This interview originally appeared in the March 1996 issue of Guitar Player.
Down an unpaved road deep in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, a sign announces “Delaney & Mamo’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Ranch.” Sundry farm animals greet new arrivals, and Delaney Bramlett graciously invites visitors into the makeshift control room of his recording studio, a converted toolshed. Blasting from the small speakers are welcome reminders of rock’s earthy foundations in country, gospel, R&B, and blues.
A gifted songwriter, singer, producer, and bandleader — and a tasteful, southern-flavored guitar picker — Delaney Bramlett has never wavered from the musical formula that helped this son of a Mississippi sharecropper vault from the seedy bars and honky tonks of Southern California to the upper echelons of rock during the late ’60s and early ’70s.
At a time when British rock superstars were trying to connect directly with the American music that inspired them, Delaney Bramlett would welcome them to Los Angeles with open arms and one of the hottest bands around: Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, the gospel/R&B/rock revue centered around Delaney and his ex-wife, Bonnie. The group created a buzz in the industry with their second album, 1969’s The Original Delaney & Bonnie & Friends (Accept No Substitute). By the early 1970s, they were enjoying hits with their songs “Never Ending Song of Love” and, an FM staple in the 1970s, “Only You Know and I Know.”
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“At that time Delaney & Bonnie were magical,” says famed Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler.
The musicians in Bramlett’s circle — including Jim Keltner, Leon Russell, J. J. Cale, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, Jim Gordon, Rita Coolidge, Jim Price, and Bobby Keys — helped fuel Eric Clapton’s Derek & the Dominos, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass assemblage, Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs & Englishmen, John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, and the Rolling Stones’ horn section, as well as Delaney & Bonnie’s own exuberant albums Accept No Substitute and On Tour With Eric Clapton.
From a guitarist’s perspective, however, Delaney’s ultimate trick was persuading some of rock’s greatest players — Clapton, Harrison, Duane Allman, and Jimi Hendrix — to take time off from their own careers to serve as his sidemen. Factor in James Burton, the Ventures Jerry McGee, singer/songwriter J. J. Cale, and country-pop session ace “Thumbs” Carllile, and the list of guitarists who worked alongside Bramlett starts to look like a who’s who of the era’s top players.
Clapton in particular owes much to Bramlett — not just for providing an escape hatch from an increasingly confining guitarist-as-gunslinger role in Cream and Blind Faith, but for helping to give the then-ambivalent guitar legend the confidence to step forward as a lead vocalist and solo artist.
“I was in total awe of Delaney,” Clapton has acknowledged. “He was the first person to instill in me a sense of purpose.”
While Bramlett produced Clapton’s self-titled 1970 debut, Bonnie assisted the guitarist writing many of its songs, including the hit “Let It Rain.”
Bramlett’s own records are filled with tasty, homegrown guitar work that echoes his Delta roots.
“He’s probably one of the best rhythm guitar players in the world,” avers Delaney Bonnie/Derek & the Dominos cohort Bobby Whitlock. “He comes up with some of the hippest, coolest riffs and rhythm patterns of any guitar player except maybe Steve Cropper.”
But Bramlett’s playing on record is so intermingled with that of the great players who have served as “Friends” that it’s sometimes difficult to know where Delaney’s down-home picking ends and the more agile stylings of some of his stellar sidemen begin. Bramlett’s acoustic guitar playing comes from bottleneck Delta blues, while his electric guitar work is often distinguished by twin-guitar harmonies.
These characteristics also color the work of Clapton, Harrison, and Allman, especially after they collaborated with Bramlett. (While Allman played harmony-style with Dickey Betts in the Allman Brothers, he — and they — were clearly influenced by Bramlett’s unapologetically rootsy approach. In fact, the version of Robert Johnson’s “Come On In My Kitchen” that the Allmans played through the late end of their career bears a strong resemblance to the arrangement on Delaney & Bonnie’s Motel Shot album, which features Duane.)
