously I’ll use a five-string if I want to tune down and go to a low C or something.” 

Of all the basses you’ve ever owned, what was your favorite?

“I’m not a big collector, but I’ve got what is supposedly the eighth Fender bass ever made, with the Telecaster headstock. It has 0008 on it. It’s on my wall, and I occasionally play it, but I wouldn’t take it on the road or anything. It looks great, it’s got the original pickup. 

“I’ve also got a really nice plexiglas fretless that Dan Armstrong made for me. I think there’s only one other, and Paul McCartney’s got it. But I think the Warwick Thumb that I’ve had for 10 years is my favorite, as well as the EB-3 that I played with Cream, which has a very thin, wide neck, the way I like it.”

What about amps?

“I use the Hartke stuff, I’ve been using those for years. I used to work with those guys too, to help them come up with idea of valves and transistors in the same setup. At the time I was using two amps, so we worked on making that happen.” 

Do you prefer a clean sound or do you like a bit of overdrive?

“Well, the way I play the distortion comes from the fingers anyway. But I like the amps to be clean. In the old days, that wasn’t possible above a certain volume, although now I don’t play as loud as I used to.”

Any effects?

“No, I don’t use anything. When I’m recording I don’t even use an amp, I just stick it straight in. The tone controls are pretty flat too. I think pedals for bass just get in the way of the sound, although in the '70s I went through a period of using different things – choruses, phasers and so on. 

“I had this one amazing little effects thing called an Effectron Junior, like a little digital delay thing. You could play a chord and then just stand twiddling knobs for five minutes and that was the solo!”

Did you ever play slap bass?

“No, I never thought it was for me. I kind of fooled around with it but I just thought, it’s not me. I’m glad I didn’t get into it. I remember in the '80s it was the done thing and everybody was doing it. There were a few good people like Larry Graham and Mark King. I liked the way Mark was doing it, but not all those people who did it just because you had to do it. It never struck me as being that great.” 

What current music are you listening to?

“My kids introduced me to gangsta rap, so I’m pretty up on that. Missy Elliott does a lot for me, she’s a poet. I used to like Cypress Hill a lot, I thought they were fantastic. I thought they were like the Beatles, they had all that musicality and all that humor. Anything original and not too serious, I like.”

I’d like to hear your thoughts on John Entwistle.

“He was great. Loud! Very loud. He was an unusual sort of a player, he had his own thing going.”

Bootsy Collins?

“He’s a great guy, he’s a lot of fun.”

Jaco Pastorius?

“I knew him a little bit, as much as anybody could at that point. It was towards the end when I knew him, and he was in a bit of a state. The sound that he had, you watch a TV show now and there’s loads of guys doing it.”

Flea?

“I’ve got a lot of time for him, especially his backflips. He does them better than me.” 

Back in May, TG conducted a series of polls on Guitar World. A staggering number votes were cast – just over 150,000, in fact – and now the results can be revealed. Here, we present The Greatest Guitar Albums Of All Time. 

Now, because we wanted to represent every era, from early classics to contemporary guitar heroes, we divided up our polls decade by decade from the 1960s all the way through to the 2010s and 2020s. 

We will profile the top 10 albums, and offer an in-depth look at your favorite from each decade, speaking to the guitarist who made the record, or a player notably influenced by it.

Here, we are going to kick things off with the '60s. It was the decade in which Beatlemania inspired millions of kids to pick up guitars. And with the dawn of the rock era and the elevation of the album as an art form, a golden generation of guitar heroes emerged – Clapton, Beck, Page, Santana and Hendrix...

10. The Beatles – Revolver (1966)

With the burden of Beatlemania weighing heavily on their shoulders, the Fab Four channelled their energies into expanding the possibilities of studio recording on Revolver.

As well as incorporating elaborate orchestrations, tape loops, sound effects and exotic instruments, the band updated their guitars from the early Rickenbacker-dominated sound. 

Harrison, Lennon and McCartney introduced the Gibson SG, Epiphone Casino, and Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 into their arsenal, beefing up their tone in line with the more rock-orientated sounds brought to the fore by the likes of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck in 1966. 

The experimentation yielded stunning results, like the raucous psychedelia of She Said She Said and the harmonized twin lead guitar lines of And Your Bird Can Sing, courtesy of Harrison and McCartney. 

George Harrison was starting to experiment with Indian music, and his sitar playing on Love You To brought something new to rock music, but it’s McCartney’s electrifying solo on Taxman that provides the album’s greatest guitar moment. 

The result was one of the highlights of The Beatles’ career. After Revolver, guitar music would never be the same again.

9. Cream – Wheels Of Fire (1968)

Cream’s third LP was released at the apex of their short career, showcasing everything that made them special. It became the world’s first platinum-selling double vinyl album, consisting of two sides of new studio recordings and two sides of live recordings. 

The opening track and hit single White Room is the quintessential Cream power rock sound, with Eric Clapton’s wah solo a highlight of the album. Born Under A Bad Sign and Sitting On Top Of The World present British Blues at its finest, and the live rendition of Robert Johnson’s Crossroads features arguably Clapton’s greatest guitar solo.

8. Jeff Beck – Truth (1968)

Beck’s first solo album is a cornerstone of the heavy rock sound of the late 60s, pre-empting Led Zeppelin’s debut by a few months. Indeed, the cover of Muddy Waters’ You Shook Me bears remarkable similarities to Zeppelin’s version of the same song. 

Two of Zeppelin’s lineup even appeared on Truth, with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones joining Beck, The Who’s Keith Moon on drums and Nicky Hopkins on piano for the fearsome Page-penned instrumental Beck’s Bolero. 

The album opens with a slowed-down, rockier version of his former band’s Shapes Of Things, featuring some virtuosic lead guitar work to kick things off. 

Elsewhere, Morning Dew and I Ain’t Superstitious showcase his dexterity with a wah-wah pedal, Blues Deluxe and Rock My Plimsoul has him mastering the blues rock sound of the future, and an acoustic rendition of the classical Greensleeves demonstrates his astonishing breadth of styles.

7. Santana – Santana (1969)

Mexican-born Carlos Santana enchanted the rock world in the late-60s with his unique fusion of latin rhythms, blues sensibilities, psychedelic sonics and all-out rock guitar. 

On this debut album the music is largely jam-orientated, perfectly capturing the improvisatory nature of Santana’s talent, as he weaves his sweetly singing lines around frantic percussion and funky organ to stunning effect. 

His guitar tone is unique, combining sharp dynamics with a powerful sustain. Listen to the aptly-named Treat or the lengthy finale Soul Sacrifice for perfect examples of his power as a soloist.

6. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold As Love (1967)

Hendrix mixes blues, rock and jazz with a broad sonic palate of psychedelia to stunning effect on his second album with the Experience. 

His songwriting had developed in the few months since the band’s debut, and he pushes his guitar into new territories with unique combinations of fuzz, Uni-Vibe, wah-wah, backwards guitar and flamboyant use of his Strat’s whammy bar. 

The chugging rhythms of Spanish Castle Magic, the spaced out psychedelia of If 6 Was 9, and the funky rhythms of Bold As Love and Castles Made Of Sand and the sublime Little Wing showcase Hendrix at his peak.

5. Cream – Disraeli Gears (1967)

Disraeli Gears, Cream’s second album, was the highpoint of their career. Incorporating the prevailing psychedelic sound of 1967, and taking the baton from The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Are You Experienced and the Beatles’ Sgt Peppers..., they forged a template for the hard rock of the future. 

Strange Brew, Tales Of Brave Ulysses and SWLABR fused blues with acid rock, while Sunshine Of Your Love foreshadowed the riff-based hard rock soon to be adopted by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. 

The album is also a perfect showcase for Eric Clapton’s so-called ‘woman tone’, a warm, mellow sound he achieved using his 1964 ‘Fool’ Gibson SG and his late-50s black Gibson Les Paul Custom, through mid-60s Fender Twin Reverb and Marshall amps. 

4. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin (1969)

Forged by Jimmy Page from the ashes of The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin recorded their first album shortly after the group was formed. 

The songs were honed during a short tour in Scandinavia prior to the recording sessions, and it’s an explosive debut, packed with stomping riffs, thundering rock grooves, violin-bowed psychedelia and the pioneering sound of British hard rock guitar. 

For most of the album, Page used the 1959 Fender Telecaster that Jeff Beck gave to him in 1966, known as the Dragon Tele due to the design Page painted on it. Other than that, he tried out a Gibson Flying V on You Shook Me, a Fender 800 pedal steel on Your Time Is Gonna Come, and borrowed a Gibson J-200 for the album’s acoustic guitar parts.

• 4 guitar tricks you can learn from Jimmy Page

3. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland (1968)

This sprawling double vinyl album, Hendrix’s third and final studio LP, marked the point at which he took full control of his own production. It’s a compelling mixture of chaos and precision, with his insistence on recording multiple takes resulting in some of his most accomplished cuts. 

The music spans the whole spectrum of guitar music, from the funky blues jamming of Voodoo Chile, the jazz shuffle of Rainy Day, Dream Away, through the driving rock of Crosstown Traffic to the wah-wah-infused psychedelic pop of Burning Of The Midnight Lamp. At this point, Hendrix was speaking a new language on guitar, one that would influence generations to come.

2. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II (1969)

Zeppelin were in the middle of a brutal touring schedule when their record company pressed them to record the follow up to their debut. April to August 1969 was one of the busiest periods of their career, and sessions for Led Zeppelin II took place in thirteen different studios, fitting in around hotel rooms, gigs, rehearsals and the debauchery that accompanied their hectic touring schedule. 

