George Harrison Said Eric Clapton Did Things on the Guitar That’d Take Him All Night to Figure out, but He Amazed Clapton Too
George Harrison said the things Eric Clapton did on the guitar often amazed him and took him all night to figure out. Most of the time, it was easier to get Clapton to play his songs.
However, there were many times when George’s guitar playing skills surprised Clapton just as much.
George Harrison said his ego wanted Eric Clapton to play on his songs
The Beatle and the guitarist officially met at a Lovin’ Spoonful concert. The Beatle thought the guitarist looked lonely, and Clapton might’ve been. However, George soon realized that maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. George envied Clapton’s freedom. He was allowed to work on anyone’s music, something George couldn’t do as much, being tied to The Beatles. The pair quickly became friends.
When The Beatles began recording The White Album, George was at his wit’s end with his bandmates. No one would help him on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” so he asked Clapton.
George told Guitar Player that letting Clapton play on the song didn’t hurt his ego. “No, my ego would rather have Eric play on it,” George explained. “I’ll tell you, I worked on that song with John, Paul and Ringo one day, and they were not interested in it at all. And I knew inside of me that it was a nice song.
“The next day, I was with Eric, and I was going into the session, and I said, ‘We’re going to do this song. Come on and play on it.’ He said, ‘Oh, no. I can’t do that. Nobody ever plays on the Beatles records.’ I said, ‘Look, it’s my song, and I want you to play on it.'”
That first collaboration opened the door to many more over the next couple of decades.
George said Clapton did things on the guitar that took him ages to do
The guitarists worked together on George’s first solo album, Wonderwall Music, Jackie Lomax’s “Sour Milk Sea,” Cream’s “Badge,” Billy Preston’s “That’s the Way God Planned It,” John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey,” and many more throughout the years.
Letting Clapton take all these guitar parts again didn’t hurt George’s ego. However, he didn’t help his ego by revealing there was another reason why he let Clapton in. George told Guitar Player that the things Clapton did on the guitar took him ages to do.
“Yeah, I love Eric,” George said. “I love the touch he has on his guitar. When he comes over to play on my songs, he doesn’t bring an amplifier or a guitar; he says, ‘Oh, you’ve got a good Stratocaster.’ He knows I’ve got one because he gave it to me. [Laughs] He plugs in, and just his vibrato and everything… he makes that guitar sound like Eric.
“That’s the beauty of all the different players that there are. There are players who are better than each other, or not as good, but everybody’s got their own thing. It’s like a 12-bar blues. You can’t do a 12-bar the same way twice, so they say. There’s things that Eric can do where it would take me all night to get it right – he can knock it off in one take. Because he plays all the time.”
The Beatle surprised the Cream guitarist too
George only ever spoke highly of Clapton’s guitar playing. At the same time, he always downplayed his own abilities, as he did his Guitar Player interview. George was also self-critical in an interview with Mark Rowland (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters).
“I feel in a way, you know, I know I’m supposed to be a guitar player, but I don’t really feel like one,” George said. “I pick up the guitar when I want to write a tune, and I play it when I make a record, and I’ve actually played on a few other people’s records, which is really interesting, but I had to do it in my own way.
“I’m not like somebody, say Eric Clapton… you know, you say, ‘Eric, come on over,’ and he’ll plug in his guitar, listen to the thing, and he’ll just blow the general thing, play it and be of a certain standard immediately. For me, I have to really figure out what I’m going to do and even learn maybe a part because I’m just not that fluent with it.
“I’m certainly not a guitar hero. [Chuckles.] If you read the lists of great guitar players…”
In the late-1960s, George claimed his guitar playing started slacking when he turned to the sitar in 1966. When he stopped playing the Indian instrument, he felt out of touch with the guitar. To compete with Clapton and players like Jimi Hendrix, George turned to slide guitar to freshen up his sound.
However, even with a new style that worked, George still turned to Clapton for most of his guitar solos. He claimed he didn’t practice as much as he should’ve, either. Despite what George thought of his skills, though, Clapton was just as amazed by George’s playing as The Beatle was by his.
“But then again, when we’re listening to some of my slide bits, he’ll look at me, and I know he likes it,” George told Guitar Player. “And that, for me, if Eric gives me the thumbs up on a slide solo, it means more than half the population.”
George should’ve listened to himself; every guitar player’s “got their own thing.”
