I was responding to a post in the forum on this site in which someone asked what they should be focusing on in regards to learning to play the guitar and the first thing that immediately popped into my head was the John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers album featuring Eric Clapton. That album was the one that did it for me with the guitar – the Crown Jewel of guitar albums. If you’re interested in the lessons I’ve been putting up recently on electric blues lead guitar, then you really HAVE to add this album to your collection. I love the fact that these tracks were recorded live in the studio and that Clapton was only 20 years old – there aren’t many seasoned guitar players that can play with that intricate level of tone / vibrato / phrasing… it’s simply amazing that he was sounding that good at that young of an age. I think the guitar tone he has for this album is incredible… the perfect amount of overdrive (all played on a Les Paul too I believe).
Anyway, if the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton album is the THE album for guitar players to own and study, the song “Hideaway” is THE song off that album to learn. It tooks me years to be able to stumble through it and to this day it still doesn’t sound good enough. If you look around on YouTube you’ll see a lot of shoddy versions of people trying to play it, some of them can hit all of the notes.. but to me playing a song like Hideaway is so much more than just hitting the notes, it’s making them sound right as well. So to sum up, if you aren’t familiar with this album – get familiar with it!
As a reference, here’s the version of Hideaway from the John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers album featuring Eric Clapton.
Us Brits were very fortunate back in those days. After Clapton, Mayall’s next guitar player was Peter Green. When he went off to form F/ Mac, next up was Mick Taylor. He was as good as the others. On a Mayall live album a guy can be heard saying, “And you say he [Taylor] is only 17!” There was Jeck Beck, Mick Abrahams of Jethro Tull, [one of my very favourite players] David Gilmour, Richard Thompson of Fairport.
The killer thing was that in those days all these guys [except Clapton, who was God by then, as you know] could be seen playing in the back rooms of London pubs or the refectories of universities for the price of a couple of pints of ale. Even better, they could often be seen for free at open-air concerts in London parks put on by the local borough councils!
If Clapton was God and was by then part of the holy trinity with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, giving it large to the USA, London was full of guitarist saints and angels.
There’s a camera on the headstock for this excellent cover of “Steppin’ Out.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MPlF7gWjzs
G/day Brian,
I’ve still got the original album. Must have bought it when I was about 16 I think. Still very playable and obviously a classic.
M.J.
Thank God for what the Brits did but remember they did it with our music. The James Jasmerson bass playing and the Robert Johnson percussion is what the Brits were studying before they ever made a few shillings. They were smart enough to know that we were putting out some great sounds thanks to the American negro .
Really astonishing! That precision and perfect nuance from Clapton and the rest really is mind blowing. Eric and I are the same age and I was performing acoustic folk and blues and truly could not even imagine what he and the others like him were doing on the fretboard. I remember listening and getting stoned without the weed! Thanks for putting it up for us all.
Mark
Just found this post and listened to the song. I noticed similarities between Hideaway and Bottle of Red Wine. I’ve been looking for lessons with this style of Clapton. Please point me in the right direction.
Thanks.
If you asked Eric he’d tell you to listen to Freddie King.