According to producer Eddie Kramer, Jimmy Page even recorded some of his guitar solos in hallways. This no doubt accounts for Led Zeppelin II’s charged mixture of flamboyant virtuosity and raw sexual power, ushering in the hard rock boom of the 1970s. 

Page showcases all aspects of his virtuosity, from the legendary rock riffage of Whole Lotta Love, Heartbreaker and Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman), through the sensitive bottleneck blues soloing of What Is And What Should Never Be to the folk-rock jangle of Thank You and Ramble On. 

Page’s instruments of choice were his Dragon Telecaster, a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst he bought from Joe Walsh (later of the Eagles) and a 1967 Vox Phantom XII 12-string, with a mixture of Tone Bender fuzz pedal, Vox Grey Wah and VOX CO2 Deluxe Echo effects. For the acoustic work, he used his E-ROS Model 606 Dakota.

1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced? (1967)

The debut album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience is many things. As modern blues star Samantha Fish says: “Are You Experienced is historically important, innovative, and such a creative album. He took us to places that I don’t think music had been [before].” 

But if anything, she slightly understates it. Beginning with this album, Hendrix reinvented guitar. It’s easy to miss the extent of his genius because many of his innovations are now taken-for-granted guitar techniques, but guitar playing pre-Hendrix was a markedly less interesting world. And no one could sound like him.

We don’t just mean this in the boring sense that every player is unique. Literally no one could sound like Jimi, because Hendrix’s playing required impractical volume levels. In 1967, that type of amp distortion and feedback couldn’t happen any other way. 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience were kicked out of recording sessions because of noise complaints, or else producers didn’t know how to record such intense sound pressure levels. 

An engineer for John Mayall’s Blues Breakers had described Eric Clapton as “unrecordable," and that was only a 30-watt combo. 

Hendrix used a 100 watt stack. It was only when they moved to Olympic Studios that they found Eddie Kramer, a collaborator with the talent to capture Jimi’s full sonic fury.

“I can’t make a Strat sound like Jimi Hendrix,” Samantha Fish admits. “When I think of Stratocasters in general I think of Stevie Ray Vaughan, and that’s the kind of twang that I get out of it when I when I pick it up. Jimi’s tone was so aggressive. It screams in a way that I can’t make a Stratocaster scream, and I think a lot of guitar players might agree with me.”

There were precursors to Hendrix. Buddy Guy had been performing live with distortion and feedback for years, but his label boss Leonard Chess refused to record that way. Hendrix, a veteran of ‘chitlin circuit’ blues clubs, would have seen the likes of Guy at their unfiltered best. 

In his session days, Jimi worked as a sideman to Curtis Mayfield, who particularly influenced Jimi with his clean playing and his signature take on chord-melody playing. But none of this detracts from Jimi’s status as a visionary.

Growing up in Kansas City, Samantha Fish was a fan of Hendrix’s songs before she even knew who he was. 

“Like most kids in the 90s, I heard Jimi Hendrix on the radio,’ she recalls. “We didn’t really have a big record collection, but I had heard all the hits. As I got older I realized ‘holy hell, all these songs are from the same album!’ I can’t imagine being 25 and putting out something so prolific. I just think about myself at 25 and the tone he has, the presence he has, the command he has over the guitar – the songs are just so well thought out.”

Samantha’s career began at blues jams, and when she performed Red House, a cornerstone track from Are You Experienced, audiences groaned because there song had been covered so often. “I would hope that he’d be tickled by that,” she laughs. Like Hendrix, Fish is rooted in the blues but crosses genres.

“I just write songs and the blues the blues part of it comes through my playing and singing,” she says. “It comes from my foundation and how I learned how to play guitar. If I write a progression that’s kind of poppy I’m going to try and bring this other element to make it something else. I can only imagine Jimi was just writing good songs and putting them out there.” 

As to whether Are You Experienced is a blues album, she states: “It’s blues and beyond. Jimi was paving his own way and creating his own sound. I don’t think genre can really can really confine him or describe him. 

“He has some blues licks, some blues phrasing and feeling the way he sings, but he was writing the book on rock’n’roll. There have been so many prolific guitar players in the blues historically and I think I think he fits into that too just by way of being so damn beastly on the guitar.”

Are You Experienced was notable for the number of new sounds Hendrix pulled from his guitar. The title track has a noise that sounds like record scratching, a full decade before hip-hop DJs were around, and Third Stone From The Sun has a solo that barely sounds like conventional music, with Hendrix manipulating and controlling feedback using his Strat’s tremolo. This is an inspiration for Fish’s approach: 

“He was so innovative with the guitar. Even today people aren’t doing the things that he was doing, even via recording and how he was utilizing the instrument as a pure effect. Like on the title track, it sounds like a remix. Just using the guitar not in the traditional sense. He’s putting a texture and a tone on there that gives the song a certain vibe that you can’t get from a solo or riff or guitar chords. He using it in different ways and making it talk. 

“I think every guitar player spends a fair amount of time trying to figure out how the hell he did that. That’s something that I really like to do, and Jimi is the godfather of doing stuff like that.” 

Another example was Hendrix’s pioneering backwards guitar. As Samantha says: “He wasn’t the first to record backwards guitar solos, but he did it in a pretty iconic way.” 

George Harrison had beaten Hendrix by a year with I’m Only Sleeping, but it had been a painful process. In his memoir, Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick says of the nine-hour session “We all wished we had never come up with the concept of backwards sounds.”

Hendrix, by contrast, had spent time listening to his guitar recorded backwards to learn how it would sound, and put the Are You Experienced solo together with apparent ease. 

Samantha Fish grew up with the US release of Are You Experienced, which added three classic singles - Purple Haze, The Wind Cries Mary and Hey Joe – omitted from the UK release. She admired Hendrix’s way of weaving lead lines around chords.

“I think The Wind Cries Mary is one of the most beautiful songs ever written,” she says. “It’s just so delicate and well put together. He’s not just throwing licks out there, he’s playing really melodically and delicately through different chord structures and building memorable melodies. That’s definitely something I strive to do with my solos.”

As a singer-guitarist, Fish recognizes that much of Jimi Hendrix’s genius was in the interplay between his voice and guitar. 

“The way that he arpeggiates chords, like in The Wind Cries Mary. He’s sliding up to different chords and his voice is this kind of counterpart to these really intricate guitar patterns. On some of his rougher songs there’s so much call and response between his singing and his playing, it’s like two voices talking to each other. 

“BB King is the king of that, but Jimi did it in such a bombastic way that I think goes over a lot of people’s heads. The amount of work he’s doing and the amount of energy he’s putting out by singing and playing – it's mind-boggling.”

Barcelona-based pedal- and board-maker Aclam has announced the arrival of the Woman Tone pedal – a new stompbox that is designed to emulate Eric Clapton’s iconic Cream-era tones.

As Guitar World writer Chris Gill recently explained, Clapton’s Woman Tone sound was created with a 1964 Gibson SG Standard (adorned with the now-famous The Fool artwork), alongside a 1966 Marshall JTM45 and a Marshall 1960B cabinet. 

Perhaps the most immediately recognisable example of the Woman tone in action is Cream’s audacious hit Sunshine Of Your Love, which used the SG’s volume on 10 and tone on 1 to wring a vocal-like warmth from the instrument.

Aclam’s take on the Woman Tone doesn’t literally cram an SG and a Marshall into a standard pedal, but it comes close. Key to the design is the Woman Tone knob, which acts like the tone knob on a guitar – allowing you to roll off the treble as you rotate to the left. 

There’s also a built-in pickup simulator to enable the pedal to act more like an SG circuit with a PAF pickup and this is buffered to help it react more consistently across different pickup types and effects chain placement. The demo above showcases a number of different instruments running through the pedal and, on the surface, the results are convincing.

Elsewhere, there are controls for Volume and Gain and the right footswitch engages the pedal. The left footswitch is used to activate the Woman Tone dial, allowing you to switch directly in and out of the pedal’s default Plexi-style sound into your Woman Tone setting.

Finally, there’s an internal DIP switch that allows you to select between a darker or brighter tonal bias for the pedal as a whole. 

The whole thing is given a considerable air of authenticity thanks to the new artwork created by Marijke Koger, who was leader of The Fool art collective and the artist who decorated Clapton’s original ‘The Fool’ SG. 

The Woman Tone pedal retails for €296.70 (approx. $310). Head to Aclam for more information.

Last time around, I mentioned how the commonly overused tone descriptions “warm” and “mellow” really didn’t apply to B.B. King’s sound.

However, one particular instance where these terms are perfect is Eric Clapton’s recordings on Cream’s 1967 sophomore album, Disraeli Gears, which is where Mr. Slowhand introduced the world to his famous “woman tone”. 

Produced by rolling back the guitar’s tone control(s), this sound is characterized by a less percussive attack, focused, vocal-like midrange and smooth, singing sustain.

Cream recorded Disraeli Gears over the course of four days in mid May 1967 at Atlantic Studios in New York City following a brief stint of shows in the United States. 

Clapton’s main rig in the studio was a pared-down version of what he was using on stage – a 1964 Gibson SG Standard that he purchased a few months before and refinished with the famous “The Fool” psychedelic graphics, his 1966 Marshall JTM45/100 head and a single Marshall 1960B straight front “tall bottom” 4x12 speaker cabinet (instead of the pair of 4x12s he used on stage). 

Clapton also had a late-’50s Gibson Les Paul Custom “black beauty” that he recently purchased and a blackface mid-’60s Fender Twin Reverb that probably belonged to the studio or was rented for the sessions.

