What Eric did next

First Time I Met The Blues is by no means a history book, but in the course of tracing the career of The Hornets, it does also tell a version of the story of British blues in the 60s and beyond. And, not least because the band’s guitarist, Des, is obsessed with Eric Clapton, old Slowhand plays a leading role in that story.

I’ve already written about the iconic place of Five Live Yardbirds in British blues mythology, and the next LP that Eric appeared on was, if anything, even more important to blues fans. The very fact that John Mayall, one of the godfathers of the blues scene, tinkered with the name of his band (brand?) suggests how important it was to him at the time. He named the album after the band, Blues Breakers, and changed the artist name to ‘John Mayall with Eric Clapton’. You can’t say he didn’t recognise the main attraction for record buyers.

Behind the famous sleeve (it’s sometimes known as ‘the Beano album’, after the kids’ magazine Eric is reading) is an LP that’s less guitar-heavy than you might expect. But Clapton left The Yardbirds for Mayall’s band (with a couple of detours on the way) because he wanted to play proper blues, not pop, and this is certainly a proper blues album, suffused with Mayall’s authentic-sounding vocals, harp and organ as much as it is with Clapton’s guitar.

You can hear that guitar to best effect on the Freddie King instrumental, ‘Hideaway’, and on the monumental ‘Have you heard’, which contains one of my all-time favourite guitar solos, a gut-wrenching effort where Eric gives it everything he’s got.

I won’t waffle on about it any more. If you don’t already own it, go and find ‘Have you heard’ on Spotify and listen for yourself. You might just see why Des was so obsessed.

Slowhand

One thing I learned from the sleevenotes to the deluxe CD version of Five Live Yardbirds was the true derivation of Eric Clapton’s nickname. I’d always assumed that ‘Slowhand’ was an ironic reference to the speed with which his fingers moved up and down the guitar when he was playing a solo – in much the same way as tall men sometimes used to be called ‘Titch’.

Not so. According to Yardbirds rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja, Clapton used to use very light strings made for ukuleles, as they were easier to bend. Being so thin, they frequently broke, so Eric would have to restring his guitar between numbers. Frustrated at the delay, the audience would start slow handclapping – hence the nickname ‘Slowhand’ Clapton.

I just thought I’d share that with you.

Got Live If You Want It

I’ve just been listening again to the album which was one of the crucial inspirations for First Time I Met The Blues: Five Live Yardbirds.

I’m not sure if it was actually the first LP of British blues I heard (the Rolling Stones’ debut may have nipped in ahead of it), but Five Live Yardbirds was definitely the one that proved, beyond all reasonable doubt, that boys from the suburbs of London could play r’n’b that was every bit as raw and exciting as the Chicago blues I was learning to love.

Listening to it again now, it is, if anything, even more astonishing. After an eccentric on-stage introduction by the band’s manager’s assistant, they go from 0-60 in about five seconds in a manic assault on Chuck Berry’s ‘Too Much Monkey Business’, complete with furious soloing by Eric Clapton. The next song, ‘Got Love If You Want It’, features equally expert blues harp solos by lead singer Keith Relf, over a Bo-Diddlesque beat.

That sets the pattern for the rest of the set: fast songs attacked with gusto, and (slightly) slower ones which generally rise to a succession of crescendos. The primitive-sounding recording – this was one of the first live LPs, and the equipment wasn’t really up to it – only makes it even more exciting, as do the enthusiastic reactions of the audience, crammed into a sweltering Marquee club one night in March 1964.

In the book I place one of my three lead characters, Des, in that audience. It’s this experience that inspires him to form a blues band, in the hope of emulating his new hero, Eric Clapton. It’s the resulting live LP he plays his bandmates when he wants to show them what is possible. And it’s the Yardbirds’ arrangement of ‘Good morning little schoolgirl’ that is one of the first songs they learn – and when their new acquaintance Trevor realises that they haven’t got a blues harp player to imitate Relf’s riffing, he sees his chance to join the band…