I heard The Beatles classic As My Guitar Gently Weeps today on the radio. Boy, that’s a great record. Eric Clapton’s guitar solo is just perfect for it. When George Harrison asked him to play on the track he protested that, unlike a lot or even most of the popular bands at the time, The Beatles never had outside musicians play on their records. Of course that wasn’t exactly true. They had string players on Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby and George Martin occasionally played keyboards. They also had horn players and clarinets on tracks on Sgt. Pepper’s and the Yellow Submarine albums but the basic guitars, bass and drums were always one of the four Beatles.
George reportedly told Clapton that it was his song and he could have whoever he wanted play on it. There does seem to be a certain unwritten rule about that. As a lead guitarist, if I wrote a song my band was recording and I wanted one of our friends to play the lead guitar on it instead of me no one would complain. However, if I wanted someone else to play bass or drums that would most certainly cause some problems. George Harrison could ask Eric Clapton to play guitar on one of his songs but Paul or John better not ask him to play on one of their tunes as that would essentially be replacing George in the band. This is simply one of the unwritten rules of rock band etiquette.
Somebody tell that to Paul McCartney. Didn't he play drums on Drive My Car and Back In The USSR? I think Paul also played Lead Guitar on Drive My Car and not George . . .
ReplyDeleteGeorge and Eric didn't mind sharing wives either, I think!
Yes, but those are The Beatles. What Clapton was talking about was having outside musicians.
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