Why Eric Clapton never wanted his Unplugged album to be released, and bet his label boss $100 it was going to be a flop
The impact of Eric Clapton‘s Unplugged is hard to overstate. The recording of Slowhand’s legendary MTV set has sold over 25 million copies, and over 30 years after its release in 1992 remains the best-selling live album of all time. Quite asides from the sheer numbers, Unplugged is credited with revitalising mainstream interest in acoustic guitar music, and no less than Chris Martin IV himself once claimed the album “saved the Martin guitar” – and revitalised interest in 000-style instruments. However, the most remarkable thing of all might be that Clapton himself never even wanted to release it.
In a new interview with Guitar Center, Clapton admits that he outright “didn’t want” Unplugged to be released. He was so certain that it would flop that he even bet on its downfall. “There’s 100-dollar bill on the wall of [ex-Warner Brothers president] Lenny Waronker’s office that he won from me, because I said ‘I bet you $100 it won’t even go into the top 50,’” he reveals.
READ MORE: Joe Bonamassa’s second collaboration with Martin is a stunningly accurate recreation of his prized pre-war 1937 00-18
Thankfully, Waronker put his foot down, because he believed that Unplugged had the makings of a “hit album”. Of course, he was right; the former president of Warner Brothers had an ear for a hit. But Clapton had tried his hardest to resist a formal release. “I wanted to do a deal with them… to put it out as a limited edition,” he says. “Just 500 copies or something. I just didn’t want to hear it anymore… I had a real aversion to it for a long time.”
Despite his initial “aversion”, Clapton’s Unplugged has become a key part of his history. “That’s the Clapton that people know,” he admits. “People didn’t really a lot of what I was doing before that – the music was either far too underground or too poppy. I [recently] thought, ‘Okay, I have to listen to [Unplugged] again.’”
When Chris Martin IV’s praise for Clapton’s Unplugged is revealed, Doyle explains that the CEO has crowned Clapton as a saviour of the Martin Guitar. Clapton is unwilling to accept the praise outright, instead focusing on how wild it is to go from admiring Martin guitars through shop windows to having his own signature axes with them.
“When I was a kid… I saw a Martin Dreadnought [in Kingston Market],” he remembers. “There was a crowd gathered round this guitar case, and they opened the lid, and there was a Dreadnought in there… I thought, ‘Wow! One one day, I’m going to have one of those… that’s the most beautiful shape… Picasso could have done that!’”
Now, Clapton’s latest signatures in the Crossroads 2026 Marin Collection will surely be admired by budding guitarists through shop windows. Alongside some John Mayer models, Clapton has the Martin 000-42 EC and Martin 000-13E EC, with both six-string acoustic-electrics wearing Clapton’s favoured 000 shape.
The Crossroads 2026 Collection also recreates Clapton’s Blind Faith Telecaster. With just 130 in existence, the Tele has the unique Frankensteinian mish-mash of a sunburst single-cut body and a Stratocaster neck.
For more information on the Crossroads 2026 Martin Collection, head to Guitar Center.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
