From British Blues to Guitar Legend
Eric Clapton has had one of the most remarkable careers in guitar history.
As well as enjoying a hugely successful solo career, he has played in some of the most important bands in rock: The Yardbirds, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos.
He has also worked alongside an extraordinary list of musicians, from Bob Dylan and The Beatles to B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Freddie King and countless other blues, rock and soul musicians.
And then there is the guitar playing itself.
Clapton’s signature sound has always been about much more than speed. His phrasing, vibrato, string bending, tone and ability to leave space between the notes became a blueprint for generations of electric guitarists.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times: as a solo artist, and as a member of both The Yardbirds and Cream.
But perhaps the best way to understand Clapton isn’t by looking at the awards. It’s by looking at the tunes.
Clapton Finds the Blues
Clapton’s first major band was The Yardbirds, who he joined in 1963.
The band had already taken over a residency previously held by The Rolling Stones and were developing a strong Chicago blues sound. This suited the young Clapton perfectly.
He was obsessed with American blues guitarists such as Muddy Waters, and The Yardbirds gave him a chance to play that music to increasingly large audiences.
The band toured with Sonny Boy Williamson II and recorded a number of blues covers, including Good Morning Little Schoolgirl. Then things changed.
The Yardbirds recorded For Your Love, written by Graham Gouldman, who would later become a member of 10cc. It was much more commercial than the blues material Clapton had been playing.
On the day For Your Love was released—25 March 1965—Clapton left the band. That decision tells you a lot about the guitarist he was becoming.
Clapton wasn’t interested in becoming famous. He wanted to play the blues. Jeff Beck replaced him, while Clapton had initially recommended Jimmy Page for the job. Both would eventually become other great British guitar heroes of the era and beyond.
The Beano Album: Clapton Redefines British Blues
Clapton’s next major stop was John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Mayall’s band became something of a finishing school for British blues musicians, with an extraordinary number of future stars passing through its ranks.
One particular recording became legendary. Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton is usually called the Beano album because of the comic Clapton is reading on the cover.
By this point, Clapton had moved away from his earlier Telecaster and Vox setup and was playing a Les Paul through a Marshall. The result was one of the most influential guitar sounds ever recorded.
Interestingly, much of the famous Beano sound was captured using room microphones rather than simply putting a microphone directly in front of the speaker.
So if you’re trying to recreate the tone, the lesson isn’t necessarily to buy the same guitar and amp, it’s also about how you record the sound.
The album is packed with blues standards, including Freddie King’s Hide Away, Ray Charles‘ What’d I Say, and Robert Johnson’s Ramblin’ on My Mind.
The expanded edition also included Call It Stormy Monday, Have You Ever Loved a Woman and Hoochie Coochie Man.
These are exactly the kinds of tunes worth learning if you want to understand where Clapton’s guitar vocabulary came from. You’re not just learning Clapton. You’re learning the bluesmen Clapton learned from.
When the Blues Got Loud
After seeing Buddy Guy perform, Clapton became convinced that a power trio could give him the freedom he wanted. He left the Bluesbreakers and formed Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.
Cream were one of the first true rock supergroups, and their approach was completely different from the blues arrangements Clapton had previously played. Now there was space for extended solos, improvisation and interaction between three musicians.
Fresh Cream arrived in 1966, followed by Disraeli Gears in 1967. Then came Wheels of Fire in 1968.
This period produced some of Clapton’s most important guitar recordings:
- I Feel Free
- I’m So Glad
- Strange Brew
- Sunshine of Your Love
- Born Under a Bad Sign
- White Room
- Crossroads
And this is where Clapton’s playing really began to influence a generation of rock guitarists.
The Solo That Changed Guitar
The solo on Sunshine of Your Love is one of those guitar performances that seems almost impossible to separate from the song itself.
Clapton uses large bends, blues phrasing and a fascinating mixture of minor, major thirds, and the flattened fifth adding distinctly bluesy colour.
There’s an interesting technical detail behind those huge bends. Clapton changed his third string for a plain string, similar to the E and B strings. This reduced the tension and made it possible to bend the note further.
