From George Harrison to Joe Bonamassa, Eric Clapton has graced the stage with countless big-name stars, and plenty who could go toe-to-toe with his versatile chops. But only once did trading licks with another player leave him flummoxed.
Clapton’s own choice of words about that night are a little more colorful. He says his guest spot with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention “fucked me up completely.”
The pair had a good relationship, and Clapton held Zappa in high regard for his musical knowledge and guitar playing. That led him to hop onstage with the oddball maverick one evening in 1967. But it seems Zappa couldn’t help but be Zappa, and left Clapton high and dry.
“We were pals,” Clapton explained to Guitar World. “It started when I went to New York with the Cream and the Who to do the Murray the K show."
A celebrated New York City DJ, Murray the K is known largely today for his exploits with the Beatles when they landed in America in 1964. But Murray, like many radio disc jockeys of his time, also hosted concerts, which is how Cream made their American debut in March 1967 at his Music in the Fifth Dimension shows at the RKO 58th Street Theater from March 25 to April 2.
As Clapton recalled, it was a vibrant time in the city's downtime nightlife culture.
“We used to go down to the Village to find out what was going on," he said. "There were the Fugs and the Mothers [of Invention], and you’d be able to go into the Café Au Go Go and see B.B. King play. New York was unbelievable.”
Like so many others, the British blues legend was taken aback by Zappa's mad genius.
“The Mothers were at the Garrick Theater, and there would be nobody in the audience –— nobody,” he emphasizes. “They were experimenting every night. They’d have odd people, bag ladies and marines, on the stage, and Frank would come off and sit in the audience and talk to someone while the band played. It was madness!
“He took me home one night to his house and he told me to play all the licks I know into a Revox [tape recorder]. I was really flattered that he was interested, because it was clear this was a musical intellectual I was meeting.”
“He was very manipulative and knew how to appeal to my ego and my vanity, and I put everything on this tape. I think he just had files and files of tapes of people, and I was in there somewhere.”
Their adoration for one another was mutual, with Zappa once calling him “dynamite." “I have a lot of respect for him as a musician,” he said, “but I was never so surprised until I sat down and talked with the guy, 'cause he's really into something.”
Eventually, their budding friendship spilled onto the stage when Zappa invited Clapton to do a guest solo spot during one of his shows.
Of course, Zappa is an esteemed player in his own right. Even Eddie Van Halen was perplexed by one of Frank's riffs when Dweezil Zappa showed it to him.
But the show with Clapton wasn’t a battle of licks — Zappa had a devious trick up his sleeve.
“I went to see him in concert, and he invited me to play,” Slowhand explains. “When I went out to do my solo, he did that famous thing of doing hand signals to the band." Zappa made frequent use of hand signals to direct his band through changes, stops and other musical cues.
"And they went through about 10 different time signatures and fucked me up completely! I couldn’t make head or tail of it,” Clapton griped.
Thankfully, Clapton's time jamming with B.B. King in New York City proved memorable for all the right reasons. King was grateful to Clapton and his cohorts in the British blues explosion for boosting his profile and turning thousands onto his music.
“In the early years, I thought that everybody seemed to get a break but me,” King told Guitar Player in 2000. "Finally, when the kids started to play blues, they opened up a lot of doors for B.B. King.
"I pray on it sometimes, and I say, ‘Thank God—better late than never.’”
As King explained to Guitar Player in that same interview, the tape of King and Clapton's jam may be hiding in the Jimi Hendrix collection held by his estate.
He took me home one night to his house and he told me to play all the licks I know into a Revox
Eric Clapton on Frank Zappa
“I remember Jimi recording what we played that night,” King goes on. “He was supposed to give us a tape, but he died before I got mine. When I die, if I can find Jimi, he's going to give me my tape! Because that was a memorable occasion.”
And no mention of shifting time signatures. Lucky Eric.
In related news, Clapton has named the player that turned him from Les Pauls to Fender Stratocasters and explained how seeing a blues great perform convinced him to quit the Yardbirds and start Cream.
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