Eric Clapton has been at home in Columbus, Ohio preparing for his upcoming seven-date tour, beginning on September 8th in Pittsburgh.
The rock ‘n roll legend appeared on The Real Music Observer on YouTube, and said he's trying to learn how to play like his friend Robbie Robertson so he can pay tribute during his shows.
Clapton talked about Robbie’s guitar playing, and said: "People underestimate what he does. They ought to try doing it because like the intros to songs -- the little things that sound like they're kind of scrappy, off-the-cuff, which is part of his unique attractiveness to me is that it sounds like he's only just now working out [that] this will work. And I'm sure it's much more crafted than that. I know him well enough to know that he was really precise about what he did and it's so difficult to recreate that kind of on the edge of expression and not blowing it. It's really, really difficult."
Clapton said when he learned that Robertson had passed, he gathered his family to watch The Last Waltz, the documentary about the final show of the original lineup of The Band in 1976, in which he participated.
Robertson was 80 years old when he died on August 9th from prostate cancer. Robertson was scheduled to join Clapton at his two Crossroads Guitar Festival shows in Los Angeles on September 23rd and 24th.
[Source: Classic Hits Today]