Clapton's 'Layla Sessions' tone appreciation

[slider313]

Have you ever loved a woman.

[rah3]

Originally Posted by AlChuck

"Have You Ever?"

What's that? No song of that name on Layla...

Have you ever loved a women

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layla_a...ted_Love_Songs

Last of 3 songs on the 3rd side of the vinyl release.

Playing and tone just kills!!!

-RAH3

[MarcJ]

In the Vintage Guitar article with Joe Bonamassa awhile back Joe says Tom Dowd told him the Layla album was a blackface Vibro-Champ running into a blackface Princeton Reverb with the volume all the way up, treble all the way up and bass all the way down.. I happen to love the guitar tones on that album. Sure there are imperfections here and there, it is a record of a place in time with two young guitarist who had just become best friends and were doing lots of drugs while making a great record. So I chose to look at the album as just that.

[SGNick]

Originally Posted by AlChuck

Duh, never mind, of course you mean "Have You Ever Loved a Woman"...

I think I need a nap or something

Even though you figured it out, you should probably take a nap anyways. Nothing beats a good nap.

[fullerplast]

Originally Posted by MarcJ

In the Vintage Guitar article with Joe Bonamassa awhile back Joe says Tom Dowd told him the Layla album was a blackface Vibro-Champ running into a blackface Princeton Reverb with the volume all the way up, treble all the way up and bass all the way down.. I happen to love the guitar tones on that album.

OK, I found that quote. First time I've heard of that setup. It sounds like jumpered in parallel:

He describes his blackface Fender Vibro-Champ and Princeton Reverb amps as "...my Layla rig. Tom Dowd said (Eric) Clapton used those two models to do the Layla album - he [connected] one to the other, turned the volume all the way up, treble all the way up, and the bass all the way down; that's the 'Layla' tone."

Then from an actual interview with Tom Dowd that was done by Alan Paul:

Clapton and Allman were set up in the studio facing each other, looking one another in the eyes and playing live through small Fender amps--a Princeton and a Deluxe. “These guys weren’t wearing earphones,” Dowd recalls. “They were just playing softly through those little Fenders. If they talked while they were recording, you would have heard it over the amplifier. It’s funny, too because when I did Cream, Eric was playing through double stacks of Marshalls and it literally hurt to be in the room with those guys. When Eric showed up for Layla, he had a Champ under one arm and a Princeton under the other and that was it. He and Duane used those amps, switching back and forth.”

The two also often swapped guitars, with Clapton primarily playing a Strat, Allman a Les Paul. “They did whatever seemed best at the moment for a given part,” Dowd recalls. “It was never gonna happen again. It just happened and if you didn’t catch it, you blew it. The spontaneity of that whole session was absolutely frightening. A lot of it flew and then when they heard it, they’d say, ‘Oh man, here’s a part I gotta put in there.’ But it was not because it was misplaced the first time, but because they would have another flight of inspiration when they could step back and hear it. They had all this positive feedback to add. There was no jealousy or ego-type thing at all among them.”

Also, Dowd adds, contrary to ever-growing legend, there was no excessive drug use during the album’s actual recording: “We started sessions every day at 2:00 and everyone arrived clear eyed and ready to work. As I dismissed people, they may have floated away, but it did not interfere with the album. Even in his wildest moments, Eric arrived at the studio on time with his instrument in tune, ready to play -- and he would give absolute hell to anyone who didn’t. Eric and Duane shared that. They didn’t know each other from Adam before the sessions began, but they were both taskmasters. They didn’t give a damn what anyone did on their own time, but when they were in the studio, it was their time, and you better be ready to go.”

After approximately two weeks of recording, the band went out on the road and Duane returned to the Brothers, leaving Dowd to mix the album on his own. “I sent them cassettes and then Eric called and said they wanted to come back to alter a part on one or two songs and remix one song. When they returned--with Duane--among the things they had in mind was adding a piano part to ‘Layla’ and I thought, ‘Oh my god, where does it go? The song is tight as a drum’ I played them the cut, mixed, and they said, ‘Okay it’s going to go here and we’re going to do this and that.’

“I thought, ‘You’re all absolutely stark-raving mad. How are we going to get everyone to match the brilliance of what they did the first time and make it fit?’ But I had no choice, so we gave it a go.”

Drummer Jim Gordon, who played the coda’s piano part is credited with writing it as well, a fact which has been disputed over the years. Dowd says that no one ever explicitly told him who wrote the music, but Gordon played it beautifully, in one take.

“When I set up, I expected Bobby Whitlock to play the piano, but [drummer] Jim Gordon played it. I can’t say whether or not he wrote it, but he had it mastered; that part was in the end of his fingers. Duane’s guitar part on that coda is just absolutely intense and, of course, I was absolutely wrong about not being able to make the new part fit. We spliced it right in and it made the song. I knew immediately that we had something really, really special –as anyone would have.

