The Beatles had some juice when it came to distortion, but Clapton was finally able to break through those early studio engineers' fear of overloading. He defined the sound that guitarists spend the rest of their lives trying to get.

I've come to realize that you live on through recordings; they're like a musical diary, a window into somebody's soul.

I never envisioned what I was doing as part of a career.

The great British blues guitarists of the Sixties - people like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Peter Green - could play like virtuosos, but they also understood the importance of energy and intensity

I don't want fans to think we're clean, upstanding American boys, but we are Americans, and we do stand up.

There was a time I thought I couldn't enjoy rock 'n' roll unless I had heroin in me

The Beatles just changed everything right across the board. They just had that right combination of clean-cut good looks - a cute band - but under that they had a real rock n roll thing going on.