For Sunshine of Your Love, Clapton apparently used only his stage rig – the ’64 SG and Marshall half-stack. His solo, played through the neck pickup with the volume at 10 and the tone control rolled down to 1, is the most frequently cited example of Clapton’s “woman tone.”

However, his use of the same volume and tone settings for the bridge pickup heard on the main backing track for the verses and choruses is also an excellent example of “woman tone,” albeit with a slightly more percussive attack and brighter character while still sounding fat and, yes, warm.

The key to replicating these distinctive tones involves two key details. First, the amp’s passive tone controls need to be set all the way up to “10” to allow the full frequency range to sing, and the volume needs to be at or around “10” as well to provide natural compression and sustain.

Second, the guitar’s tone capacitor should not have excessive capacitance, rolling off only a moderate amount of the highs to bring forth a fat, honking midrange tone that retains good definition and doesn’t sound too muddy.

Clapton’s SG had “vintage-output” (between 7 to 8k ohm resistance) patent number Gibson humbuckers, 500k audio taper potentiometers and Sprague ceramic disk .02uf 50-volt tone capacitors, which is an ideal formula for replicating the finer nuances.

Also note that Clapton plugged into the Marshall’s “normal” channel instead of the brighter “high treble” channel, which further enhances the midrange and warmth.

Get the sound, cheap!

Epiphone SG Standard 60s Maestro Vibrola

Marshall ORI50C Origin 1x12

Tone Tip: The Marshall Origin combo doesn’t have a “normal” input, but you can dial in a darker, warmer tone by adjusting the “Tilt” control to 0 [zero] to simulate a Marshall Normal channel. If the Epiphone sounds too muddy with the tone knobs at 0 or 1, try installing tone capacitors with lower capacitance (.015uf or lower).

Along with its cousin the Les Paul, as well as Fender's Stratocaster and Telecaster, the Gibson SG arguably rounds out the big four of classic electric guitars. It's lent power, brawn and sonic versatility to countless vital long-players in the six decades since its introduction. 

Narrowing things down to just the 10 best of these innumerable SG-powered albums is a near-impossible task, but it does help chart rock's dizzying evolution, particularly in the 60s and 70s.

From AC/DC's rabble-rousing debut to Sister Rosetta Tharpe's stunning Live In Paris 1964, the following albums all – with an SG leading the charge – made a tremendous impact on music in their own way.

1. AC/DC – High Voltage (1976)

AC/DC’s first proper release also featured Angus Young’s first SG, a 1970 model (‘probably’, says Angus himself) bought that same year. It was used exclusively throughout most of the 70s – and even on 2020’s Power Up. High Voltage was famously slammed by Rolling Stone magazine, but it’s hard to argue with its energy and the quality of material and performances.  

Standout track: T.N.T.

2. Cream – Disraeli Gears (1967)

Fair enough, Cream’s second effort isn’t considered the most consistent record, but when it got it right it absolutely shone – and Clapton’s spellbinding playing on his 1964 ‘Fool’ Gibson SG is all over it. Plus it also goes down in history for introducing Clapton’s coveted ‘woman’ tone; just check out the opening riff to Sunshine Of Your Love.  

Standout track: Sunshine Of Your Love 

3. Black Sabbath – Paranoid (1970) 

Left-handed riff king Tony Iommi is responsible for many teens purchasing SG guitars (and rupturing their own eardrums). His band’s second album continued the band’s eponymous debut’s theme of a dark and heavy low sound, and is considered a benchmark in heavy metal music. The title track is key, but War Pigs is a standout, too.  

Standout track: War Pigs

4. The Allman Brothers Band – Hittin’ The Note (2003)

Duane Allman is a crucial player in the SG canon, as is Derek Trucks, whose clear and precise blues sound is revered the world over. Hittin’ The Note is especially notable here since it’s the final Allman Brothers Band album and the only one to feature Trucks. His mellow juicy lines work well with Warren Haynes’ guitar work on an enjoyable and solid record.  

Standout track: Instrumental Illness

5. The Beatles – Revolver (1966)

The hints of experimentalism heard on the previous year’s Rubber Soul went on to be further realized on 1966’s Revolver. For the studio sessions, George Harrison relied heavily on his 1964 Gibson SG Standard, which he later gave to Pete Ham of Badfinger. The tone achieved on the track She Said She Said is just stunning.  

Standout track: She Said She Said

6. The Doors – L.A. Woman (1971)

The last studio album to feature Jim Morrison at the helm, the Doors’ sixth studio release was also a return to a stripped-back, more bluesy sound for the California band – and what a resounding success it was too. Robby Krieger’s 1968 SG Standard features throughout, but really starts hitting its stride when the cracking Been Down So Long kicks in.   

Standout track: Been Down So Long

7. Frank Zappa & The Mothers – Roxy & Elsewhere (1974)

Zappa’s ‘Baby Snakes’ SG of the late 70s was actually an obscure custom copy, but the ‘Roxy’ model he used for this album was a Gibson, albeit modified with various switches and preamps. His son Dweezil has since stated that Frank’s tone is impossible to emulate; and even the briefest of listens to this rollercoaster album will back that claim.   

Standout track: Cheepnis

8. Haim – Days Are Gone (2013)

Danielle Haim has quickly become a modern icon for the SG, and this tightly performed, highly listenable, well-produced debut album from her LA band is chock-full of spikey, accomplished pop songs, with Danielle’s jagged picking on her 2005 Cherry Red Standard a key element. Check out live footage of the band for the full experience.   

Standout track: Falling

9. The Who – Live At Leeds (1970) 

Live At Leeds is well up there with the best ever live rock albums, and it’s also a cracking example of the power of the SG. Just hear Pete Townshend’s fretboard-surfing during My Generation for unquestionable proof of its muscle. And talking of strength, the modified SG in question is also famous for surviving being smashed to smithereens on stage.   

Standout track: My Generation

10. Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Live In Paris 1964 (1988)

This remarkable guitarist has been cited as a key influence for many a star player over the years, including Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Later in her career, the good sister acquired her classic white early 60s SG model, which bore the ‘Les Paul Custom’ nameplate (which subsequently disappeared at the end of ’63) and was showcased well in this live set.  

Standout track: This Train

Brian May recently went deep with us on the making of Bohemian Rhapsody, and now, in a new interview with Record Collector, the electric guitar player – along with Queen drummer Roger Taylor – has delved into the 1981 recording sessions with David Bowie that produced the hit duet, Under Pressure.

In the most enticing tidbit, the two revealed that in addition to Under Pressure, the alcohol-fueled sessions, which took place at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland in the summer of ’81, saw the superstars jamming on a variety of songs – “whatever came into our head,” said Taylor.

This included, as Taylor revealed, old Cream covers. “We would do the odd thing, like covering old Cream songs,” he said. “I remember we did NSU and I Feel Free, just for a laugh really, and then we decided, ‘Let’s write one for ourselves.’ ”

That “one,” of course, turned into Under Pressure, which went on to top the charts in the UK.

While there’s no word on whether these Cream covers might ever see the light of day, it’s worth noting that both May and Taylor, with their pre-Queen band Smile, as well as Bowie – both with the Spiders from Mars and on his Black Tie White Noise album – had covered I Feel Free previously.

Bass wizard Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner has made a name for himself playing with everyone from Flying Lotus to Kamasi Washington to Kendrick Lamar, not to mention with his own impressive solo output.

But while everyone seems to love Bruner’s basslines, what basslines does Thundercat himself hold in high esteem?

In a recent sit down with Pitchfork for its Under the Influences series, he revealed some of his favorites, beginning with D’Angelo’s 1995 song, Lady.

“This is the beginnings of me learning about feel and the importance of how things sit in a song,” Thundercat explains.

“It took me a long time to really wrap my mind about the part where this guy’s only playing three notes but this song grooves so hard.”

From there, Bruner dissects the basslines from numerous classic songs, including The Brothers Johnson’s Strawberry Letter 23 (“If you ever wanted to know what pimpin’ was, play this song,” he says) and Jaco Pastorious’s Portrait of Tracy.

He also singles out Jack Bruce’s “iconic” bass part in Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love.  

“This is one of those driving basslines that you can’t get away from,” Thundercat says.

Additionally, Thundercat spends plenty of time ruminating on the positives and negatives of slap bass, and highlights Graham Central Station’s Hair as a high point of the technique.

“Larry Graham invented slap bass,” he says. “This is a known fact.”

In the end, no matter what approach you take to the instrument, “If your feel sucks, you just suck,” Thundercat says. “There’s nothing you can do about that.”

Since the guitar's inception, there have been countless talented players who could make the instrument sing, but it wasn't until the mid-Sixties and the arrival of the wah pedal that guitarists could make it cry.

Perhaps because it entered the collective consciousness at the hands - or feet, rather - of guitar gods like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, the wah pedal has been a vital part of the rock and roll lexicon since it was introduced by Vox, finding favor with guitarists who wanted to bring a whole new level of expressive possibilities to their playing.

More than any other effect pedal, the wah has played a key role in some of modern guitar's shining moments, from Slash's epic, ascending run in Sweet Child O' Mine to Eddie Hazel making wah synonymous with funk in the Seventies to Hendrix simply doing that voodoo that he did so well.

In honor of its place in rock history, the Guitar World staff recently picked out the very best wah solo moments of all time, each a snapshot of a great guitarist letting his voice be heard through a truly rock and roll pedal. Of course, we considered the quality of the solo itself and the song's iconic status in the world of rock and roll.

25. The Stooges - 1969 (1969)

Guitarist: Ron Asheton

Raw, visceral and distorted to the max, Ron Asheton's solo on this Stooges classic may not win any composition awards, but it was the perfect compliment to Iggy Pop's guttural snarl.

