The Last Waltz by The Band is by far the most iconic farewell concert of all time. Held on Thanksgiving Day 1976 at San Francisco’s historic Winterland Ballroom, it saw Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm and the rest of the group bid farewell to an adoring crowd. Famously, they were backed by a whole host of legends, from those who inspired them to influential peers. This all-star lineup sprinkled a hefty dose of magic dust on proceedings, making it a significant point in culture.
One of the era’s most prominent figures who lent his talent to The Last Waltz, was former Yardbirds and Cream member, Eric Clapton. By that point in time, he’d already achieved more than most do across an entire career, with the British musician at the forefront of both the blues rock movement of the early-mid 1960s and the psychedelic boom later that decade.
Interestingly though, while The Band guitarist and vocalist Robertson would later come to deeply admire Clapton’s mastery on the fretboard, initially, he thought Clapton was “terrible” when he first heard his work with The Yardbirds, a band he was in from October 1963 to March 1965.
Speaking to Musician for a lengthy interview in 1982, Robertson recalled when he first heard Clapton’s take on the blues. He said: “I heard the records from England. I wasn’t very impressed, at the time. He got better. I remember Sonny Boy Williamson saying, ‘God, I went to England. Those kids over there, they buy me everything, they treat me like God and they all want to play with me and they’re terrible. They can’t play worth a shit.’”
Asked if Williamson’s quote was in reference to The Yardbirds, Robertson replied categorically: “Yeah. He said, ‘But they all want to play so bad that you can’t say too much about them.’ But he told us stuff. He said, ‘They don’t get it. They don’t get it yet.’ But it did develop into a particular kind of rock ‘n’ roll for them. Cream certainly didn’t end up sounding like Sonny Boy Williamson.”
Informed that the dovetailing work of Robertson and Clapton’s during The Last Waltz was a classic study of antithetical approaches, Robertson confirmed that by that point, he had long since deemed Clapton as one of the greats of blues rock and guitar playing.
The frontman explained earnestly: “Yeah, I do. He’s one of the greats because he was great before they figured it out. He was already there.”
