Free Clapton by Eric Clapton

to make the most of it. At the end of the tour, I hung around their hotel in London, and was utterly heartbroken when I saw her and one of the other girls in the group come out on the arms of Mick and Keith. Unlucky in love again. At the end of December, we were invited to perform as a support act to the Beatles in their twenty-night series of Christmas shows at the Hammersmith Odeon in London. These were a curious mixture of music, pantomime, and comedy in which we shared the support bill with pop groups like Freddie and the Dreamers, solo artists such as Billy J. Kramer and Elkie Brooks, and the R&B group Sounds Incorporated. The Beatles appeared in a comedy sketch with England’s best-known DJ, Jimmy Savile, and generally hammed it up throughout, before playing a half-hour set at the end.
    Giorgio decided that we needed a uniform for the gigs. Knowing how important my image was to me, and that I would fight tooth and nail to wear exactly what I wanted, he gave me the job of designing it. What I came up with were black suits, with jackets that had, instead of a standard lapel, something more like a shirt lapel, which buttoned almost up to the top. We had them made up, in black and in beige mohair, in a workshop somewhere on Berwick Street, Soho. They were actually really nice.
    Even though we were quite low on the bill, playing these shows was fine for us. It was quite local, and all our followers from the CrawDaddy would come and see us, so we had our own fans to play to, and they actually listened to our music. It was different for the Beatles. One night I went to the back of the auditorium to watch them, and you couldn’t hear the music at all because of the screaming. Most of their fans were young girls around the age of twelve to fifteen, who had no intention of listening. I felt sorry for the band, and I think they were already quite sick of it, too.
    Hanging out backstage at the Odeon was where I had my first meeting with the Beatles. Paul played the ambassador, coming out to meet us and saying hello. I remember him playing us the tune of “Yesterday,” which was half written, and asking everyone what they thought. He didn’t have the words yet. He was calling it “Scrambled Eggs,” and singing “Scrambled eggs…Everybody calls me scrambled eggs.” George and I hit it off right away. He seemed to like what I did, and we talked shop a lot. He showed me his collection of Gretsch guitars, and I showed him my light-gauge strings, which I always bought from a shop called Clifford Essex on Earlham Street. I gave him some, and this was the start of what was to eventually become a long friendship; though not for a while, since the Beatles were then in another world to us. They were stars and climbing fast.
    My meeting with John was a little different. One night I was on the tube, traveling to Hammersmith for one of the shows, and I got talking to an elderly American woman. She was lost and asking me for directions. She asked me what I did and where I was going, and I told her I was going to play guitar in a concert with the Beatles. “The Beatles?” she said, astonished, and then asked, “Can I come along?”
    “If you want to, I’ll try and get you in,” I replied. When we arrived at the Odeon, I told the stage manager she was a friend of mine, and took her over to the Beatles’ dressing room, which was on the same level as the stage. They were getting ready to go on, but they took a moment and were really friendly and polite to her. But when we got to John, and I introduced her, he made a face of mock boredom and started doing wanking movements inside his coat. I was really shocked, and quite offended, because I felt responsible for this harmless little old lady, and in a sense, of course, he was insulting me. I got to know John quite well later in our lives, and we were friends I suppose, but I was always aware that he was capable of doing some pretty weird stuff.
    Though the Yardbirds weren’t yet in the