“He lurched off the stage”: the musician that made Eric Clapton walk out of a concert
It’s sometimes easy to miss all the elements that make Eric Clapton one of the most revered blues guitarists of all time. While his voice leaves a lot to be desired almost every time he sings, you never need to worry about it as long as he lets his fingers do the talking when he takes the stage. Though Clapton was rightfully considered an icon of the fretboard when he first started, even he was no match to share a stage with Jimi Hendrix when he first came to England.
Then again, Hendrix wasn’t the kind of guitarist anyone could be truly prepared for. For as much as people had been working on different blues licks across England, Hendrix felt like he was dropped right out of Alice in Wonderland, making the kind of music that guitarists to this day are still trying to figure out.
Even with his pedigree, Clapton himself wasn’t the most thick-skinned artist in the world. This is the same guy who practically ended Cream because he heard one bad review of him once, so it’s not like he was going to take it well when he found out that someone had the gall to replace him at the top of the heap.
From the first few notes of ‘Purple Haze’, though, this wasn’t Hendrix attempting to be the best…it was an announcement that the best had just arrived. Throughout songs like ‘Manic Depression’ and ‘Red House’, none of the British guitarists on the scene knew what they were seeing, with Jeff Beck once joking that fans could see the top of the stage wet from all of the guitar players in the audience crying.
No matter to Clapton, though, right? This guy is one of the few to play with The Beatles, so Cream could definitely hold their own, too. In most situations, yes, but Chas Chandler recalled Clapton having enough of the stage when he saw Hendrix tearing it up right next to him.
In the book Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight, Chandler remembered a very sheepish Clapton suddenly walking out of the gig because of how good Hendrix was, saying, “Clapton stood there, and his hands dropped off of the guitar. He lurched off the stage. I thought, ‘Oh God, it’s happening now.’ I went backstage, and he was trying to get a match to a cigarette. I said, ‘Are you alright?’ and he replied, ‘Is he that fucking good?’”.
To put it succinctly… yes, he was, in fact, that fucking good. Throughout the 1960s, Hendrix practically used his guitar as just another voice, making solos the same way opera singers might sing different phrases. While Clapton was always a fan of the blues, Hendrix took it to another place, turning typical blues shuffles into psychedelic freakouts on Axis Bold As Love before taking it into the stratosphere on Electric Ladyland.
From there, Chandler noticed that Clapton’s demeanour started to change both onstage and off, explaining, “Within a week, he had his hair frizzed and would come by our flat anytime that he had a spare moment to be with Hendrix.” Clapton may have been trying to keep up with the new king in town, but as the old saying goes, ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ’em.’
