The guitarist who got under Eric Clapton’s skin: “Not too amused”
They’re all too well media trained these days to truly let it show, but don’t be fooled – rock and roll is still as rampant with rivalries as it ever was. The fear of an onslaught might send managers into a tailspin, but it doesn’t stop the green eyes of jealousy from rearing their ugly heads if one rock star possesses a prize another can only clamour for. Believe it or not, once upon a time, this precise predicament ate away at Eric Clapton as a legendary guitarist looked set to eclipse him.
In many ways, Clapton’s Midas touch on the six-string always gave the impression that he was too cool to care what others made of him. This is the man who pioneered a rhythm and blues revolution and then mentored Jimi Hendrix, after all – nothing much could seemingly faze him back in the height of his world rapture. While this may have been the case in some respects, he wasn’t entirely unflappable. As it turns out, the root of his biggest rivalry came much closer to home than he might have imagined.
Clapton took flight from the Yardbirds in 1965 to truly spread his wings and go on to conquer the world in his own right, but this didn’t mean he didn’t occasionally look back over his shoulder to stoke out the competition. Indeed, his most prolific competitor turned out to be his replacement in the band, Jeff Beck, who in later years had established himself as the musical man of the moment, much to Clapton’s inner displeasure.
Of course, on the outside, they were firm friends, but Clapton’s true feelings behind closed doors told a very different story. This was not lost on Beck, who recalled sharing “an uncomfortable rivalry” with the guitarist that weighed heavier on him than he would perhaps care to admit. “I found out later from Pattie, his wife, that there definitely was [rivalry] – especially with the Stevie Wonder stuff,” Beck explained, adding: “He was not too amused about me doing something successful with Stevie. I think that maybe got under his skin a bit.”
The irony of ‘Superstition’ is not lost in this case, as Clapton seemed to become dead set on doing anything it took to outrun the competition. At the time that the song was released in 1972, it was a period in which Beck was riding high, but his jealous counterpart was less so, being plagued by addiction issues that ultimately marred the golden sheen of his successes. However, possibly with his rivalry to thank more than anything else, Clapton soon decided to kick his personal problems to the kerb and set out on his own solo career.
From there, and into the early part of the 1980s, Clapton’s individual world dominance only continued to climb. Of course, this isn’t to say that the road forward was always plain-sailing – far from it – but it just goes to show that a good old-fashioned rivalry served him well in reinvigorating his musical spirits, if only to prove a point. For the part of Jeff Beck, he seemed to keep blazing his own trail regardless.
To all those who say rock and roll is dead, consider this competition between Beck and Clapton as the catalyst for re-energising some of that feuding charm that has been lost along the way. If nothing else, it proves that although everything might seem shiny on the outside, take a peek behind the curtain to uncover the truth, and there you’ll find the real show is about to begin.