Today, changing string gauges and sets to suit your playing is completely normal. At the time, it was a clever solution to a very practical guitar problem.
And it matters because Clapton’s playing was never about running scales up and down the fretboard He was constantly looking for ways to make the guitar sound like music, not theory.
When we tackle the solo on acoustic guitar in my course, we have a similar problem: acoustic strings are even heavier, so those enormous bends aren’t practical in the same way.
That’s why, in the advanced acoustic guitar course, we break the solo down over four steps and adapt the phrasing further down the neck.
There’s also a great little musical joke in the opening. The opening lick of the solo references the melody of Blue Moon. And finally, the contrast between straight and swung rhythms is part of what made Cream so much fun.
Clapton Turns Robert Johnson Into Rock
Clapton’s version of Crossroads is one of the most famous blues-rock recordings ever made. The original came from Robert Johnson, but Cream transformed it into something faster, louder and much more aggressive.
For a guitarist, this is a perfect example of how a song can survive while the arrangement completely changes.
The underlying blues remains. The performance doesn’t.
This is one of the great lessons from Clapton’s career: don’t simply learn the chords. Listen to how the musician has interpreted them.
The same applies to Born Under a Bad Sign, Call It Stormy Monday and Hide Away. These aren’t merely old blues songs sitting in a history book. They’re part of a musical language.
Derek and the Dominos
Before Clapton became a fully established solo artist, there were two more important chapters. The first was Blind Faith, formed with Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood and Ric Grech. The band lasted only a short time and released one studio album.
Clapton then became involved with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, which eventually led to another remarkable project: Derek and the Dominos.
With Duane Allman joining the sessions, they recorded Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. The album contains an extraordinary collection of material:
- Bell Bottom Blues
- Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out
- Key to the Highway
- Have You Ever Loved a Woman
- Little Wing (by Jimi Hendrix)
- and, of course, Layla.
It’s one of those albums where the combination of songs, musicians and performances seems almost impossible to improve upon. And again, there are plenty of guitar lessons hiding inside it.
Key to the Highway is a Freddie King-associated blues standard and although Freddie was Eric’s biggest hero, his arrangement is based on Big Bill Bronzy’s arrangement.
Little Wing shows Clapton interpreting Hendrix. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out takes us back to the older Blues and Jazz tradition.
Clapton’s repertoire was already becoming a history of the music he loved.
Clapton Goes Solo
In 1970, Clapton released his first solo album. The standout was After Midnight, a J.J. Cale composition. Sadly, the early 1970s were a difficult period for Clapton personally with addiction taking hold leading to him to step away from performing.
His return came with 461 Ocean Boulevard in 1974, with one particular cover changed everything.
Eric Clapton Takes Marley Worldwide
Bob Marley had released I Shot the Sheriff in 1973. A year later, Clapton recorded his own version for 461 Ocean Boulevard.
It became a huge commercial success, reaching number one in the United States and introducing Marley’s songwriting to an even wider audience.
This is one of the fascinating things about being a musician who plays covers. Sometimes your version of a song becomes somebody else’s introduction to the original.
Clapton didn’t write I Shot the Sheriff, but his interpretation became an important part of the song’s history.
There’s an urband legend about Marley visiting Clapton’s house. After Marley left, a note was reportedly found on the fridge: I Shot The Sheriff. The “I” was underlined.
Whether the story has grown in the telling or not, it’s a great little snapshot of how much the song meant to Marley—and how far Clapton’s version had travelled.
For a working guitarist, I Shot the Sheriff is also a reminder that a great cover doesn’t have to copy the original. It has to find its own identity.
Clapton Finds His Solo Voice
From the mid-’70s through the 1980s, Clapton developed into the solo artist most people know today. Albums such as Slowhand and Journeyman produced a string of songs that became staples of his repertoire.
