‘Taxman’: Grooving at John Mayall’s place and The Beatles song designed to sound like Eric Clapton
The connection between the Beatles and Eric Clapton is one that goes back a long way, and the friendship between the guitarist and George Harrison, in particular, was one that most would take one look at and immediately declare it to be for life.
Despite Clapton almost having replaced Harrison in the Beatles after he quit the band in 1969, and despite the fact that they both married and had their hearts broken by the same woman, there was clearly nothing that could separate the duo from the moment they first met.
That moment was 1964, when Clapton’s band, The Yardbirds, supported the Beatles in London, and the two not only enjoyed a strong personal bond from that occasion onwards but a professional partnership as well. There are many songs that one of them has written that the other has had a direct input or influence on, and Harrison even went as far as to write songs about his best pal.
However, it wasn’t just Harrison that Clapton made an impact on in the Beatles. The rest of the group were also huge fans of Slowhand’s work and often cited him as a huge influence on their development as a group. While Clapton himself appears on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, playing the indelible guitar solo on the White Album track, there’s another Beatles classic that he might as well have appeared on as well, given just how much the song owes Clapton for its guitar sound.
On ‘Taxman’, the opening cut from 1966’s Revolver, Harrison is credited as being the main songwriter and takes a rare lead on vocal duties. It might not have been released as a single for the group, but it’s one of the most instantly recognisable tracks from their discography, showcasing a stark shift towards a rock-adjacent sound as opposed to the jovial pop that they had been known for in the early part of their career. However, despite having written the song, Harrison was not on duty for the guitar solo as he would usually have been, and that honour was instead bestowed on Paul McCartney.
McCartney’s solo on ‘Taxman’ is drenched in fuzz, distortion and feedback and comes across as far more erratic than Harrison’s usual playing style, but this was precisely his intention when laying down the recording for the track. In a 1990 interview, he claimed that he had been spending a lot of time with his friend, John Mayall, around the period that the Beatles were creating Revolver and that Mayall would regularly recommend him music.
“You’d go back to his place,” said McCartney, “And he’d sit you down, give you a drink, and say, ‘Just check this out.’” Digesting music from the likes of blues legends such as BB King, one of the guitarists that the duo spent a lot of time listening to was Clapton, and McCartney began to draw some inspiration from his playing style when it came to recording ‘Taxman’.
“He was sort of showing me where all of Eric’s stuff was from,” McCartney recalled. “I was turned on after that and I went and bought an Epiphone, so then I could wind up with the Vox amp and get some nice feedback.”
While it might well have been a Harrison composition, it wasn’t his best buddy that Clapton was influencing most on the track, and McCartney’s replication of the Clapton sound in his lead break is a wonderful tribute to his playing style.
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