THE FIFTH BEATLE
ERIC CLAPTON
‘Oh no. I can’t do that. Nobody ever plays on The Beatles’ records.’
– Eric Clapton to George Harrison
It was two months into the recording sessions for the White Album that George began work with the others on his first track for the album, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’; after only a day’s rehearsal, the momentum dissipated over a few weeks. Unhappy with how the track was progressing, George brought in a reluctant Eric Clapton to Abbey Road as the band resumed work on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Clapton’s magnificent guitar playing provided the extra ingredient that perfected the song.
Eric Patrick Clapton was born in Ripley, Surrey, on 30 March 1945. He grew up believing his grandmother, Rose, was his mother, and his real mother, Patricia Molly Clapton, was his big sister. The truth was that sixteen-year-old Patricia gave birth to Eric after an affair with a Canadian soldier, Edward Walter Fryer. He never met his real father and grew up a lonely, introverted kid.
He was given a guitar on his thirteenth birthday, though didn’t really pick it up until he was fifteen and becoming a fan of blues music. He attended Kingston College of Art until being kicked out after his passion for music overtook his attendance of classes. Spending his spare time busking and developing his skills as a guitar player, he began to attract attention. By 1963, he had joined the Yardbirds, playing with them until their 1965 breakthrough hit, ‘For Your Love’. More interested in the blues than pop success, he joined John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, gaining a reputation for his guitar playing that, famously, saw one fan daub ‘Clapton is God’ on a wall in London. Then, in 1967, under the influence of Jimi Hendrix, who would become a close friend, he formed psychedelic-rock-jazz-blues supergroup Cream with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce. Now he started to write songs and sing as well as play guitar, and had hits on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite their success, the band’s interpersonal relationships were marred by creative tensions as well as drug and alcohol abuse, and Clapton followed up his stint with Cream starting other short-lived bands, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes. Again, both these bands had successes but were stymied by excess.
Clapton was already within The Beatles’ orbit by the time he played on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Earlier on in 1968, he guested on George Harrison’s debut solo album Wonderwall Music, and they collaborated on Cream’s last UK single, ‘Badge’. Clapton also asked George to accompany him on tour with folk-blues band Bonnie and Delaney in the winter of 1969 while George was questioning his time within the Beatles machine. In December 1968, after the White Album’s release, Clapton played guitar with John Lennon’s Dirty Mac band (also starring Yoko Ono, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell from The Jimi Hendrix Experience) in the Rolling Stones’ concert film The Rolling Stones’ Rock And Roll Circus, playing ‘Yer Blues’ and jamming with violinist Ivry Gitlis on ‘Whole Lotta Yoko’. Clapton joined John and Yoko again as part of the Plastic Ono Band on their single ‘Cold Turkey’ and at performances in Toronto and London for UNICEF.
George and Eric Clapton get off an aircraft in Denmark during a Bonnie and Delaney tour, 1969. Getty Images
His closeness with George resulted in an infatuation with Pattie Harrison, and as he became more desperate by her unrequited feelings and his own heroin addiction (at one point he had a $16,000-weekly habit), Clapton wrote one of his best-known and best-loved songs, ‘Layla’.
By 1974, Clapton had kicked heroin and was now in a relationship with Pattie. They married in 1979, with George, Paul and Ringo in attendance, but divorced in 1989 when he embarked on a solo career that saw him become one of the country’s most successful musicians. With a more FM-friendly rock sound, he went on to have many hits, including ‘I Shot The Sheriff’, ‘Wonderful Tonight’ and ‘Tears In Heaven’, and enjoyed collaborations with many musicians such as J.J. Cale, Bob Dylan, Phil Collins, Roger Waters and his hero, BB King. Clapton retired in 2014 after being diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, though he still performs on special occasions and continues to record. He is now clean from drugs and alcohol and, in 1998, established the Crossroads Centre in Antigua to help others overcome their addiction issues.
After George Harrison’s death in 2001, Clapton was the musical director of Concert for George, a show in the Royal Albert Hall dedicated to celebrating George’s musical legacy.
In 2012, to celebrate his eightieth birthday, artist Peter Blake recreated the Sgt. Pepper album cover with the British cultural figures he most admires. Eric Clapton stands right at the front beside David Hockney, Ian Dury and Blake’s daughter Daisy.