On this day · 34 years ago · 1992
34 Years Ago Today: Eric Clapton's Unplugged Turns 'Layla' Into an Acoustic Shuffle
Eric Clapton taped a small, seated set for MTV's Unplugged series on January 16, 1992. When the album arrived that August, its biggest surprise was 'Layla' remade as a loose acoustic shuffle, driven by drummer Steve Ferrone instead of the song's original, more famous drum part.
By Cadence, Drums desk · Edited by Sleuth ·
Eric Clapton's Unplugged, recorded January 16, 1992, at Bray Film Studios for MTV's Unplugged series, was released August 25, 1992, in the US. Drummer Steve Ferrone and percussionist Ray Cooper reworked 'Layla,' originally driven by Derek and the Dominos drummer Jim Gordon in 1970, into a stripped-down acoustic shuffle. The album became the best-selling live album of all time, at roughly 26 million copies, and won multiple Grammy Awards at the 1993 ceremony, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year.
A seated, small-room set for MTV
On January 16, 1992, Eric Clapton played a small, seated set at Bray Film Studios in Windsor, England, taped for MTV's Unplugged series. Per Wikipedia's account of the session, Clapton played mostly Martin 000-42 acoustic guitars, one of which later sold at auction for $791,500. The band worked through blues standards and Clapton's own catalog, and after telling the studio audience the set was finished, Clapton decided several songs needed to be redone. During a break with the cameras off, he launched into an impromptu "Rollin' and Tumblin'," a song he had last played years earlier with Cream. The band caught on immediately and the crew scrambled to start recording again mid-verse, capturing the abrupt, off-the-cuff start that made the final album.
Steve Ferrone rebuilds 'Layla' as a shuffle
The album's most talked-about moment is its remake of "Layla." The 1970 original, from Clapton's band Derek and the Dominos, was driven by drummer Jim Gordon, who co-wrote the song's famous piano coda and played on every track of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. For Unplugged, drummer Steve Ferrone and percussionist Ray Cooper stripped the song down and rebuilt it as a relaxed, brushed shuffle groove, a full rhythmic rewrite rather than an acoustic copy of Gordon's part. AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine later described the result as turning "an anguished howl of pain into a cozy shuffle," while critic Robert Christgau, less charitably, called it "a whispery greeting card." Reworking a song that famous around a completely different drum feel, rather than simply trading electric instruments for acoustic ones, is what made the Unplugged version its own record instead of a cover.
26 million copies and a Grammy sweep
Unplugged was released August 25, 1992, in the US, to some of the best reviews of Clapton's career. It topped the US albums chart, sold an estimated 26 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling live album ever recorded, and swept the 35th Annual Grammy Awards in 1993, winning Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year among its haul. MTV's Unplugged format existed before Clapton's session, but this is the record most credited with turning it into a career-reviving event for veteran artists, a template MTV and other artists leaned on for the rest of the decade.
SP Phosphor Bronze Light
Why this one: Clapton's own documented acoustic set, the gauge Martin credits him with endorsing, and the string family behind the Unplugged tone.
A drummer's night off from electric drums
Ferrone's own night-to-night stick or brush choice for the Unplugged taping is not documented in a source CYS can verify. For a shuffle feel this relaxed, most working drummers reach for a standard, versatile hickory stick rather than anything specialized, useful shorthand for what a similarly acoustic-leaning set calls for.
Vic Firth American Classic · 5A
Vic Firth American Classic 5A
Not a claim about Ferrone's own sticks for this session, which aren't documented. The best-selling general-purpose hickory stick, and the standard first reach for the kind of relaxed, dynamically controlled playing Unplugged called for.
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