Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [34]
Blues Breakers: John Mayall with Eric Clapton was the breakthrough album that really brought my playing to people’s attention. It was made at a time when I really felt I’d found my niche, in a band where I could remain in the background yet at the same time develop my skills, driving the band in the direction I thought it ought to go. We went into the Decca studios in West Hampstead for three days in April and played exactly the set we did onstage, with the addition of a horn section on some of the tracks. The songs included “Parchman Farm,” a Mose Allison number on which John performed a harmonica solo, the Ray Charles song “What’d I Say,” featuring a drum solo by Hughie Flint, and “Ramblin’ on My Mind” by Robert Johnson, on which John insisted I do vocals. This was much against my better judgment, since most of the guys I longed to emulate were older and had deep voices, and I felt extremely uncomfortable singing in my high-pitched whine.
Because the album was recorded so quickly, it had a raw, edgy quality that made it special. It was almost like a live performance. I insisted on having the mike 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 that I had onstage. The result was the sound that came to be associated with me. It had really come about accidentally, when I was trying to emulate the sharp, thin sound that Freddy King got out of his Gibson Les Paul, and I ended up with something quite different, a sound that was a lot fatter than Freddy’s. 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, most often used for the thin, typically rock ’n’ roll sound.
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 always used amps that would overload. I would have the amp on full, with 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.
On the day they shot the photograph for the cover, I decided to be totally uncooperative since I hated having my picture taken. To annoy everybody, I bought a copy of Beano and read it grumpily while the photographer took the pictures. The resulting cover, showing the band sitting against a wall with me reading a comic, led to the album being dubbed “The Beano Album.”
Though I was happy with the Bluesbreakers, I was also beginning to get restless, nurturing somewhere inside me thoughts of being a front man, which had been evolving ever since I had first seen Buddy Guy playing at the Marquee. Even though he was accompanied by only a bass player and a drummer, he created a huge, powerful sound, and it blew me away. It was almost as if he didn’t need anyone else. He could have played the whole set on his own. Visually, he was like a dancer with his guitar, playing with his feet, his tongue, and throwing it around the room. He made it look so easy, and as I was watching, I was thinking “I can do that,” and now that my confidence was high, I began to really believe that I could make that leap, and I was truly inspired. So when Ginger Baker, drummer from the Graham Bond Organisation, came to see me and talked about forming a new band, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
The Bluesbreakers were playing a gig in Oxford when Ginger first came to see me. I’d seen him at the Marquee and at the Richmond Jazz Festival, but I didn’t know much about him, or drumming, for that matter. I presumed he must be pretty good, as he was first choice with all the musicians I rated, so I was very flattered that he was interested