When I was seven my mom asked me, ‘What if Santy Claus brought you a guitar — would you learn it?’ ”
— Delaney Bramlett
“Delaney’s rhythm guitar playing was the foundation of his music,” Wexler states. “Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Dave Mason — these were English blues buffs who learned from phonograph records, But they didn’t have the mud between the toes and the church down the road with the hootin’ and hollerin’. Delaney was their conduit — and so was Duane — to the reality of the life from which this music sprang.”
The breakup of Delaney and Bonnie, increasing family obligations, struggles with drugs and alcohol, and changing musical fashions led to a lower profile for Delaney during the decades of disco, punk, and heavy metal. Now, proud to see his daughter, Bekka, recruited as lead vocalist in the new Fleetwood Mac, and pleased that musical trends are veering in a rootsier direction, Bramlett hopes to reconnect with a business that may be coming back around to his kind of music.
What first attracted you to the guitar?
My mom wanted me to play the piano. We had a piano teacher, and she played terrible. I thought if I took lessons from her it was sissy, cause she played real sissy. I said, “Nah,” and I took up the guitar.
I played mandolin and fiddle a little bit when I was a kid, and I played bass at the Palomino Club when I got to Los Angeles, but I always come back to the guitar. I guess that was my first love.
When I was seven my mom asked me, “What if Santy Claus brought you a guitar — would you learn it?” “Yeah!” On Christmas morning there it was, a [Sears department store] Playtime in a big old cardboard box My uncle still has it, and I’m gonna get it.
I did my first TV show when I was 10. I won a big contest, Purnell’s Pride Chicken. The stars of that show was Slim and Spec Rhodes, hillbilly artists.
Later on I did Elvis’s first tour down there. We had a two- or three-piece act. I only did two shows. The Colonel [Tom Parker] would pay, like, 30 girls for every show to get up and start screamin’. Back then he was just like everyone else, just a starving picker, a truck driver. Our opening show was in our Randolf High auditorium, so you can imagine how big he was. The town consisted of two service stations.
Did you learn from lessons?
No, just from watchin’ somebody play: R.C. Weatherall. He was a black guy that would sit on the back porch and play after we would get through workin’ in the fields. I can play a little bit like him still. He’d play odd, real odd. He didn’t care how he tuned it. He could tune it like a regular tuning, and he’d still play all that stuff that I ain’t never figured out. Or he could tune it open, play slide.
Remember the old long Coke bottles? He’d whack it off and then get them rocks and smooth it off. He was one of the all-time greats. I probably learned more from him than anybody.
I wish that someone had done somethin’ with him. He didn’t know how to get out of Mississippi. I’m sure he’s still there, an old man. I looked for him last time I was down there, but I couldn’t find him.
Who were some other early influences?
Robert Johnson, Hubert Sumlin and Elmore James. In those days in country music, they didn’t introduce their guitar players much, and you’d have to go look and find ’em out. Like Ernest Tubb might say, “Ahh, Billy Byrd!” when he would take a solo.
I always loved Hank Garland, but I could never even try to play like him — he was way beyond me. And Grady Martin, who played on “El Paso” by Marty Robbins. Later on, I’d say Pops Staples was one of my all-time favorites. And Albert King, he was an original.
How did you break into session work?’
When I first came out here I used to be the kid that would sit in the studios all the time. I’d go from one studio to the next and sit in the corner. Everybody kinda thought I was with somebody else, so they wouldn’t ask me to leave.
I went to a lot of sessions with [country musician and producer] Cliffie Stone, just learnin’, watchin’ what to play, how to run a board, how to try to get real pure sounds.
Then I was in band that played what they called “continuous music” at the Saddle Club. The music never stopped. One guy would take a break, and you’d switch over to his instrument, and just keep switching when each guy took a break I’d play guitar, bass, drums.
When I finally got to Where I could play worth a shit, I played on some sessions for Willie Nelson — when his hair was shorter. Of course I never got paid for it, cause they didn’t know who I was. They just said, “Can you play guitar?” “Yeah.” “All right.”
And then I played on a George Jones session when I went down to Nashville. I played sticks on a cardboard box ’cause the drummer that always did the session didn’t show up. [Country impresario] Harlan Howard, who’d sorta taken me under his wing, knew I could keep a beat. He said, “Can you pound that thing on the two and four?” I said, “Sure.”
