“I almost threw my guitar away”: Seeing Eric Clapton live in 1965 nearly made The Office star Creed Bratton quit playing guitar
Did watching your guitar heroes ever leave you feeling so small you wanted to give up the instrument entirely? Well you wouldn’t be the first.
Creed Bratton, former guitarist for American folk-rock outfit The Grass Roots and star of NBC sitcom The Office, reveals how seeing Eric Clapton live in 1965 nearly made him hang it up for good.
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Reflecting on his journey as a young guitarist in the latest issue of Guitar World, Bratton shares how his time in Europe exposed him to acoustic icons who reshaped his songwriting and playing style.
“I was living with my wife and baby daughter in Malibu Canyon. We stayed there for a good year. Then we went to Europe, and I wrote songs over there,” says Bratton. “I got to meet people like Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. Talk about an epiphany.”
“Seeing Bert Jansch play… I was strumming with a pick, but seeing him play all over the neck with his fingers, that was a paradigm shift for me. Alternate tunings? I was gobsmacked. It changed my songwriting and my approach to playing the guitar.”
But nothing quite shook him like seeing a young Eric Clapton in full flight.
“I saw Eric Clapton in ‘65. Ridiculous,” Bratton recalls. “I had no idea you could get a sound like that out of a guitar. I almost threw my guitar away, but I stayed with it.”
The guitarist, who left The Grass Roots in 1969, also reflects on the creative constraints he faced that led to his eventual exit. Asked if it bothered him that the Wrecking Crew – a group of LA studio musicians – were responsible for most of the playing on the band’s later records, Bratton admits that he has long found peace with how things unfolded.
“I didn’t get myself concerned with it that much,” he says. “I always felt as if there was this energy moving me along through life. It got me through school. Somehow this band thing came together. Things just appeared in my life. Whether it’s optimism or spiritual lunacy, I always felt like I’ve been watched over. My attitude was, ‘This is supposed to happen right now,’ so I took my settlement.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
