Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [40]
On the following day, our last before returning home, Stigwood had arranged with Ahmet Ertegun that we go to Atlantic Studios to record some material for a possible new album. To be introduced to Ahmet and his brother Nesuhi, and be accepted into that particular musical family, was a fantastic piece of good fortune for us. Because our visas were about to expire, we had only one day spare. We laid down one track, a song called “Lawdy Mama,” which I had heard on an album called Hoodoo Man Blues by Buddy Guy and Junior Wells. It was the only song we completed before we had to leave, but we were booked to return the following month.
London in 1967 was buzzing. It was an extraordinary melting pot of fashion, music, art, and intellect, a movement of young people all concerned in some way or another with the evolution of their art. There was an underground, too, where you would get these seminal influences suddenly showing up out of nowhere, like they had come out of the woodwork. The Fool were a good example of this—two Dutch artists, Simon and Marijke, who had come over to London from Amsterdam in 1966 and set up a studio designing clothes, posters, and album covers. They painted mystical themes in fantastic, vibrant colors and had been taken up by the Beatles, for whom they had created a vast three-story mural on the wall of their Apple Boutique on Baker Street. They had also painted John Lennon’s Rolls-Royce in lurid psychedelic colors. I asked them to decorate one of my guitars, a Gibson Les Paul, which they turned into a psychedelic fantasy, painting not just the front and back of the body, but the neck and fretboard, too.
I used to hang out a lot at a club called the Speakeasy, on Margaret Street. This was a musicians’ club run by Laurie O’Leary, who had previously managed Esmeralda’s Barn for the Krays, and his brother Alphi. Everybody went there and jammed with whoever was the resident band that night. It was at the Speakeasy, around this time, that I had my first LSD trip. I was in the club with my girlfriend Charlotte when the Beatles came in with an acetate of their new album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Shortly after, the Monkees wandered in, and one of them started handing out these pills, which he said were called STP. I had no idea what that was, but somebody explained that it was a superstrong acid, which would last for several days. We all took it, except for Charlotte, who we both agreed should stay straight in case of any emergency, and shortly after that, George gave the DJ the acetate to play. Even though I was not overawed in the least by the Beatles, I was aware that this was a very special moment in time for anyone that was there. Their music had been gradually evolving over the years, and this album was expected by everybody to be their masterpiece. It was also supposedly written under the influence of acid, so it was an amazing experience to be listening to it in the condition we were in. They had also begun to explore Indian mysticism, perhaps as a result of George’s influence, and at some point the chanting of “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare” began to be heard in the club. The acid gradually took effect, and soon we were all dancing to the sounds of “Lucy in the Sky” and “A Day in the Life.” I have to admit I was pretty moved by the whole thing.
At about six in the morning we piled out into the street, where a huge gathering of policemen was waiting on the other side of the road. There seemed to be hundreds of them. Maybe someone had tipped them off that the Beatles