Eric Clapton’s opinion on Allman Brothers Band and Duane

Many young British aspiring musicians fell in love with the Blues while growing up in the 50s and in the following decade they had the chance to take those influences and create something new and unique. Eric Clapton was one of them and he went on to become one of the most influential Bluesmen of all time, with an estimated amount of more than 200 million records sold worldwide.

He first achieved fame with The Yardbirds, John Mayall, Cream and Blind Faith and had the chance to see many incredible bands exploring the same kind of music. One of them was The Allman Brothers Band, which had the late legendary guitarist Duane Allman.

Eric Clapton’s opinion on Allman Brothers Band and Duane

Eric Clapton is a huge fan of the Allman Brothers Band and the late guitarist Duane Allman, with whom he played with in the classic album “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” (1970). “The (Allman Brothers) music was unbelievable, because they were doing all that harmony playing. Everything seemed to be, even if they played solos, they were all in harmony. It was fantastically worked out.”

“The impression that I got (Seeing them live) was how much hard work they’d put into their presentation, and the fact that it wasn’t really blasted all over the airwaves, you know? They had just quietly gone about doing a fantastic job of making really, really good music that was really well thought out. (Allman Brothers) influenced my music at the time. They made it okay for a band to be live all the time. Their thing was really more about live than [studio].”

Eric Claptn continued:

“We (Cream) were really limited onstage. We could go into the studio and make great records by overdubbing. I would play a rhythm part, and then play a lead part with a harmony to it, so you’re really talking about three guitar (parts),” Eric Clapton said as told by Bob Beatty in his book “Play All Night! Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East”.

That show happened at the Miami Beach Convention Center on the night of August 26, 1970. Coincidentally, that was the first day of the Derek & The Dominos sessions. But that was not the first time that Clapton heard Duane Allman playing guitar . He first heard him on Wilson Pickett’s version of “Hey Jude”, released in 1969. Eric even called the record label Atlantic to find out who that guitar player was.

“I remember hearing ‘Hey Jude’ by Wilson Pickett and calling either (Atlantic president) Ahmet Ertegun or Tom Dowd, and saying, ‘Who’s that guitar player?’ To this day, I’ve never heard better rock guitar playing on an R&B record,” Eric Clapton said as told by Guitar Player.

Eric Clapton said that he and Duane were connected through their shared love for Robert Johnson

Clapton decided to invite Duane Allman to be part of the Derek & The Dominos album and the American musician ended up playing a big part in it. He was the one who wrote the guitar riff of “Layla”, which became one of Clapton’s biggest hits. The British guitarist had originally written the song as a ballad.

As Bob Beatty wrote in his book, Clapton said that he and Duane connected really well through their playing styles. “We fell in love and that was it. The album took off from there. Because of Duane’s input it became a double album. Because of the interest in playing between his style and my style, we could actually have played any blues or any standard and it would have taken off. (Robert Johnson) was where we connected. We didn’t really talk about the modern players much at all. It was really the roots that were meeting on,” Eric Clapton said.

Curiously, after the album was completed, Eric Clapton tried to convince Duane Allman to join Derek & The Dominos. But the American musician told him he needed to be loyal to “the family” and decided to stay in the band he was part of with his brother Gregg. Clapton recalled that in an interview with UNCUT in 2018. “We spent a lot of time working together on the guitars. Duane was very instrumental in the development of the song.”

He continued:

“He came up with this riff that was pretty much a direct lift from an Albert King song, ‘As The Years Go Passing By’ from the Stax album Born Under A Bad Sign. It’s a slow blues and there’s a line that goes, ‘There is nothing I can do if you leave me here to cry’, and we used that.”

“(…) After we’d made ‘Layla’ it was the end of the Dominos. I tried to get Duane to leave the Allmans. But he said he had to be loyal to what he called ‘the family’,” Eric Clapton said. Tom Dowd, the executive producer of the album said that Clapton and Duane looked like two long-lost brothers at the time

Duane Allman was a big fan of Eric Clapton

“Eric Clapton, man. Let’s talk about him, he’s a gas, he wrote the book, you know. He is contemporary white Blues guitarist volume one. But his style and his technique is what really amazes me. He’s really got a lot to say too but the way he says just knock me out. He does so well, man,” Duane Allman said in an interview made by Dan Neer (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

In an interview with New Have Rock Press in 1970, Allman talked about their partnership and inspiration. “Well, I went down there to watch them make that record because I was interested in it. I thought ‘Well now, the cat’s got him a band’. Because I’ve been an admirer of Eric Clapton for a long, long time. I’ve always dug his playing, he inspired me a lot. I always just personally dug his playing.”

Duane Allman continued:

“Figured I’d get a chance to meet him and watch this thing go down, y’know, so I went down. So when I saw him he acted like he knew me, like I was an old friend. ‘Hey man, how are you” y’know. And he said: ‘As long as you’re here we want you to get on this record and make it with us. We need more guitar players anyway’. So I did, I was real flattered and glad to be able to do it,” he said.

Duane was only one year older than Eric Clapton but tragically died in 1971 at the age of 24 in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia. He had a short 10-year career but was enough to show the world he was one of the greatest guitar players of all time. His brother Gregg continued to lead The Allman Brothers Band until 2014 when the band retired from touring. He passed away three years later, in 2017, at the age of 69.

Eric Clapton had the chance to play with the Allman Brothers Band a couple of times but by the end of the group’s career. Besides ABB songs, they also performed tracks from “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” as a tribute to Duane.