24. James Gang - Walk Away (1971)

Guitarist: Joe Walsh

It comes in just at the end of the song, but Joe Walsh's solo spot on "Walk Away" is a bit of a late-in-the-game show-stealer. Since 2007, Walsh has had his very own signature wah made by Real McCoy Custom.

23. Living Colour - Cult of Personality (1988)

Guitarist: Vernon Reid

Cult of Personality was the song that instantly made Vernon Reid a household name in the alt metal community, combining manic use of the wah with a stream-of-conscious flurry of notes straight from the mind of a true guitar junky. Even more impressive, Reid stated in a 1988 Guitar World interview that the solo was a first take.

22. Chicago - 25 or 6 to 4 (1970)

Guitarist: Terry Kath

On the second half of a lengthy guitar solo on this Chicago classic, Terry Kath introduces a distortion-drenched, wah-driven guitar line that melds incredibly well with the song's horn section. Fun fact: Kath was once referred to as "the best guitar player in the universe" by Jimi Hendrix.

21. Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (1971)

Guitarist: Eddie Hazel

On the opposite end of the the spectrum from the ultra-tight, ultra-clean guitar sounds many listeners identify with funk is Eddie Hazel's tone on this 10-plus-minute track from Funkadelic, which features no vocals and serves primarily as a vehicle for Hazel to explore the deepest reaches of space in his wah-wah-powered mothership.

20. Jane's Addiction - Stop (1990)

Guitarist: Dave Navarro

Written all the way back in 1986, it would take four years for this Ritual de lo habitual cut to be unleashed upon the music world as large, climbing to No. 1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks behind the strength of a high-energy performance from vocalist Perry Farrell and a muscular, wah-driven lead from Dave Navarro.

19. Lynyrd Skynyrd - The Needle and the Spoon (1974)

Guitarist: Allen Collins

A clear tip of the hat to Eric Clapton's solo from White Room, Allen Collins pulls out the wah to blend Sixties psychedelia seamlessly into a bona-fide Southern-rock classic.

18. Red Hot Chili Peppers - If You Have to Ask (1991)

Guitarist: John Frusciante

On this cut from 1991's mega-selling Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante turns in a sparse, stop-start wah solo fitting for the song's funk-rock minimalism. Fun fact: On the studio version, you can hear the band and production crew applauding Frusciante's guitar work as the song comes to an end.

17. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love (1969)

Guitarist: Jimmy Page

While much of the bizzare, alien soundscape in the middle section of Whole Lotta Love is directly attributable to Jimmy Page's groundbreaking use of backwards tape echo and Page and engineer Eddie Kramer "twiddling every knob known to man," the wah pedal does make an appearance, adding a valuable, extra dimension to Page's most otherworldly guitar work this side of the Lucifer Rising soundtrack.

16. Steve Miller Band - The Joker (1973)

Guitarist: Steve Miller

Perfect for all those midnight tokers out there, Steve Miller's laid-back lead work on The Joker doesn't go overboard on the wah, opting instead for the tasteful, restrained approach. Fun fact: This song shot back to the top of the charts in 1990, thanks to a popular ad for Levi's jeans.

15. Jeff Beck Group - I Ain't Superstitious (1968)

Guitarist: Jeff Beck

On the debut album from the Jeff Beck Group, Beck uses this wah-laden take on a Howlin' Wolf tune to show off his mastery of the multitude of sounds one can coax out of a guitar. Somehow, he still continues to baffle us with this skill.

14. Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Blue on Black (1997)

Guitarist: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Kenny Wayne Shepherd burst into the mainstream consciousness with this cut off his 1997 album, Trouble Is ... Any questions over who he was hoping to channel are laid to rest with the inclusion of a cover of Voodoo Child as the single's B-side.

13. Joe Bonamassa - Pain and Sorrow (2002)

Guitarist: Joe Bonamassa

Another blues-rock revivalist, Joe Bonamassa lays out some fiery wah work on this deep cut from his sophomore album, So, It's Like That.

12. Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Blinded by the Light (1976)

Guitarist: Dave Flett

This tune may have originally been written by Bruce Springsteen, but it didn't become a hit - and eventually a classic - until guitarist Dave Flett and the rest of Manfred Mann's Earth Band got a hold of it for 1976's The Roaring Silence.

11. Ozzy Osbourne - Gets Me Through (2001)

Guitarist: Zakk Wylde

Split between powerful melodies and a heaping helping of shred, the solo from Gets Me Through sees Zakk Wylde take his Hendrix Cry Baby to the edge and back on this standout track from Ozzy's 2001 comeback record.

Zakk would eventually merit his very own wah pedal, complete with the Fasel inductor that was responsible for some of the classic wah sounds of the Sixties.

10. Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien (1987)

Guitarist: erm, Joe Satriani 

Surfing with the Alien sees Satriani put the pedal to the metal in every conceivable sense, not the least of which is his stunning work with the wah pedal. Paired with a Tubedriver and a classic Eventide 949, the wah provides just enough control over his alien tone for Satch to weave his way in and out of an asteroid belt of notes.

9. Black Sabbath - Turn Up the Night (1981)

Guitarist: It's a rare occasion when Tony Iommi brings out the wah, but on this Mob Rules cut, the Godfather of Heavy Metal uses it too great effect, upping the aggression level one step further on what may be his most furious studio solo.

8. Vaughan Brothers - Telephone Song (1990)

Guitarist: Stevie Ray Vaughan

Were you expecting to see the long-winded instrumental Say What! from Vaughan's Soul to Soul album? Not a chance, not when this mini-masterpiece of a wah solo exists. Even without the wah, it's one of his best-constructed, catchiest solos. This track comes from SRV's first full album with his brother, Jimmie Vaughan - which, sadly, turned out to be his last record.

7. Steve Vai - Bad Horsie

Guitarist: Steve Vai

Bad Horsie presents one of Vai's most crushing riffs, but not without reminding us of the guitar virtuoso's skill with the wah.

6. Pearl Jam - Even Flow (1991)

Guitarist: Mike McCready

"That's me pretending to be Stevie Ray Vaughan," Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready told Guitar World of his classic solo from "Even Flow" back in 1995.

A fitting tribute to the late SRV, the solo saw McCready break out the wah and churn out perhaps the most iconic solo of the grunge era.

5. Pantera - A New Level - (1992)

Guitarist: Dimebag Darrell

Dimebag Darrell is among those guitarists that utilized the wah pedal more subtly, using it as a tone control in most cases. This isn't one of those cases.

Darrell's use of the wah on his A New Level solo is as surgically precise as one comes to expect from the master craftsman, lending an all new connotation to the phrase, "on a Dime."

4. Metallica - Enter Sandman (1991)

Guitarist: Kirk Hammett

We're going to let Kirk take this one: "There's something about a wah pedal that really gets my gut going!

People will probably say, 'He's just hiding behind the wah.' But that isn't the case. It's just that those frequencies really bring out a lot of aggression in my approach." (Read the full 1991 interview with James and Kirk here)

3. Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine (1987)

Guitarist: Slash

Known to break out the wah and fiddle around with Voodoo Child (Slight Return) as a live lead-in for Civil War, Slash forged his own piece of rock and roll history with his unforgettable ascending run into one of the shining moments in Eighties guitar rock.

Bookended by the feral yowl of frontman Axl Rose, Slash makes this would-be ballad anything but with a fierce lead made possible by a stock Cry Baby wah.

2. Cream - White Room (1968)

Guitarist: Eric Clapton

A masterful performance on Tales of Brave Ulysses aside, with White Room, Eric Clapton virtually wrote the book on how the wah pedal would be used in the context of rock guitar for decades to come.

1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (1968)

Guitarist: Jimi Hendrix

The go-to song of any guitarist trying out a new wah pedal at Guitar Center, Voodoo Child (Slight Return) stands as a mammoth moment in rock history, setting a mark that has yet to be breached by any ambitious guitarist with a Cry Baby and a dream.

Of the song's recording, engineer Eddie Kramer recalls that the track "was recorded the day after Jimi tracked Voodoo Chile, the extended jam on Electric Ladyland featuring Traffic’s Stevie Winwood on organ and Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady.

Basically, Jimi used the same setup - his Strat through a nice, warm Fender Bassman amp. Jimi’s sound on both tracks is remarkably consistent, leading some to think they were recorded at the same session.” Stevie Ray Vaughan's version is no slouch either, by the way.

The common consensus is that Black Sabbath were the first heavy metal band. And maybe they were. But that doesn’t mean they wrote the first heavy song. 

Because while Ozzy and co. certainly took the concept of intense, sinister music played by evil-looking dudes to new sonic and visual heights, there were plenty of unnerving sounds designed to scare the bejesus out of listeners being created well before Tony Iommi’s deathly Black Sabbath tritone riff signaled the end (or the beginning?) of the musical world as we know it.

So lean back, strap in and take a trip back to the prehistoric age (the mid to late 1960s, for the most part) as Guitar World unearths some pre-Sab heavy metal thunder (and yes, that tune is on the list) with the 20 heaviest songs before Black Sabbath.

1. The Troggs - Wild Thing (1966)

Wild Thing was originally recorded in 1965 in a folky vein by American act The Wild Ones, but in British band The Troggs’ hands the following year it turned into a proto-garage-punk rave-up with a bashing, three-chord motif, hyper-sexualized vocal and, um, ocarina solo. 

This version became the template going forward, from Jimi Hendrix’s fiery (literally, he set his Strat ablaze at the climax) feedback-laced performance of the song at the Monterey Pop Festival in ’68, to The Runaways’ and X’s punky takes, to Bruce Springsteen’s stomping, arena-shaking live renditions. 

