ERIC CLAPTON - DUELLING GUITARS AS CLAPTON + HARRISON FOUGHT FOR BOYD

ERIC CLAPTON and GEORGE HARRISON once staged an angry guitar duel for the love of model PATTIE BOYD. A drunk Clapton turned up at the mansion Harrison shared with his then-wife Boyd one night, after declaring his love for the stunning blonde. And Boyd is now recounting the old friends' odd guitar fight in her memoirs, Wonderful Today. She recalls, "George handed him a guitar and an amp - as an 18th century gentleman might have handed his rival a sword - and for two hours, without a word, they duelled. "At the end, nothing was said but the general feeling was that Eric had won. He hadn't allowed himself to get riled or go in for instrumental gymnastics as George had. Even when he was drunk, his guitar-playing was unbeatable." Boyd later left Harrison, calling their life together "ludicrous and hateful" and wed Clapton in 1979.

07/08/2007 02:06