Saturday, October 27, 2018

Where's the one? Eric Clapton and J.J.

Genesis Publications sent me a pamphlet advertising "Sunshine Of Your Love: The Crossroads Festivals 1999-2013" by Eric Clapton and Friends which is nice of them. I'm unlikely to buy it, but I don't mind mentioning it here for those who are interested.



Genesis have me on their mailing list because I bought the expensive edition of Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page. In fact, I bought the affordable edition as well. They're good quality, well made books.

The Eric Clapton pamphlet had a quote in it that I wanted to reproduce here. Regarding playing with J.J. Cale he says,

We played 'After Midnight' and I didn't recognise it at all. I had no idea what he was playing, and I didn't know where the one was. That's an essential component for musicians like me - I will often ask, 'Where's the one?' In most Western music, there are four beats to the bar: 'one, two, three, four.' If you come in on the two, thinking it's the one, your day is over. So it's quite common for someone in the band to say, usually to the drummer, 'Where's the one?' and he'll indicate it with 'one, two, three, four.'But with J.J. I was getting no slack at all; I was playing up there in another world. I finally heard him say, 'Midnight.'And I realised,'Oh.We're doing "After Midnight"!' and managed to get back on track.
[Reasonably accurate copy of spacing and punctuation, so sic]

And I thought, "You too, Eric?" I thought it was just me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have Road to Escondido album by them and it is terrible, they don't seem to work in sync on the album and although JJ isn't a bad guitarist he isn't in the same league as Eric and unfortunately he should have let Eric lead, but didn't.

Lyle Hopwood said...

I haven't heard it, but I'm not surprised to hear it. Thanks!

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