The song is so bulletproof, and the riff so undeniable, that even comedian Sam Kinison’s raunchy hair-metal mock-up couldn’t ruin it - not entirely, at least.

2. The Beatles - Helter Skelter (1968)

As the legend goes, Paul McCartney was inspired to write Helter Skelter after reading an interview with Pete Townshend in which The Who guitarist called his own band’s I Can See for Miles the “dirtiest, filthiest” song they’d ever recorded. 

Paul managed not only to out-dirty Pete on this one, but also to anticipate and inspire decades of heaviness to come in the song’s distorted, dissonant guitars, thudding bass and shredded vocals. 

It’s become a go-to for evil dudes ever since, from Mötley Crüe to Rob Zombie to Marilyn Manson (and, of course, Manson’s namesake, Charles). What’s more, The Beatles’ alternate Second Version / Take 17 recording, unearthed for the 50th anniversary White Album release, is an even wilder ride. As Paul says on the track, “Keep that one. Mark it ‘fab.’ ” You’d best listen to what the man says.

3. Led Zeppelin - Communication Breakdown (1969)

Let’s be honest: Any number of tunes - Whole Lotta Love, Dazed and Confused - could occupy the Zep spot on this list. But for sheer bone-crushing intensity, we’re going to give it to Communication Breakdown, whose machine-gunning stun riff not only served as something of a template for a zillion speed metal bands to come, but also sounds a whole lot like the one Sabbath fashioned for Paranoid a year later. 

Furthermore, while Zep weren’t the only late-Sixties act pushing blues into a heavier realm, with this tune they just did it better - and, not insignificantly, faster - than their contemporaries.

4. MC5 - Kick Out The Jams (1969)

Really, Rob Tyner’s opening salvo to “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!” would be enough to land this proto-punk anthem a spot on the list. It doesn’t hurt that what follows is no Tiptoe Through the Tulips. 

Rather, it’s two and a half minutes of the most raucous and rip-snorting riffage and electric-shock soloing - courtesy of Wayne Kramer and Fred “Sonic” Smith - ever put to tape. As for that expletive, it managed to get the album (recorded live at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom) both censored and pulled from shelves. And, really, what’s more metal than that?

5. Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild (1968)

It wasn’t the first-ever use of the words “heavy metal,” but for most music fans, this is where the term was born. Plus, singer John Kay follows it up with the word “thunder,” which only makes it even more badass. 

That said, the title refrain is pretty metal in and of itself, and even though Steppenwolf were never that “heavy,” per se, this tune brought it all together with a chugging low-E string riff, raspy vocal and shout-it-out-loud chorus that presaged the sort of road-dog rockers that bands like Judas Priest and Motörhead would ride to glory years later.

6. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (1968)

Voodoo Child opens with a nimble, wah-wah-ed guitar line that is swiftly firebombed by Jimi’s massive, earthshaking riffs and howling leads, which seem to rain down from the heavens and leave nothing but a smoldering wasteland in their wake. 

The sheer sonic force of the song is overwhelming, and an early demonstration of just how far out a rock artist could take the blues - which, in a sense, and a much different way, is what Black Sabbath also set out to do in their early days.

7. The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog (1969)

Even today, more than a half-century after it was first released, I Wanna Be Your Dog sounds impossibly tough, dirty and downright dangerous. 

From the dark, descending chord progression to the buzz-saw guitar of Ron Asheton (who, along with his brother and drummer, Scott, were once referred to by head Stooge Iggy Pop as “the laziest, delinquent sorts of pig slobs ever born”), the song is one big drone-y, dirge-y death-rumble and perfectly encapsulates Iggy’s demented take on the blues. 

And the lecherous lyrics, one-note piano trill and, err, sleigh bells only add to the perverse proceedings.

8. Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968)

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is commonly regarded with a smirk, but as most any metal band worth its long hair, leather and pointy guitars can tell you, people often mock what they don’t understand. 

Forget that it’s an unnecessary 17 minutes in length. Forget that the title is a drunken interpretation of In the Garden of Eden. Forget, even, that the band playing it is named Iron Butterfly. The song absolutely crushes, and the combined guitar-and-organ riff is as dark, menacing and downright groovy as anything laid down by Deep Purple, Uriah Heep or any other keys-drenched heavy act. Don’t believe us? Then ask Slayer, who contributed a ripping take to the soundtrack to 1987’s Less Than Zero.

9. Deep Purple - Mandrake Root (1968)

The first part of this early Deep Purple epic is pleasantly heavy enough, at least in that standard late-Sixties British blues-rock way. But Mandrake Root really gets going in the middle instrumental section, where drummer Ian Paice and bassist Nick Simper whip the tempo into a frenzy and lay the groundwork for Ritchie Blackmore to finish out the proceedings with some full-on psych-metal licks, growls and howls, as well as throw in a bit of neoclassical flair for good measure. 

How heavy was it? Heavy enough to be one of the very few early Purple cuts to be performed by the classic Seventies-era MkII lineup. And those versions, if you care to dig one up on YouTube, are a beautiful, instrument-abusing sight to behold.

10. The Pretty Things - Old Man Going (1968)

The first 40 seconds of acoustic strumming in Old Man Going basically sounds like Pinball Wizard before Pinball Wizard (and indeed, the concept album from which it hails, S.F. Sorrow, has been credited as an influence on The Who’s Tommy, even if The Who have disagreed). 

But after that, Old Man Going blooms with proto-Sabbathian beauty, most notably in Dick Taylor’s doomy power chord riffing and most, most notably in Phil May’s vocal, which, upon the song’s release in 1968, any listener would have quickly deemed incredibly Ozzy-like - save for the fact that Ozzy, at least as we know him, didn’t actually exist yet.

11. The Kinks - You Really Got Me (1964)

The two-note power-chord riff alone would have been enough to inspire legions of heavy rockers to come. But the minute Dave Davies took a razor to the speaker cone to his Elpico amp, all bets were off. 

From then on, it’s arguable whether a power chord played without at least some dirt applied to its tone was really much of a power chord at all. In this respect, You Really Got Me is where heavy metal begins - a belief that is clearly shared by Davies, who wrote in a recent Facebook screed about his band being left out of the Met’s Play It Loud guitar exhibit, “I invented heavy power chord distorted LOUD guitar on records like You Really Got Me.” We agree, Dave, we agree!

12. Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I Put a Spell on You (1956)

Far be it for Guitar World to champion a song that doesn’t have much guitar in it - and, what’s more, to champion it for its heaviness. But I Put a Spell on You is a special, scary thing indeed, with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ grunts, growls and, at times, guffaws, still capable of making grown men shake in their boots - so just imagine what hearing it in 1956 would have felt like. 

That Hawkins eventually started performing the song by rising out of a coffin and surrounding himself with snakes, smoke and skulls, while wearing a tusk through his nose, only adds to the shock-rock splendor of it all.

13. Blue Cheers - Summertime Blues (1968)

Numerous high-profile acts, from the Beach Boys to The Who to Rush, have tried their hand at Eddie Cochran’s teenage angst classic, Summertime Blues. But none of them, Cochran included, laid waste to the tune like San Francisco heshers Blue Cheer. 

Guitarist Leigh Stephens plows through the riff with the trashiest tone known to man or beast, while Paul Whaley beats his drums into submission and frontman/bassist Dickie Peterson howls the lyrics with heavy-lidded agitation. Stephens’ squiggly guitar fills and mid-song solo (if, in fact, his freak-fuzz emissions can be labeled such) are a thing of filthy, acid-damaged beauty.

14. Bitter Creek - Plastic Thunder (1967)

Not much is known about Bitter Creek beyond the fact that they existed in the late Sixties, may - that’s right, may - have hailed from Atlanta and contributed this awesome track to a compilation called Psychedelic States: Georgia in the 60s.

Several years ago a fan uploaded Plastic Thunder to YouTube with the title The First Heavy Metal Song Ever Made, and while some people on this list might disagree (we’re lookin’ at you, Dave Davies!), the tune is undeniably heavy, propelled by busily thudding drums and rumbling bass, and topped with crushing chords and sinewy, saturated lead lines. Plus, the repeated chanted outro of “thunduh!” inspired AC/DC decades later on their own “Thunderstruck.” Well, not really… but maybe?

15. Pink Floyd - The Nile Song (1969)

You could always expect the unexpected from Pink Floyd, but The Nile Song was pretty unusual even for them. Dropped into the film soundtrack More, their first recording following Syd Barrett’s exit, the song trades arty psychedelia for compact, riff-centric hard rock, with David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Nick Mason in full-on power-trio mode, no keyboards necessary (sorry, Richard Wright). 

The band keeps the intensity at a high by continually modulating the key upwards, with Gilmour finally taking the reins for an explosive song-ending solo. This one was later tackled by, among others, the Melvins and Voivod, both of which make perfect sense.

16. Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was The Night (Cold Was The Ground) (1927)

Sure, it consists of nothing more than acoustic guitar and voice, but this is one of the heaviest, most intense tunes ever put to tape. Johnson plays a recurring motif in open-D tuning, his piercing slide guitar lines matched by his severe moaning and humming.

The powerful, wordless vocalizations are commonly believed to be his attempt to convey the anguish of Christ before his crucifixion, while Jack White once told Guitar World that Johnson’s playing is “the greatest example of slide guitar ever recorded.” Plus, he supposedly did it using a knife for a bottleneck.

17. Cromagnon - Caledonia (1969)

A pre-industrial, proto-black metal curio, Caledonia combines doomy guitars, freak-out soundscapes and bagpipes (?) into something so undeniably whacked out, trashy and evil sounding it could have come from Scandinavia in the 1980s… but was actually recorded in New York City in the late Sixties. 

