Paul McCartney’s opinion on Eric Clapton

Besides being one of the greatest songwriters and bassists of all time, Paul McCartney also is a really good guitarist, having played the instrument in many Beatles’ classics.

Performing with John Lennon, George Harrison and witnessing the rise of Jimi Hendrix up-close he saw many of the greatest guitar players in the world, so he can easily spot a good musician. Over the decades he has given his opinion on many famous guitar players, including the legendary Eric Clapton.

What is Paul McCartney’s opinion on Eric Clapton

Like George Harrison also was, Paul McCartney is a fan and a friend of Eric Clapton. He has already said that Clapton is a really good guitarist, and although in the late 60s Clapton had already reached “God” status for many fans, in 1990 McCartney said: “I think Clapton is real good, particularly these days,” he told Guitar Player, interestingly showing that he felt the musician had improved even more over the years. In 2014, when Paul was asked about retirement, using Eric as an example since he had said he was thinking about it, he praised the musician and said he shouldn’t do it because he was good.

“The Stones go out now, and I go to their show and I think, ‘It doesn’t matter that they’re old gits. They can play great.’ And I talk to young kids who say exactly the same thing: ‘They play good.’ I think that’s the deciding factor. It would be a pity if Eric retires, because, shit, he really plays good! But he’s that kind of guy, Eric. I can see him saying, ‘I’m going to retire.’ He’s kind of a homebody in essence.”

He continued:

“We’ve talked about this before. I remember him joking about how I stand up for the whole show. He said, ‘I sit down.’ That’s a blues player thing. But he’s just too good a player. I would say to him, ‘Yeah, by all means, sit down, Eric. But don’t retire,'” Paul McCartney told Rolling Stone in 2014. They have known each other since the 60s and back then the Beatle had the chance to see Cream play at a historical concert at the Saville Theatre. The audience that night also included Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend.

Interestingly, McCartney said that he was actually a bit influenced by Clapton back in the 1960s to buy a new guitar. He once spent some time at John Mayall’s house listening to records with the musician. “You’d go back to his place and he’d sit you down, give you a drink, and say, ‘Just check this out. He’d go over to his (tape) deck, and for hours blast you with B.B. King, Eric Clapton. He was sort of showing me where all of Eric’s stuff was from. He gave me a little evening’s education. I was turned on after that, and (bought) an Epiphone,” Paul McCartney told Vintage Guitar.

The Beatles considered asking Eric Clapton to join them when Harrison briefly left

Clapton was the only guitarist from outside the band to have played on a Beatles record. Although there was some resistance from Paul and the other members when George said he wanted his friend to record the guitar solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, they later accepted and approved the result. After tumultuous recording sessions in 1969, George Harrison temporarily left the band because he felt his songs were not getting the recognition and necessary effort from the other members. In recordings from the “Let It Be” sessions, after Harrison was gone, Lennon said: “If George doesn’t come back by next week, we ask Eric Clapton to play.”

Harrison returned, and it was not necessary to consider Clapton joining the band. However, after The Beatles came to an end, McCartney considered creating a supergroup with other famous artists, mentioning Eric among them. “After the end of The Beatles I was faced with certain alternatives. One was to give up music entirely and do God knows what. Another was to start a super-band with very famous people, Eric Clapton and so on. I didn’t like either. So I thought: How did The Beatles start? It was a bunch of mates who didn’t know what they were doing.”

“That’s when I realized maybe there is a third alternative: to get a band that isn’t massively famous. To not worry if we don’t know what we’re doing. Because we would form our character by learning along the way. It was a real act of faith. It was crazy, actually,” Paul McCartney said in an interview with Mojo in 2024.

One of the few times most of The Beatles’ members reunited and played together was at Clapton’s wedding

Curiously, one of the few times that George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney played live together after the end of The Beatles was at Clapton’s wedding. He had got married with George’s ex-wife Pattie Boyd in Tucson, Arizona in 1979 but months later held a wedding reception at their home in England.

The ceremony happened five years after Harrison and Boyd had split and two years after their divorce was finalized. Even though his ex-wife was marrying one of his best friends, who had tried to seduce her for years, Harrison was on good terms with both and attended the ceremony. That day, the three musicians took the stage at the party with other special guests and played songs like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Get Back”.

They played together a couple of times

McCartney had the chance to share the stage with Eric Clapton in 2002, in the “Concert For George”. The tribute show happened at the Royal Albert Hall in London one year after George passed away at the age of 58. In his autobiography, Eric praised Paul’s performance that night. “The only minor difficulty arose over who should sing ‘Something.’ Olivia thought I should sing it. Paul McCartney had been doing it on the ukulele in his shows and wanted to do it that way. I wanted Paul to sing ‘All Things Must Pass,’ which I considered the key song of the whole event.”

“In the end we compromised and Paul and I did ‘Something’ as a duet. Later in the show he performed a brilliantly soulful version of ‘All Things.’ It was a great night, and everybody who was there or has seen the DVD agrees that it was the perfect sendoff for a man we all loved, and who gave us over the years so much beautiful music,” Eric Clapton said in his book.

One decade later, Paul invited Eric to play on his record “Kisses on the Bottom”. The musician played the guitar on the tracks “My Valentine” and “Get Yourself Another Fool”. Although they have collaborated before, in Clapton’s view they have different approaches to music. “(Paul is) intensely gifted but very organized. We approach music from different directions,” he once said.