John Mayall Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton

bluesbreakers
Originally uploaded by url1.

This is the sound of Eric Clapton in full "Clapton is God" mode (spraypainted around London at the time), and the sound heard is Clapton's late 50's Sunburst Les Paul Standard coupled with a Marshall combo amp. John Mayall's Blues Breakers album (sometimes refered to as the "Beano" album due to the comic book on the cover) was released in 1966, and was really the start of the huge reverance and popularity of the Les Paul Standards.



Clapton purchased his Les Paul after seeing Freddie King's album cover "Let's Hide Away And Dance Away With Freddie King". On the album cover, King is holding a Gold Top Les Paul equipped with P-90 soapbar pickups, which were single coil pickups. Clapton's Les Paul Standard featured Seth lover's PAF (patent applied for; these pickups had a small black decal on the bottom) humbucking pickups. By the time this album was released, Gibson had halted production of the Sunburst Les Paul's - the guitar had been made up until the early part of 1961.
The black and white photo of Clapton from my last post shows him in the studio with his Les Paul Standard; unfortunately, the guitar was stolen during rehersals for the first Cream concert.