He would record his playing on a Grundig tape recorder and compare it to that of professional blues musicians.
He taught himself the instrument, practicing diligently and passionately by playing the guitar along to blues records. George Harrison, A Liverpool Working Class Lad In 1961 Eric Clapton In 1969 Outside Olympic Studios, London, After A Recording Sessionįor his thirteenth birthday, Clapton’s mother sent him an acoustic Hoyer guitar from Germany. Pining for his mother, hence, set the relationship dynamic that he would later follow in his love life. They say that the patterns you follow in your future relationships are set in your childhood. When his mother got married to another Canadian soldier and moved with him to Germany, Eric stayed behind in England with his grandparents. Clapton grew up believing that his grandparents were his real parents, and that his mother was his older sister. The soldier returned to Canada after the armistice without even meeting his newborn son. He was born in 1945 in Surrey to 16-year-old Patricia Clapton who had gotten knocked up by a Canadian soldier during the tail end of World War II. The chase it seems is what really got them going because once each got her, after the initial euphoria, he lost interest and went back to the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures.Įric Clapton had an unusual childhood. It wasn’t her beauty, her virtue or her intelligence that won them over and inspired them to create timeless art, it was the fact that they all wanted her and became competitive and relentless in their pursuit. During his brief fling with her, Ronnie Woods too wrote a song about her. She inspired them to write classic songs that we still listen to today.
Sixties model and London It Girl Pattie Boyd was the love, muse and wife to two rock legends, George Harrison and Eric Clapton. This is what inspires them to reach inside themselves and create art that serves as a cathartic release for their pent up feelings. But artists have sensitive souls, which yearn for the unattainable. That rockstars have millions of groupies willing to do their bidding is a well known fact.