So raw and unformed it feels as old as the period from which the experimental band took its name as much as it does a transmission from some futuristic - and frickin’ scary - land.

18. Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love (1967)

Jack Bruce Reportedly was inspired to write Sunshine of Your Love after attending a Jimi Hendrix concert (and indeed, Hendrix later covered the song) but Cream’s spin on heavy blues rock here was all their own. 

From Ginger Baker’s toms-heavy, tumbling drums to Eric Clapton’s chewy, saturated guitar (check out that woman tone) to Bruce’s almost operatic vocal approach, it’s like proto-doom and -stoner metal, albeit wrapped up in a decidedly statelier package. Whatever the case, it’s undoubtedly some of the darkest sunshine we’ve ever experienced.

19. The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown - Fire (1968)

There’s no guitar - or even bass - on Fire, but damn if the song isn’t a full-on five-alarm rager. From Arthur Brown’s opening declaration, “I am the god of hellfire,” to the pulsing organ and bleating brass, the song is a bad acid trip (or maybe a great acid trip?) come to life. 

Extra points for Pete Townshend’s production, which includes the sound of a wind from hell in the final seconds, and, of course, Brown’s donning of a burning helmet during live performances.

20. King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man (1969)

The first song on King Crimson’s first album is monolithic in every sense - epic in length and scope, built on a lumbering, ominous guitar riff (doubled by, of all things, alto saxophone) and specked with all manner of end-of-days imagery, from iron claws and funeral pyres to death seeds and napalm fires. 

What’s more, the completely bonkers middle section, Mirrors, is the sound of prog-metal being birthed. The actual 21st century may have still been a ways away, but with Schizoid Man, King Crimson were offering us mere mortals a glimpse of music’s future - and it was undeniably heavy.

The Eric Clapton & Friends: A Tribute to Ginger Baker concert took place at London’s Eventim Apollo Hammersmith on February 17, and the one-time-only event didn’t disappoint as far as the friends that came out to celebrate the legendary drummer’s legacy. 

Following a short montage of Baker’s life, Clapton – Baker’s two-time electric guitar band mate in Cream and Blind Faith – and his band were joined by Roger Waters on bass for Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love. 

Waters remained onstage for two more Cream songs, Strange Brew and White Room, the latter also featuring former Faces band mates Ronnie Wood on guitar and Kenney Jones on drums.

Other highlights included Wood on Badge; Chic guitar legend Nile Rodgers on I Feel Free and Tales of Brave Ulysses; and a Blind Faith mini-set (essentially, most of the supergroup’s entire 1969 debut album) with Clapton, Rogers, Steve Winwood on organ, vocals and guitar and Baker’s son, Kofi Baker, on drums.

The entire guest list, which also included drummer Henry Spinetti and guitarist Will Johns (son of producer Andy Johns), closed the night with a run-through of Crossroads, with Clapton, Wood and Rodgers trading solos on a trio of Strats and Johns contributing some tasty licks on an Ernie Ball Music Man EVH.

Commented Clapton to the audience early on, “Some of that stuff was 50 years ago but it feels like yesterday.”

He also riffed on Baker’s famously prickly personality, saying, “He was a scoundrel but I loved him and he loved me and that was that.

“I saw some people get the rough edge of his tongue but I never did, so I feel blessed. That’s why I’m doing this.”

You can check out more performances from the show below.

Drummer extraordinaire Ginger Baker passed away at the age of 80 this past October, and on February 17 his former Cream and Blind Faith bandmate, Eric Clapton, will headline a concert at London’s Eventim Apollo Hammersmith to celebrate his life and legacy.

The event, billed as Eric Clapton & Friends: A Tribute to Ginger Baker, is, not surprisingly, sold-out, but international disability charity Leonard Cheshire, which has a close association with the Baker family, has now announced it has a limited number of tickets up for bid.

Proceeds from the auction will help Leonard Cheshire offer life changing support to disabled people around the world. Their projects and services support disabled adults and children to live the life they choose, creating fairer and more inclusive communities.

The auction is currently live, and closes on February 12 at 9 pm UK time.

For more information or to place a bid, head over to Givergy.uk.

Legendary drummer Ginger Baker passed away on October 6 at the age of 80, and ever since tributes have been pouring in for the iconic and influential musician.

Baker was best known for powering British blues rock legends Cream alongside Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce in the late 1960s, and also played with Clapton and Steve Winwood in the supergroup Blind Faith, as well as with artists ranging from Public Image Limited and Hawkwind to Fela Kuti and Max Roach.

Among the many peers who praised Baker’s life and career were plenty of guitarists, including Queen’s Brian May, who wrote in part on Instagram, “RIP Ginger Baker – who thrilled us all with his massively innovative drumming in Cream. When I advertised on my (Imperial) College notice board for a drummer to form a group with (1969, I think), I put “‘Wanted : a drummer who can play like Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell and Ginger Baker.... ‘ Guess who replied ?? A certain Mr. Taylor.”

While they're not primarily known as guitarists, former band mate Steve Winwood and musical peer Paul McCartney also had words for Baker, with the latter writing on Twitter, “Ginger Baker, great drummer, wild and lovely guy. We worked together on the Band on the Run album in his ARC Studio, Lagos, Nigeria. Sad to hear that he died but the memories never will. X Paul”

Winwood, meanwhile, wrote on his official website: “I was lucky to play with him in Ginger Baker’s Air Force, and to meet and work with such luminaries as Phil Seamen, Harold McNair and Graham Bond. And also in Blind Faith with Eric Clapton and Rick Grech. Although his appointment was very unorthodox (he showed up on the doorstep and said, 'Here I am') – he made a great contribution to the Blind Faith album which has withstood the test of time." 

Additional tributes came in from Testament's Alex Skolnick, who posted: “Farewell to one of the most innovative drummers in rock, strong influence of Afrobeat & jazz (friend of Fela Kuti & Elvin Jones respectively) & one of rock’s biggest 'characters' (admittedly difficult persona) RIP.”

E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt wrote: “RIP Ginger Baker. One of the greatest drummers of all time. Begin with Cream’s Disraeli Gears.”

Kinks co-founder Dave Davies tweeted: “Ginger Baker was a great and unique musician and an innovator as well – he will be sorely missed – I met him many years ago in the old days and saw him a couple years ago in New York and he still sounded great. He always had nice things to say about the Kinks. I feel bad but he had a good run."

Former Whitesnake man Bernie Marsden also had words for Baker, writing, "Sad to hear of the passing of this legend. I was always first and foremost a fan of Cream & so getting to record and play live with Ginger Baker is a very big part of my pro career. Ginger could be difficult, sure, but he was truly unique behind that drum kit. R.I.P Ginger."

To get a taste of the man in action, check out this clip of Baker bashing through Toad at London's Royal Albert Hall, from Cream's farewell concert on November 26, 1968. 

Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin? Glamour Girl by T-Bone Walker? Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson?

The list of songs with killer guitar tones is endless, and singling out any single song as the best is, of course, subjective.

The most memorable guitar tones don't scream out for attention; instead, they pull at the melody and cut across the bed created by the rhythm section without being too showy, abrasive or predictable.

In a sense, great tone conveys something about the songs without using words.

John Lennon’s rhythm guitar intro to I Feel Fine is a great example, as are Carlos Santana’s solo on Black Magic Woman and Mick Ronson’s work on David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust - although none of them made the cut here. Instead, we tried to choose songs from across genres that speak to something indescribable and primal and that can get a conversation started.

Note that these songs are presented in no particular order. We repeat: they are presented in no particular order - and we hope to expand on this list in the years to come.

On that note, enjoy!

1. Back In Black - AC/DC (Angus Young)

Much like punk rock, the sound of AC/DCs Back In Black (the album and the song) launched a million garage bands.

It’s the sound of an SG through a Marshall stack, unadorned by effects. What could be simpler? Yet Angus Young’s signature riff - and particularly his serrated solo - is impossible to replicate.

Chances are you know the song by heart. So maybe just scroll to 1:52 (and again at 3:36) and watch Young attack his Gibson with gusto while maintaining impeccable vibrato and tone. Classic.

2. Sunshine of Your Love - Cream (Eric Clapton)

Clapton’s tone on his solo in Cream’s 1967 breakout hit Sunshine of Your Love was so unique, so unlike anything else on the charts at the time, it demanded a name. He called it his 'woman tone'. Clapton used it throughout his tenure in Cream, and fans always love and give each other a wink when he’s pulled it out since.

Any player will tell you the woman tone is as simple as putting an SG in the neck pickup, turning the volume all the way up and the tone all the way down. But it’s not. The 'woman' tone is as much in Clapton’s hands and attack as anything else, and this track is the perfect example of how hard it is to replicate.

Here's a clip of Clapton demonstrating his woman tone for a BBC film crew (on his psychedelic 'Fool' SG):

3. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed - The Allman Brothers Band (Duane Allman/Dickey Betts)

The twin guitar attack of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts is legendary, not just because Allman died before his time or because their performance together on the Allmans’ 1971 album Live at the Fillmore East sounded like two parts of a whole, but because the tone and attack of the pair is unparalleled.

There are plenty of examples from Allman and Betts’ short time together that are a masterclass in dueling guitar work - Whipping Post, also from Live at the Fillmore East springs to mind - but nowhere do they lock horns and push each other to greater heights than here.

4. The Fly - U2 (the Edge)

Like Clapton’s woman tone, getting the Edge’s sound is hardly as simple as using a Les Paul through a Vox AC30 with Alnico Blue speakers and a couple of effects.

