It was also the first public indication of Eric’s love of Brazilian music. On Eric’s hand-penned set list – which can be glimpsed taped to a table next to him – it’s listed as “instrumental”. Some songs had to be redone due to technical concerns.Įric and his band opened the two hour taping with the bouncy samba, “Signe” (the song order would be changed for the television broadcast and again for the home video release and CD the interview segments would also be cut from the home video release). It was a typical television shoot with a lot of stopping and starting over the course of two hours. Behind them were Steve Ferrone (drums), Ray Cooper (percussion), Chuck Leavell (piano) and Katie Kissoon and Tessa Niles (backing vocalists). New band recruit Andy Fairweather Low (rhythm guitar and mandolin) was sat to his right with Nathan East (bass) to his left. He sat center stage with 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars and a dobro within easy reach. Please be patient while this process is happening.”Īfter everyone was seated and directions given by the stage manager, Eric walked out to loud applause. They were also given a letter that read in part: “You should all be aware that sitting is not on a ‘first come first served basis.’ The producers of the show will allocate everybody their seats. The winners were told the show would take place at a “secret location”. The competition question was a no brainer, even for casual music fans, “Where did Eric stay whilst recording ‘I Shot The Sheriff’?” Answer: 461 Ocean Boulevard. On 6 January 1992, BBC Radio 1 gave away 150 pairs of tickets for the taping. It’s something I just recently started to work on again.” One of the outgrowths from Unplugged was that he did indeed begin to play finger style on the electric guitar and continues to feature prominently in his live shows and recordings. I think you get a nice tone that way there’s a beautiful sound to be gained from the finger actually touching the string. I could never really find the right combination of flat pick, finger picks or thumb picks so really the easiest way to learn to play – though it’s quite strenuous on the fingertips – is finger-style. In an interview filmed the afternoon of the taping, Eric said, “When I first started playing, I played a lot of finger style. All together, it was some of the finest music ever recorded by Eric Clapton. He debuted five new songs, all penned in the months following the tragic death of his young son, Conor, the previous March. The music was minimalist, alternating between his pop songs and the traditional blues that influenced his youth.
Eric’s episode would become the show’s finest moment. By the time MTV approached Eric, Paul McCartney, Don Henley, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Allman Brothers Band, Sting, Elvis Costello and others had been featured. The premise of MTV Unplugged was simple: musicians associated with amplified music would “unplug” from their amps and effects and go acoustic performing stripped down and sometimes radically reworked songs. The resulting live album, released that August, became the biggest selling album of Eric’s career. It proved so popular that a “Part 2” featuring a few songs not included in the original broadcast was put together for broadcast in June.
When MTV Unplugged with Eric Clapton debuted on television in March 1992, it became the series’ highest rated show.
Little did they know music history would be made on Soundstage 1 as MTV filmed the opening episode of Unplugged’s third season. On that date in 1992, 300 music fans boarded coaches in London for Bray Studios near Windsor. Hard to imagine, but 16 January 2022 marks the 30th Anniversary of the filming and recording of Eric Clapton’s blockbuster Unplugged before a live studio audience.
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