Layla acoustic cover

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• published: 18 Mar 2007
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layla eric clapton "Layla" is the title track on the Derek and the Dominos album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, released in December 1970. It is considered one of rock music's definitive love songs,[2] featuring an unmistakable guitar figure, played by Eric Clapton and Duane Allman, as lead-in. Its famously contrasting movements were composed separately by Clapton and Jim Gordon. Inspired by Clapton's then-unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend George Harrison, "Layla" was unsuccessful on its initial release.[3] The song has since experienced great critical and popular acclaim. Two versions have achieved chart success, first in 1972 and again twenty years later. It is often considered to be Clapton's signature song. Background In 1966, George Harrison married Pattie Boyd, a model he met during the filming of A Hard Day's Night. During the late 1960s, Clapton and Harrison, as two of the top English guitarists of the day, became firm friends. Clapton contributed guitar work on Harrison's song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on The Beatles' White Album but remained uncredited, and Harrison played guitar pseudonymously on Cream's "Badge" from Goodbye. However, trouble was brewing for Clapton. His supergroups Cream and Blind Faith had broken apart, his growing drug use would lead to a life-threatening heroin addiction, and, when Boyd came to Clapton for aid during marital troubles, Clapton fell desperately in love with her.[4] The title, "Layla", was inspired by a love story, The Story of Layla / Layla and Majnun (ليلى ومجنون), by the Persian classical poet Nezami. When he wrote "Layla", Clapton had recently been given a copy of the story by a friend (reportedly Ian Dallas)[5] who was in the process of converting to Islam. Nezami's tale, about a moon-princess who was married off by her father to someone other than the man who was desperately in love with her, resulting in his madness (in Arabic and Persian, Majnun, مجنون, means "madman"), struck a deep chord with Clapton.[4] Boyd divorced Harrison in 1977 and married Clapton in 1979. Harrison was not bitter about the divorce and attended Clapton's wedding with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. During their relationship, Clapton wrote another love ballad for her, "Wonderful Tonight". Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1989 after several years of separation. George Harrison with Pattie BoydIn an interview with Songfacts, Bobby Whitlock, who was a member of Derek and the Dominos and good friends with both Harrison and Clapton, explains the situation between Clapton and Pattie around the time he wrote Layla:[6] " I was there when they were supposedly sneaking around. You don't sneak very well when you're a world figure. He was all hot on Pattie and I was dating her sister. They had this thing going on that supposedly was behind George's back. Well, George didn't really care. He said, 'You can have her.' That kind of defuses it when Eric says, 'I'm taking your wife' and he says, 'Take her.' They got married and evidently, she wasn't what he wanted after all. The hunt was better than the kill. That happens, but apparently Pattie is real happy now with some guy who's not a guitar player. Good for her and good for Eric for moving on with his life. George got on with his life, that's for sure. " After the breakup of Cream, Clapton tried his hand with several artists, including Blind Faith and a husband and wife duo, Delaney and Bonnie. In the spring of 1970, he was told that Delaney and Bonnie's backup band (bassist Carl Radle, drummer Jim Gordon, and keyboardist Bobby Whitlock) was leaving the group. Seizing the opportunity, Clapton formed a new group, Derek and the Dominos.[7] In mid-to-late 1970 Duane Allman of The Allman Brothers Band joined Clapton's fledgling band as a guest. Clapton and Allman, already mutual fans, were introduced at an Allman Brothers concert by Tom Dowd.[8] The two hit it off well and soon became good friends. Dowd was already famous for a variety of work (including Aretha Franklin's cover of "Respect"), and had worked with Clapton in his Cream days (Clapton once called him "the ideal recording man"); his work on the album would be another achievement. For the making of his biographical documentary Tom Dowd and the The Language of Music, he remixed the original master tapes of "Layla",[9] saying "There are my principles, in one form or another."[8] With the band assembled and Dowd producing, "Layla" was recorded. One night some time later, Clapton returned to the studio. He found Gordon playing a piano piece he had composed separately and convinced him to let it be used with the song. Roughly three weeks after the recording of its first three minutes, "Layla" was complete.