As with all the best U2 songs, the Edge’s guitar work in The Fly leaves lots of space. It also seems simple, but his choices (and tone) are unique and play to the strengths of the song. That way, when he takes off, the sound truly reaches the stratosphere. Throw in a little wah on the solo and the magic really happens.

5. Free As a Bird - The Beatles (George Harrison)

Considering his notoriety, George Harrison is still probably one of the most underrated guitar players in recorded history.

But as Bob Geldof said upon Harrison's passing in 2001, he’s also probably the only lead guitarist that if you asked 10 strangers on the street to hum one of his solos they could do it without hesitation.

There’s a long list of great tones from Harrison, both in the Beatles and as a solo artist.

The stunning, heart-wrenching lead on Something, the fuzzed-up riff on What Is Life? from All Things Must Pass or the strident slide on the 1973 hit Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) from Living in the Material World are all George, and each one employs a tone that perfectly pushes and pulls at the song and the listener.

Say what you will about the 'reunion' recordings the Beatles released in the mid-'90s, but Harrison’s stunning slide solo completes John Lennon’s demo in ways no one else could have ever conceived. And that tone!

“That was all George,” engineer Geoff Emerick told me in 2006 of the sessions. “He plugged in and there it was. All I had to do was put up a microphone.”

6. Mary Jane’s Last Dance - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Mike Campbell)

Tom Petty often refers to guitarist Mike Campbell as his secret weapon.

Not only has Campbell co-written some of the band’s most enduring songs, like his hero (George Harrison), he’s consistently delivered guitar parts that are instantly recognizable and tuneful over more than 30 years as the Heartbreakers’ co-captain.

While his Telecaster guitar lines on Refugee are biting and warm, sitting perfectly in a perfect recording, his riffs and soloing on 1993's Mary Jane’s Last Dance convey the confidence of a player who knows exactly where he wants to take the song and the listener.

7. Soul Man - Sam & Dave (Steve Cropper)

“Play it, Steve!”

That’s what you hear just before the solo on 1967s Stax Records mega-hit by Sam & Dave. And play it guitarist Steve Cropper does.

Perhaps one of the greatest ironies of the late-'60s R&B/soul boom is that the band that delivered the grooves on the most enduring of those records included some of the most lily-white guys you might stumble on. But boy did Cropper and his bandmates in Booker T. & the MGs (not to mention the Mar-Keys Horns) have soul!

Cropper delivered the goods on countless hits from the era. He co-wrote and played on Eddie Floyd’s Knock On Wood, Otis Redding’s (Sittin’ On) The Dock of The Bay, Wilson Pickett’s In The Midnight Hour and countless others. His tone and licks always hold his signature, but nowhere is his tone and style better encapsulated, and featured, than on Soul Man.

8. Champagne Supernova - Oasis (Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher)

In his days with the Jam, Paul Weller took a bit of Pete Townshend and a pinch of Dr. Feelgood’s Wilko Johnson and stirred them up into a potent mix, delivering serrated, staccato riffs with, as the band’s legend goes, fire and skill.

Just listen to the band’s cover of the Who’s Disguises and you’ll get the idea.

After the Jam’s 1982 split, a new crop of guitarists who’d been raised on Weller’s licks as much as anyone else stormed the charts. The Stone Roses' John Squire and the Smiths' Johnny Marr paved the way for Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, Graham Coxon of Blur and Noel Gallagher of Oasis.

By 1995, Weller was in the midst of a career resurgence and Britpop was ascendant. And no one was riding higher than Oasis.

On Champagne Supernova, the final track from the band’s international smash (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, the master joined the student and magic transpired. Weller took the lead, with Gallagher in a supporting role, and delivered a glorious, tone-drenched solo that took a really good song into the stratosphere.

The secret? Weller played a white Gibson SG through a Vox AC30, so nothing special there. But the warmth and vibrato he coaxes from his strings evoke the past and the future all at once.

Britpop never reached higher.

9. Voodoo Chile - The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Jimi Hendrix)

If you were to put an example of Jimi Hendrix’s writing, recording and playing into a time capsule you’d probably have to choose Electric Ladyland’s Voodoo Chile.

Hendrix’s longest studio recording tells the history of the blues and points to where Hendrix was heading. Billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Hendrix is in fact supported by Traffic’s Steve Winwood on organ, Jefferson Airplane’s Jack Casady on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. It’s a loose and sprawling jam, and its live nature showcases Hendrix’s virtuosity in a way that probably no other studio recording of his can match.

But mostly it showcases just how unbelievably perfect Hendrix’s tone was. Guitar lovers can argue about Clapton or Beck or Vaughan or whomever. But here, in 18 cathartic minutes, Hendrix lays claim to the past, the present and the future of the electric guitar. If no one ever tops Voodoo Chile - and no one probably ever will - we will still have this wonderful, intimate recording forever.

10. Enter Sandman - Metallica (Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield)

Whether it be Nirvana, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against the Machine or Metallica, the 1990s were full of monster riffs and monster tone.

But the undisputed kings of the most over-the-top of those gargantuan sounds were surely Metallica. And the band’s Enter Sandman, which propelled the band’s 1991 self-titled album to 30 million-plus sales, is a case in point.

Metallica had been known before 1991 for their complex songs, but Enter Sandman is relatively straightforward. Building toward Kirk Hammett’s wah wah-laden solo, the real tone is in Hammett and James Hetfield’s larger-then-life and irresistible dueling rhythm guitars.

11. Bargain - The Who (Pete Townshend)

“When I hit on doubling an acoustic guitar with an electric guitar, a whole new palate of sounds was suddenly at my disposal,” the Who’s Pete Townshend once told me of the signature sound that adorns the band’s landmark album Who’s Next.

While some may argue that Townshend’s 'tone moment' was his solo on Heaven and Hell during the band’s circa-1970 live shows (Check out the expanded Live at Leeds reissue, Live at Hull or Live at the Isle of Wight), and in a career filled with signature sounds, the twin guitar, rhythm/lead attack - combining a Gretsch 6120 Joe Walsh had given him with a Gibson J-200 - that he employed on Who’s Next is probably Townshend’s most enduring signature sound.

In fact, every track on Who’s Next is great and has bucketloads of tone.

Baba O’Reilly, Goin’ Mobile, Won’t Get Fooled Again, Behind Blue Eyes…. Considering it came from the ashes of the aborted Lifehouse project, it’s a remarkable accomplishment.

But probably nowhere does Townshend’s inimitable strumming and combination of lead and rhythm playing shine more than on Bargain. Using a Fender amp and a volume pedal with that Gretsch/Gibson combo creates a warm bed that - against the volcanic Keith Moon/John Entwistle rhythm section - is unbeatable.

12. Midnight Rambler - The Rolling Stones (Mick Taylor)

Arguing the Brian Jones-era Rolling Stones are the ultimate lineup is always a losing cause. Without alienating millions of early Stones fans, suffice to say the band didn’t truly take off as a first rate musical unit until guitarist Mick Taylor joined the band.

While Keith Richards always laid down distinctive and rich acoustic (and even electric) parts that propelled the band, it wasn’t till he teamed up with Taylor for what he always calls their 'ancient art of weaving' that things got really interesting.

By the time the band hit the road in 1972, they were in full flight, and Midnight Rambler on the live release Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! is the ultimate example. While Mick Jagger wails on harmonica, and Keef lays down a comfy bed, Taylor wails on top. Up, down and sideways, it’s a masterclass in where a great rock band can take the blues.

13. Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Pink Floyd (David Gilmour)

Comfortably Numb, Wish You Were Here, even On An Island: the list of songs that are lifted from great to astonishing by David Gilmour’s signature tone is a long one. Both instantly recognizable and impossible to imitate, Gilmour in many ways is the sound of post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd.

Nowhere is that more evident then on this ode to Barrett and the madness he succumbed to, from the band’s 1975 album Wish You Were Here. Long and adventurous, but never boring, this track epitomizes everything that was great about the band, who were stretching their progressive muscles in the mid-'70s. Meanwhile, Gilmour charms an irresistible tone out of his Fender Stratocaster.

Rumor is that Gilmour records his parts at staggering volume. While most players can’t coax more than a croak out of their rig at that level, Gilmour clearly has a remarkable touch beyond mere mortals.

Normally broken into parts, the link below includes parts 1 to 9 - the whole shebang- for your listening pleasure.

Jeff Slate is a NYC-based solo singer-songwriter and music journalist. He founded and fronted the band the Badge for 15 years beginning in 1997 and has worked with Pete Townshend, Earl Slick, Carlos Alomar, Steve Holley, Laurence Juber and countless others. He has interviewed and written about everyone from the Beatles and Kiss to Monty Python and rock musicals on Broadway. He is an avid collector of rock and roll books and bootlegs and has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Dylan and the Beatles. For more information, visit jeffslate.net.

Today, Guitar Center uploaded a neat video of up-and-coming Texas guitarist Emily Wolfe playing Eric Clapton's legendary "Crossroads" guitar. You can check it out above.

As Wolfe plays the 1964 Gibson ES-335, which Clapton famously used during his time with Cream, she also discusses her musical influences, and what the legendary guitar means to her. 

Gibson CMO Cesar Gueikian also pops up to discuss the history of the iconic electric guitar, and what's coming next for Gibson. 

For more on Emily Wolfe, follow along on Facebook.

Many a moon ago, in 2012, an all-star cast of musicians assembled at New York City's Apollo Theater to pay tribute to the late blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin, who passed way in December 2011.

Making his first live appearance in nearly five years, Keith Richards joined Eric Clapton on stage just before midnight, running through several Howlin' Wolf classics. You can check out a video of the two performing "Spoonful" (which Clapton covered with Cream in 1966) above.

