How Eric Clapton got the name “Slowhand”
Nicknames for famous musicians are a dime a dozen. Whether you’re talking about The Ox or the Prince of Darkness or even His Royal Badness, you usually don’t even need someone’s real name to know who we’re talking about. Much in the same way, when someone says Slowhand, there’s only one musician you can think of: Eric Clapton.
The guitarirs has fully embraced his nickname, as evidenced by his blockbuster 1977 album Slowhand. But how did Clapton acquire this nickname? It certainly doesn’t refer to Clapton’s playing style – while he is methodical and unrushed in his approach to the guitar, Clapton can spit out notes at a fiery pace when the time is right. Especially back in his days of playing blues with The Yardbirds, Clapton was quite the shredder on the six-string.
Ironically enough, that seems to be where Clapton first got the nickname Slowhand. It all boiled down to the type of guitar he was using at the time, the gauge of his strings, and his unhurried pace at changing said strings. Whenever Clapton had to change out a broken string, the resulting audience response inspired The Yardbirds’ manager to develop the now-iconic nickname.
“I had a Telecaster in The Yardbirds from day one,” Clapton explained in his 2007 autobiography. “I used light-gauge strings, with a very thin first string, which made it easier to bend the notes, and it was not uncommon, during frenetic bits of playing, for me to break at least one string.”
“While I was changing my strings, the audience would often break into a slow handclap, inspiring Giorgio (Gomelsky, The Yardbirds’ manager) to dream up the nickname of ‘Slowhand’ Clapton,” he added.
But that’s not the only version of the story. While the players are the same, namely Gomelsky coming up with the moniker, the context around it is different. Broken strings didn’t factor into the equation. Instead, Gomelsky was teasing Clapton about his playing and thought it would be a joke if he referred to Clapton as “Slowhand”.
“My nickname of ‘Slowhand’ came from Giorgio Gomelsky,” Clapton told biographer Ray Coleman. “He coined it as a good pun. He kept saying I was a fast player, so he put together the slow handclap phrase into ‘Slowhand’ as a play on words.”
Check out Clapton playing ‘Lay Down Sally’ from Slowhand down below.