Eric Clapton’s guitar solo on the Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is among the most noteworthy moments in the band’s history. It marked the first time an outside guitarist contributed to the group's recordings.
Classical musicians had played on their tracks over the years, and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, as well as Marianne Faithfull, sang on their 1966 hit "Yellow Submarine." But Clapton's solo on the George Harrison composition was a game changer.
Even Clapton was surprised when Harrison made the invitation. "I can't do that," he said. "Nobody ever plays on the Beatles' records."
Remarkably, many of those involved in the recording have no recollection of the session. That includes the man behind the recording console that day in Abbey Road Studio Two: engineer Ken Scott.
“I remember absolutely nothing about it,” he says in conversation with Rick Beato [via Guitar World]. “When I was writing my book [Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust], I asked the question, ‘What was it like, Eric playing on that? How did they react?’ and I had to answer, ‘I can’t remember.’”
He even underwent hypnotherapy, which uses relaxation and focus to access the mind's subconscious, to try to get his memories back.
He was surprised to find he's not alone.
“I went to John Smith, who was my assistant engineer, [who said], ‘I don’t remember anything about it.’
"I went to Chris Thomas, George Martin’s assistant, who was producing at that point because George was on holiday, and [he said], ‘I don’t remember anything about it.’
“The one thing I vaguely remember is Eric saying that the only way he’d play on it is if he sounded like the Beatles, as opposed to Eric Clapton.”
The guitar part was later treated to ADT — Artificial Double-Tracking — to pull its sound further away from the guitarist’s usual realm. The device — which used a tape delay with a variable-speed oscillator to create a slightly mismatched copy of a recorded track — had been dreamed up by the engineer Ken Townsend at the request of John Lennon, who was looking for a way of avoiding double-tracking his vocals.
When applied rather heavily to Clapton’s electric guitar part — which he played on Harrison’s “Lucy” Les Paul — it gave his solo its rather peculiar, wobbling sound.
There is at least one member of the Abbey Road crew who recalled Clapton's session. The late engineer Brian Gibson spoke about the recording with Beatles biographer Mark Lewisohn for his book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions.
His memory was quite clear, and it may explain why the session passed without making much of an impression on those involved.
"Eric behaved just like any session musician," Gibson said. "Very quiet. Just got on and played. That was it... There were no theatrics involved."
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" would kick off a fruitful creative period for Harrison, who had begun collaborating with Clapton to escape the creativity-stifling atmosphere in which he found himself in the Beatles. Their partnership spawned Cream’s "Badge" as well as "Here Comes the Sun," another Harrison hit, from 1969's Abbey Road.
In related news, the 1913 Gibson acoustic the pair frequently wrote on surfaced on Reverb earlier this year with a hefty $1 million price tag. It's currently up for auction.