- Wonderful Tonight
- Lay Down Sally
- Pretending
- Bad Love
- Running on Faith
- Old Love
At the same time, Clapton never abandoned the blues. He continued recording traditional material and songs by artists he admired:
- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
- The Sky Is Crying by Elmore James
- May You Never by John Martyn
- Crosscut Saw
- Hound Dog
- Knock On Wood
- Before You Accuse Me by Bo Diddley
- Hard Times by Ray Charles
- Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right by Bob Dylan
- and Cocaine by J.J. Cale.
This is one of the things I find most interesting about Clapton. He could have spent his entire career trying to prove that he was a great guitarist. Instead, he spent much of it learning tunes!
Wonderful Tonight and Patti Boyd
Wonderful Tonight has an obvious personal history attached to it.
Clapton wrote the song about Patti Boyd, who had previously been married to George Harrison of The Beatles. Boyd and Harrison divorced in 1977, the same year Wonderful Tonight was released, and Boyd later married Clapton.
It’s tempting to connect the song directly to the breakdown of their relationship, but the reality is more complicated than that.
Wonderful Tonight is better understood as a reflection of Clapton’s feelings for Boyd than as a single cause of anything that happened between them.
Musically, it’s a fascinating contrast to the fiery guitarist of Cream.
There are no extended blues solos. No frantic runs. No need to demonstrate technique. Just a simple melody, a relaxed groove and carefully chosen guitar parts.
That’s an important lesson in itself. Taste isn’t always about what you play. Sometimes it’s about what you leave out.
The Blues Never Went Away
By the 1990s, Clapton was increasingly comfortable moving between original material, Pop songs and traditional Blues.
From the Cradle, released in 1994, went completely back to the blues and consisted entirely of covers. My favourite is Sinner’s Prayer.
Then came Pilgrim in 1998, which moved in the opposite direction, with largely original material and My Father’s Eyes as its standout.
In 2000, Clapton teamed up with B.B. King for Riding with the King.
That album is packed with material any blues guitarist should know:
- Key to the Highway
- Three O’Clock Blues
- and Hold On, I’m Comin’, the Sam & Dave classic.
This is where the Clapton story starts to become almost indistinguishable from a history of blues and soul repertoire.
Clapton and Robert Johnson
In 2004, Clapton released Me and Mr. Johnson, a whole album devoted to Robert Johnson. For anyone who finds Johnson’s original recordings difficult to get into, Clapton’s interpretations provide an excellent gateway.
This is an important part of Clapton’s legacy. He didn’t just preserve old blues songs. He helped bring them to generations of guitarists who might otherwise never have discovered them.
The same applies to the many songs he recorded by Freddie King, Albert King, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Bo Diddley and other blues pioneers.
The Unplugged Album That Changed Me as a Guitarist
Then we come to Unplugged.
Tears in Heaven was originally released as a single from the Rush soundtrack in 1992, but it was the live Unplugged version that became the performance.
The album is extraordinary. Alongside Tears in Heaven and a wonderful acoustic version of Layla. Clapton also played a collection of blues standards including:
- Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out
- Malted Milk
- Old Love
- Before You Accuse Me
- Walking Blues
For me personally, this album is particularly important. At 15, I spent a summer learning the entire thing using a TAB book and the CD. It shaped me more than almost anything else I did as a guitarist.
I studied Clapton’s playing, the arrangements and eventually adapted Andy Fairweather Low’s part to create a two-guitar arrangement for my advanced acoustic guitar course.
That’s one of the reasons Clapton remains such an important reference point for me. It’s not simply that he played great guitar. He gave me songs to learn. And that is ultimately what being a guitarist is about, having a repertoire so you cna play with other musicians.
From Autumn Leaves to Still Got the Blues
Clapton’s later albums continued to demonstrate just how broad his musical taste had become.
Reptile mixed original material with covers, including James Taylor’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight.
Then came albums that leaned increasingly towards standards, traditional songs and tributes.
Clapton from 2010 contained no original Clapton compositions but did include the jazz standard Autumn Leaves.
Old Sock from 2013 continued in a similar direction, with songs including All of Me and Gary Moore’s Still Got the Blues.
This gives us another enormous collection of tunes for guitarists to explore. If you’re building a repertoire, don’t overlook these songs simply because they’re covers. In fact, that’s precisely why they’re useful.
