Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [133]
In the meantime I had the guitar auction to think about. I had picked out a hundred guitars to sell from my collection, together with several amplifiers and a number of Versace guitar straps. The guitars, predominantly Martins, Fenders, and Gibsons, were all good vintage instruments, not necessarily collectors’ items, just guitars that I particularly liked to play and that I had picked up over the course of my career, often in junk shops, pawnshops, and secondhand shops.
Christie’s had put together a fantastic catalog in which they had made a point of highlighting each guitar’s “career.” It was a brilliant idea because what made the collection intrinsically pretty valuable was the fact that each guitar had been used on something fairly significant. So, for example, a 1958 Gibson Explorer that had been used on the ARMS tour fetched $120,000, the 1974 “Rodeo Man” Martin, my main guitar during the 1970s, brought in $155,000, a 1954 Sunburst Stratocaster that had accompanied me on numerous tours, including the Behind the Sun tour, went for $190,000, and my 1956 Fender “Tobacco Sunburst” Start, known as Brownie and on which I played “Layla,” was bought for an astonishing $450,000.
Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend the sale as I was rehearsing in LA, so I watched it on a live feed on the Internet. Brownie was the last guitar to be sold, and when it was brought out onto the revolving rostrum, they played “Layla” over the PA, and the whole audience stood up. It really was an extraordinary event, raising $4,452,000 for the Crossroads Foundation, a sum beyond my wildest dreams. It also hugely raised awareness of what we were trying to do in Antigua, as did a documentary featuring the Centre made by 60 Minutes, the U.S. TV show. Ed Bradley, the celebrated journalist, came down and spent a week researching and interviewing me and different members of the staff. It came out very well, and I revealed a great deal about my own journey, taking as much care as I could to protect my own anonymity. Whether or not I did that successfully, I cannot say, but the feature was brilliantly done, and has brought hundreds of clients to the Centre, people who would not have known about it otherwise, and many of them are still sober. I will never be able to express my gratitude to the people who made that program. They helped save a lot of lives.
A week later I took Melia and Satsuki to New York, where I was to host and perform in a Crossroads benefit concert at Madison Square Garden. The show was called “Eric Clapton and Friends,” and was put together by myself, Peter Jackson, and Scooter Weintraub. I met Scooter back in the eighties when he was organizing commercial sponsorship for high-level artists such as Michael Jackson, and we had been friends ever since. He is a big music fan and loves the blues, so we get on like a house on fire. The lineup for the concert was Mary J. Blige, Sheryl Crow, and Bob Dylan guesting with my band. The music was fantastic, and was preserved on a DVD that was to rake in more money for the Centre. During these few days, I began to realize that I was beginning to take a serious interest in Melia. She just seemed so natural, a beautiful girl with a big heart, and no agenda or ambition, and I had the feeling she was getting serious about me, too. After the Crossroads concert, I went home to England for a break but couldn’t get her out of my mind. I knew I would have to go back to LA soon to finish up working on a film score, and I couldn’t wait to see her again. Unfortunately, when I eventually returned there a couple of months later, Melia was out of town visiting her family in Columbus, Ohio, so I dated Satsuki until she came back. At that point we hadn’t really talked about breaking up the threesome, but I knew I couldn’t put off making a choice any longer, and when Melia returned from Ohio, I asked her if she would like to come back to England with me. She said yes without