“The whole session was just so damn impromptu and fly-by-the-seat-of-your- pants brilliant. It was just a wonderful experience to witness such meshing of musical minds, such telepathic sympathies. When we walked out, I told the band, ‘This is the best damn album I have done since The Genius of Ray Charles.’ And then the damn album didn’t sell for a year. We all knew how great it was --including everyone at Atlantic --but we couldn’t get arrested with it. That was very hard to understand, and very disappointing. Then a year later ‘Layla’ was like the national anthem. And that seemed appropriate.”

Then from a Sound on Sound interview with Dowd's apprentice engineer brothers Ron and Howard Albert:

With their backs to the nine-foot Baldwin piano, Clapton and Allman sat side by side during the session. And what with the three other band members and all of their equipment, conditions were pretty cramped inside Criteria's Studio B live room.
"If you looked through the control-room glass, the piano was to the left," Howard Albert recalls, "and on top of the piano, which had the lid closed, were our [Fender Tweed] Champ amps that Eric and Duane both used."
"We had to be inventive," adds Ron. "The room was not a large space, so what we had to do was figure out a way to get everybody in there. The piano took up most of the space along one wall, and cue systems in those days were pretty basic. We only had one stereo send and it was hard for everybody to hear themselves, so for acoustic purposes we used the little Champ amps because they wouldn't make a lot of sound in the room, enabling us to get isolation between the drums and the piano and the guitarists. However, since Duane and Eric couldn't hear themselves with the live drums, live piano, B3 and so on, Howard or I came up with the idea to place [AKG] 414 mics inside the piano on some foam, close the lid and then completely encase the piano with three layers of quilts and a roll of gaffer tape."
A combination of Shure SM57s and Electrovoice 635s were employed on the guitar amps, while on the other side of the room sat Bobby Whitlock's Hammond B3 and a sole Leslie speaker, miked with a couple of SM57s at the top and another at the bottom. In the far-left corner of the room was a round drum booth — likened by the Alberts to a space capsule — inside which Jimmy Gordon's kit was recorded with a telescopic Sony ECM51 on the hi-hat, a pair of Neumann U47s overhead, a Neumann KM84 on the snare, an Altec 633 'Salt Shaker' on the bass drum and Neumann U87s on the toms. Carl Radle was positioned next to the booth, his bass DI'd.

So the picture is gradually being drawn, if a little fuzzy at times. I learn a little bit more each time one of these Layla threads come up....more pieces to the puzzle. Certainly there are some discrepancies in the exact setups, so we may never know the "exact" guitar-amp setup but that album was all about emotion and the performance anyway. I think Tom Dowd captured it beautifully.

[billdurham]

I would agree with the sentiment of the playing and the vibe.. but I'm not real down with the tone either. Just too thin for me.. would love to have heard it done with a little more balls.

BD

[HiddenCharms]

Clapton's had a variety of tones throughout his career. My favorites are the entire Derek and the Dominos phase -the Layla album and the Live DATD album. Very different, but equally great, were the Beano albums and Fresh Cream.

[EataPeach]

Great info in those interview excerpts!!!

[GTRJoe]

I have always loved the Layla album. Maybe it isn't the best recorded album ever but the performances and the overall vibe are stellar. I've never found the guitar sounds objectionable. There's some serious magic happening between those guys and that's what matters. I have a feeling that Tom Dowd did an excellent job of accurately capturing the sound of what was happening in the studio at that time.

[rog951]

Forgot to mention this before, but if any fans of this album haven't yet seen the Tom Dowd documentary, go out and rent it right away! It's great all the way through, but the sequence where he's at the console with the original Layla master tapes is absolutely spine-tingling.

[bluesjuke]

Wish the remastered version would be done more like the vinyl.

[cSuttle]

Originally Posted by Badfinger

Tone Schmone. Feel the passion, that is what it is all about

I've never seen that picture. Mind if I use it on the web-site? Nice photography. So much better than I can do.

[dets1]

Originally Posted by keninsyr

Sorry,abbreviation for "Have You Ever Loved A Woman"

i prefer the title track "Lay".

[nondeplume]

For those interested/inclined: Bobby Whitlock and Coco are having a running dialog currently on the Layla sessions, as well as many other topics traversed within the scope of their life-experience, over at the Steve Hoffman forums

here..

and here.

....alot of insight and good reading....may be awhile before you get back here though...

[Terry McInturff]

Originally Posted by fullerplast

What is the source of that info Terry, and assuming you don't mean a line level tap off the speaker was used, what mic was in that chain?

Although I've never seen or heard anything but second hand information regarding the amps being tweed, BF, or SF champs or vibro champs, the most credible info seems to suggest a VC with a tone stack bypass mod....giving it more of a tweed agressiveness in a bigger box.

Sure wish there were some more photos of those sessions....It was a landmark album and I think EC got turned onto the whole small amp thing from working with Delaney Bramlett. I wonder if EC even remembers what was really used.

The info came from interviews with Tom Dowd, who engineered the sessions. I do not know what mic was used.

Again, there may have been mods made to the amp...but doing so was extremely uncommon back then, so I rather doubt that the amp was other than stock. I could be wrong!

The MCI console at Criterion (now removed and sold) is famous largely due to the Layla sessions. For a treat, get the Tom Dowd DVD and watch him bring up the original tracks on the song "Layla".