Autumn Leaves teaches you about harmony and jazz vocabulary. All of Me connects you to the Great American Songbook. Still Got the Blues brings the electric blues tradition forward into a much later generation.
And then there are the essential blues standards that keep appearing throughout Clapton’s career:
- The Stumble
- The Thrill Is Gone
- Crossroads
- Born Under a Bad Sign
- Call It Stormy Monday
- Hide Away
Once you start learning these tunes, you begin to see the connections between generations of guitar players.
Eric Clapton’s Greatest Guitar Lesson
If there is one thing Clapton’s career teaches better than anything else, it’s the importance of repertoire. Look at the artists whose songs he has played.
Robert Johnson. Freddie King. Albert King. Muddy Waters. Ray Charles. Bob Dylan, J.J. Cale. Bob Marley. James Taylor. Gary Moore. Sam & Dave. The list goes on.
Clapton’s playing developed because he absorbed an enormous amount of music. And he didn’t just listen to it. He played it.
That’s a lesson I wish more guitarists took seriously. It’s easy to spend years learning scales, exercises and isolated techniques. But a guitarist develops much faster when those techniques are attached to real music.
- Learn Hide Away and you learn blues phrasing.
- Learn Crossroads and you learn how to turn a traditional blues into a rock arrangement.
- Learn Sunshine of Your Love and you study bending, vibrato, melody and tone.
- Learn Wonderful Tonight and you learn restraint.
- Learn Tears in Heaven and you learn how powerful an acoustic arrangement can be.
- Learn I Shot the Sheriff and you learn how a cover can become your own.
- And learn Autumn Leaves or All of Me and you’re suddenly dealing with a completely different harmonic language.
That’s a much more interesting way to learn guitar than simply running through exercises because it’s musical, not academic.
The Clapton Repertoire
If you’re putting together a serious guitar repertoire, Clapton gives you an almost endless starting point.
From the Cream years:
- Sunshine of Your Love
- Born Under a Bad Sign
- Crossroads
From the blues tradition:
- Hide Away
- Call It Stormy Monday
- The Stumble
- The Thrill Is Gone
- Still Got the Blues
From his work as a solo artist:
- Wonderful Tonight
- I Shot the Sheriff
- Knock On Wood
- Hound Dog
- Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
- Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
And from the broader musical world Clapton has embraced:
- Hold On, I’m Comin’
- All of Me
- Autumn Leaves
That’s already an incredible setlist.
And if you go further into the albums, you find Layla, Bell Bottom Blues, Old Love, Running on Faith, Cocaine, Before You Accuse Me, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out and many more.
Eric Clapton and the Working Guitarist
Clapton is sometimes discussed primarily as a guitar hero. For me, that’s only half the story.
The more interesting lesson is that one of the most famous guitarists in history has spent an enormous part of his career playing other people’s songs.
That’s exactly what working guitarists do. You might play a blues standard at one gig, a soul classic at another, then learn a pop song because a singer has requested it.
The guitarist who can move between styles, understand the history of the song and adapt the arrangement is far more useful than the guitarist who can play the fastest solo. Clapton’s catalogue gives you all of that:
Blues. Rock. Soul. Reggae. Jazz standards. Acoustic guitar. Electric guitar. Fingerstyle. Lead guitar. Rhythm guitar. And, perhaps most importantly, taste.
The Guitarist Who Never Stopped Learning
Clapton began by obsessing over American blues. He left The Yardbirds because he didn’t want to abandon it. He took that obsession into the Bluesbreakers.
He pushed it into the psychedelic power-trio sound of Cream. He explored improvisation with Blind Faith. He combined blues, rock and Southern influences with Derek and the Dominos. He became a hugely successful solo artist.
He recorded tunes by Bob Marley, Robert Johnson, B.B. King,
He recorded standards. He returned to the blues. He picked up an acoustic guitar and made Unplugged one of the most influential guitar albums of its era. And throughout it all, he kept learning songs.
That may be the biggest lesson of Eric Clapton’s career. Don’t just learn guitar. Learn music.
