Tom Dowd has participated in as much recording history as maybe anyone around today. During his 28 years in the business, he has recorded and/or produced, among others;, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Herbie Mann, Ray Charles, The Coasters, The Drifters, Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, Otis Redding, Dusty Springfield, The Young Rascals, The Allman Brothers, Stephen Stills, and Joe Walsh

This is the third and final segment in a multipart series. If you’ve not yet read part one, it comes highly recommended.

We pick up with Tom in the midst of his analysis of the album.

HAVE YOU EVER LOVED A WOMAN?

PL: When Clapton’s playing the solo live, would he junk an otherwise good lake if the solo didn’t meet his standards, or does he go for the best overall “feel”?

TD: At the outset, if there was a solo that was shaky on Eric’s part, but the track felt good, he’d say “Let’s try some more but save that one.”

Two or three days later, the jury would come in and we’d sit down and try to determine whether or not the track could be saved. “Is the solo really that bad, or should we try to do it again?”

This kind of exchange existed among all the people in the band if Whitlock’d say “I can do a better organ part,” Eric might say “I liked my solo but I’ll try with you,” and they’d go in and do it again.

PL: Did you ordinarily try to baffle them in such a way that you could re-do the solo?

TD: No. As a result, there were some situations where we did have leakage to the point where we had to scrap takes that we might have saved otherwise. We didn’t go for that “studio-sterile” miking where you could isolate everything be-cause that wasn’t the sound we wanted.

PL: Is he really meticulous about his solo as an overdub? Will he play it ten limes, for example?

TD: Oh yeah, like in that Aretha Franklin tradition. When he hears that solo back and thinks he can do it better, he’ll do it.
He knows.

PL: Does he look for a particular kind of development, or will he try a solo a number of different ways?

TD: When Eric is playing traditional music blues or any kind of “historical” composition it is the spontaneity of the performance that completely determines if it’s used or not. If he believes that his rendition of that song, at that given moment, is what he felt and what he way trying to do, that’s the way it stands.

He would not then go back and alter the solo to make it something he wants it to be now. When Eric writes a song, he knows what kind of solo he wants, he knows what he wants every corner of that song to sound like.

When he’s playing an old blues, he might play something right now that he’s in love with, but a month from now he’d say “I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I did that.” Still, he wouldn’t go back and re-do it because that would be incongruous with what was happening at that time.

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