Proceeds from the show-- which was dubbed the Howlin' For Hubert concert -- benefited the Jazz Foundation.

Fifty years ago, British guitar gods Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page crisscrossed the U.S. with their respective bands, reintroducing Americans to a hip new version of what was essentially their own music—the blues. Two years ago, American blues-rock dynamo Joe Bonamassa did pretty much the same thing—but with an intercontinental twist. He and his band set off on a barnstorming U.K. tour that brought some of the most influential music of Clapton, Beck and Page back home.

Night after sold-out night, Bonamassa opened up the engines, completely blowing the doors off deep cuts like Led Zeppelin’s “Tea for One,” Cream’s “SWLABR” and Jeff Beck’s “Let Me Love You Baby”—even venturing into Seventies and late-Eighties territory with Clapton’s “Motherless Children” and “Pretending.” And while Bonamassa has performed—and even recorded—some of these tunes before, this was the first time he’d ever based an entire tour on the music of this transcendent trio.

“As far as actual playing, Clapton—by far—is my biggest influence, and you can tuck Jeff Beck underneath that,” Bonamassa tells us. “Page would be a distant third, playing wise. But as an arranger, as an interpreter of the blues—even on the straight cover songs Led Zeppelin did—his arrangements, the way he’d take a blues song and say, ‘We’re gonna write an entirely different piece of music around it or take this cadence and put it into something else,’ was brilliant. He’s simply a brilliant arranger and producer of heavy blues rock. It drives home the point that the arrangement is just as critical as the song itself.”

If you happened to miss the all-too-brief tour, you’re in luck. J&R Adventures, Bonamassa’s label, will release British Blues Explosion Live on DVD, Blu-ray, CD and vinyl on May 18. The package captures the band’s particularly powerful July 7, 2016, performance at Greenwich Music Time at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London.

Bonamassa took some time out from producing Reese Wynans’ solo album (which reunites the keyboardist with his Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble bandmates, Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton) to talk us through British Blues Explosion Live’s 14 tracks. Incidentally, Wynans’ wizardry can be heard on British Blues Explosion Live, along with guitarist Russ Irwin, bassist Michael Rhodes and drummer Anton Fig.

“Beck’s Bolero”/“Rice Pudding”
Jeff Beck/The Jeff Beck Group

“I’m a self-loathing slide player. Some people like the way I play slide—I hate it. When I hear myself, it sounds like Quint in Jaws when he’s auditioning for the job to kill the shark—fingers on a chalkboard! It’s blood-curdling self-doubt! [laughs] So ‘Beck’s Bolero’ was the biggest challenge of the night. But my introduction to British blues really came through Truth [1968] and Beck-Ola [1969], those two records with Rod Stewart. Those were seminal recordings, and it’s the first time you really hear—at least for me—a Les Paul and a Marshall played in anger. Jeff’s playing has always sounded angry to me. That’s when I realized the guitar could be a weapon as well—and it’s pretty fun.”

“Mainline Florida”
Eric Clapton

“This is one of Clapton’s more overlooked records, from 461 Ocean Boulevard [1974]. He had this kind of honky-tonk, Southern rock influence in the Seventies. Songs like ‘Wonderful Tonight’ outshine a lot of that era’s catalog. Anyway, this one fits our band really well, with Russ Irwin playing the role of George Terry [guitarist in Clapton’s mid-Seventies band]. We were trying to harken back to a forgotten jewel from a period that’s bookended by Derek and the Dominos and his Eighties stuff, which gets a lot more attention. I can’t speak for Eric, but it’s from a time when he was searching for something different. He didn’t want to be Eric Clapton. He was looking for something that was in a different lane.”

“Boogie with Stu”
Led Zeppelin

“I call this song a musical sorbet. It’s simple and bone-headed and people dance to it! When people are tired of sludging through blues rock with a lot of information, you serve them a sorbet. I didn’t realize until recently that this is actually a Ritchie Valens song called ‘Ooh, My Head.’ If you look at the writing credits on Physical Graffiti [1975], Zeppelin had to go back retroactively and credit ‘Mrs. Valens,’ Ritchie’s widow.”

“Let Me Love You Baby”
Jeff Beck

“Another one from Truth. It is treacherous territory to try to sing like Rod Stewart in those ranges, and I had to put up or shut up. I was proud of the version we ended up doing, but it was by far the most challenging song to sing. It’s the second song on Truth, and once I heard that Les Paul sound and that swagger and Rod Stewart, I said, ‘This is what I want to do for a living.’ It’s always been one of my favorites.”

“Plynth (Water Down the Drain)”
The Jeff Beck Group

“This one, from Beck-Ola, isn’t much of a song, but it’s one of the heaviest riffs I’ve ever heard. This is just one man’s opinion, but the heaviest riffs I’ve ever heard on electric guitar were done in standard tuning. They weren’t down-tuned—they just burned bright and red. I think this song is in the key of G. You know, it’s the same thing with ‘Smoke on the Water,’ and I think [Deep Purple’s] ‘Mistreated’ is in F#. They were standard-tuned guitars—but the riffs are heavier. I’d put this riff up there with early Black Sabbath.”

“Spanish Boots”
The Jeff Beck Group

“Beck-Ola is a weird album. I think it’s got two Elvis covers, an instrumental piano record… It seemed like it was, ‘Well, we’ve gotta do another record for Epic, fine. It is what it is.’ But, to me, ‘Spanish Boots’ always showcased Ronnie Wood’s bass playing; he’s an incredibly underrated bass player, especially in those days. He was so forward thinking and he had that distorted bass.”

“Double Crossing Time”
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers

“This one’s from the ‘Beano’ album [1966’s Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton]. I always loved Clapton’s solo on this one, and again, you’re seeing the DNA and the beginnings of my love affair with the Les Paul. You just think, That guitar is capable of this sound. I’ve just got to go find it and chisel it out.”

“Motherless Children”
Eric Clapton

“Another one from 461 Ocean Boulevard. Reese Wynans, our keyboard player, says, ‘Man, that’s a morbid lyric for such a happy song.’ The music is all happy, and the refrain is, ‘and your mother is dead now, your mother is dead.’ We tried to concentrate on the more up-tempo stuff for this DVD, and this one always went over well. This is one of my favorite Clapton riffs; the head that he came up with is really catchy. Instead of doing the slide, I did it in standard tuning. I wanted the intonation to be right, and I didn’t want my shitty slide playing to come into play where I couldn’t listen to it or be proud of it.”

“SWLABR”
Cream

“Ah, yes, ‘She Walks Like a Bearded Rainbow’ from Disraeli Gears [1967]. I just saw Pete Brown, who co-wrote this song with Cream’s Jack Bruce. He and I were gonna write together for my next album. I said, ‘Pete, I want some of that wacky shit you’ve got laying around from the Sixties and Seventies. “She Walks Like a Bearded Rainbow”? I’m all about it! Let’s do it!’ You have to have a moment of Zen or meditation somewhere in Katmandu or basecamp at Mount Everest to figure out what they were smoking, imbibing or talking about during that time. But it’s a fun song.”

“Tea for One”/“I Can’t Quit You Baby”
Led Zeppelin

“One of the first songs I did with producer Kevin Shirley is ‘Tea for One’ [from 2006’s You & Me]. And it wasn’t me singing; it was a guy named Doug Henthorn. I’m not that kind of vocalist. I’m a shouting singer more than that kind of sustained croon. For the tour, we wanted to do ‘Tea for One’ in some capacity, but I said I really don’t want to sing it. Why don’t we do a mashup? We’ll put the top end of ‘Tea for One’ onto ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’ [from 1969’s Led Zeppelin] and I can sing it with pride. People love that minor slow blues. It was definitely one of my favorites of the night to play.”

“Little Girl”
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers

“John Mayall doesn’t get enough credit. He’s not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is a tragedy. He’s 84 and he’s still vibrant. I just played on his record. There’s not a guy who loves the blues and loves guitar players as much as John Mayall, even to this day. And you can hear it on his recordings, the unbridled enthusiasm. I just love the way they did it back in those days. The guitar solo is really composed, but it still feels loose. Clapton at that point, post Yardbirds, had something to prove. He was aiming straight at the bullseye and wasn’t taking any prisoners. You can tell how much pride he took in all of the solos on [Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton]. There’s not a throwaway guitar solo on the record.”

“Pretending”
Eric Clapton

“A selfish choice by me. I’ve always liked this song, and it really went over well. I love Clapton’s Eighties era, the Journeyman days [1989]. He’s a rock star! Where do you think I nicked the idea to wear the suits? It didn’t come from my mother. [laughs] But I always loved his tone and his approach on this one. I think Russ Titelman produced that record. It’s just a good groove and a good song.”

“Black Winter”/“Django”
Joe Bonamassa

“We wanted to do [the Yardbirds’] ‘White Summer,’ or a take on it. But how do you cover some stream-of-consciousness riff in DADGAD tuning? So, we came up with this idea. None of us take drugs, but why don’t we just get in the spirit of it and then bookend it with our instrumental, ‘Django’ [from You & Me]? Again, it’s that musical sorbet, that cool moment in the show before the finale. The night we did it on the DVD was by far my best attempt. There was just something going on. Usually, when we cut DVDs, everybody collectively goes, ‘Ah, shit, the night before was better.’ But that particular night, I hit all the marks I wanted to hit.”

“How Many More Times”
Led Zeppelin

“My favorite Led Zeppelin song of all time. Well, it’s a tie with ‘The Rain Song.’ ‘How Many More Times’ closes out Led Zeppelin, and when you hear it, you just think, that is the sound of a band blowing the roof off the joint. We still play this song in our show to this day as our closer. It goes over that well.”