And don’t just learn the notes. Learn the feel, the phrasing, the tone, the arrangement and the history behind the song.
That’s how you build a repertoire—and that’s how you become the kind of guitarist who can walk into any room and actually play.
Eric Clapton Tunes | Related Pages
All Of Me | Chords + TAB
You can learn All Of Me from the Real Book using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| Bbmaj7 | Bbmaj7 | D7 | D7 |
All of me, why not take all of me…
Autumn Leaves | Chords + TAB
You can learn Autumn Leaves by the Real Book using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks
| Am7 | D7 | Gmaj7 | Cmaj7 |
The falling leaves drift by my window…
Born Under A Bad Sign | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Born Under A Bad Sign by Albert King using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| Db7 | Db7 | Db7 | Db7 (Gb G) |
Born under a bad sign, been down since I began to crawl…
Call It Stormy Monday | Chords + TAB
Learn to play Call It Stormy Monday by T-Bone Walker using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, TAB, and backing tracks.
| G9 | C9 | G9 | G9 |
They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad…
Crossroads | Chords + TAB
Learn how to play the live version of Crossroads by Cream using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| A5 (A6) | D5 (D6) | A7 | A7 |
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knee…
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right | Chords + TAB
Learn how to play Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right by Bob Dylan using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| C C/G G G7 | Am7 Am/G |
Well, it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe…
Check out the full TAB lesson here: Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Bob Dylan) Guitar Lesson with TAB.
Hide Away | Chords + TAB
You can learn Hide Away by Freddie King using chords, a chord chart, TAB, chord analysis, and backing tracks.
Instrumental
| E5 E6 E5 E6 | E5 | E5 E6 E5 E6 | E5 |
Hold On, I’m Comin’ | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Hold On, I’m Comin’ by Sam & Dave using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| Ab7 | Ab7 | Ab7 | Ab7 |
Don’t you ever, be sad. Lean on me, when the times are bad…
Hound Dog | Chords + TAB
You can learn Hound Dog by Elvis Presley using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| N.C | C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time…
I Shot The Sheriff | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play I Shot The Sheriff by Bob Marley using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| Gm | Cm Cm7 Cm Cm7 | Gm7 Gm Gm7 | Gm7 Gm Gm7 |
I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t shoot no deputy, oh no! Oh…
Start learning with the full lesson series: I Shot The Sheriff – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
Knock On Wood | Chords + TAB
You can learn Knock On Wood by Eddie Floyd using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| A6 | A6 | A6 | A6 |
I don’t want to lose, this good thing, that I got…
Knocking On Heaven’s Door | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Knocking On Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| G D/F# | Am Am7 |
Mama take this badge off of me…
Check out the full TAB lesson here: Knocking On Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan) Guitar Lesson with TAB.
Still Got The Blues | Chords + TAB
You can learn Still Got The Blues by Gary Moore using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| Dm7 | Dm7/G | Cmaj7 | Fmaj7 |
Used to be so easy, to give my heart away…
The Stumble | Chords + TAB
You can learn The Stumble by Freddie King using chords, a chord chart, TAB, chord analysis, and backing tracks.
Instrumental
| A7 | A7 | E7 (B7) | E7 |
Sunshine Of Your Love | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Sunshine Of Your Love by Cream using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| D blues scale riff | D blues scale riff |
It’s getting near dawn…
Start learning with the full lesson series: Sunshine Of Your Love – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
Tears In Heaven | Chords + TAB
Learn how to play Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, 2nd guitar, a chord chart, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| Aadd4 E/G# | F#m A/E | D/F# A | E A/E E7 |
Would you know my name, if I saw you in heaven…
Start learning with the full lesson series: Tears In Heaven – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
The Thrill Is Gone | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play The Thrill Is Gone by B.B. King using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| Bm7 | Bm7 | Bm7 | Bm7 |
The thrill is gone, the thrill is gone away…
Wonderful Tonight | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| G | D/F# | C | D |
It’s late in the evening, she’s wondering what clothes to wear…
Check out the full TAB lesson here: Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton) Guitar Lesson with TAB.
Eric Clapton on the web