I wrote the first song that Clint Eastwood ever sang, for a TV series he was in years ago. He’s a terrible singer.”
— Delaney Bramlett
Is it true that you sang on demos for Elvis?
When I first got to California I was just out of the Navy, 19 years old. Ben Weisman, a songwriter, heard me singing in a nightclub. He wrote about 80 or 90 songs for Elvis, and he offered me a deal to sing demos. I had to sing exactly like Elvis, and I got $25 per song. I can still sing just like him.
When did you start writing songs?
When I was in junior high. I wrote the first song that Clint Eastwood ever sang, for a TV series he was in years ago. [Eastwood was starring in the hit show Rawhide.] They were starting to make a big star out of him, and I wrote this song called “Searchin’ for Somewhere.” It sounded like he cut it sitting in the middle of the desert, sitting by a cactus bush. Him and a guitar and a harmonica. He’s a terrible singer. [laughs]
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You’ve played with many of the best. What do you look for in a guitarist?
It’s their playing attitude, their tones. I don’t look for a speed freak that shows me every note you can do in one bar. I hate that stuff. It’s somebody that plays from the heart. It’s not the technology of the damn thing, it’s what comes out when he does it. Playing in the right place and knowing when to shut up. I think holes is the biggest part of music, if you put it in the right spot. Everybody wants to fill up every little gap.
How do you compare the various players you’ve worked with?
Eric’s a great guitar player, and so is George, and they don’t play anything alike. Duane Allman, I kind a set him aside. To me, he was the epitome of rock and roll and R&B both.
Then there’s Cornell Dupree — a stylist, a wonderful, wonderful guitarist. He was King Curtis’s guitar player. He was strictly R&B. And then there’s Thumbs Carllile — complete genius. Didn’t play like nobody but Thumbs. His own style. I got mine — it’s called “scratchy rhythm-lead.”
I think holes is the biggest part of music, if you put it in the right spot. Everybody wants to fill up every little gap.”
— Delaney Bramlett
You use a lot of double- and even triple-guitar harmonies.
I was always a freak for that stuff. Since I was a kid, I’d sit around and work up a lick, then I’d work up a harmony to it, then another harmony. I just thought that was gorgeous. I figured if they can do it with a violin section, why can’t they do it with a guitar? That was my idea. I’m sure a lot of people were doing it a long time before I thought of it, but I can’t think of anybody that really influenced me at it.
Were you doing harmony stuff before the Allman Brothers?
The twin stuff? Oh, yeah. I mean, they might have been sittin’ somewhere in a closet doin’ it too while I was doin’ it, and they were really good at it. Of course all those licks, that was Duane. Not taking anything away from Dickey — he can hold his own. But he was playing on Duane’s coattails — those were Duane’s licks.
When you played with Clapton and Harrison, would you each work out specific parts?
Sure. See, a lot of people, they’re too embarrassed to say, “Let’s work out a part.” No — I work out everything. I want it to be right We’d say, “I’ll play this part, you play that one. You don’t like that one? Okay, let me try that one.” Playin’ off the top of your head is great, and when you get onstage you can always jam and do that. Still, when it comes time, hit that ol’ dilly doggy and do it.
It seems pretty remarkable that players like Harrison and Clapton would be willing to put their own careers aside to be sidemen for you.
Well, that made it real easy for me. I could have a cigarette while they took the solo. [laughs]
Did their playing become more “Americanized” after playing with you?
Well, that’s the southern blues thing that I just naturally play, because that’s where I’m from. They liked that, and of course when you like something, you’re gonna go for it. We all showed each other stuff. They’d ask me, “How’d you do that?” and then say, “God, that’s simple! I wouldn’t have even thought of that.”
Everybody shows things. There ain’t no new lick. It’s just the interpretation of how you wanna play that lick. That lick’s been played before we were a threat, you know what I mean? Them licks have been played for a million years.
Does Harrison play on On Tour With Eric Clapton?
All the way through it. He’s called “Mysterioso.” He had quite a few of those kinda names.
Is it always you on rhythm, Eric on lead, George on second lead?
It would depend on the song and mood at the time. George, more than anyone I know, is one to work it all out in advance. I showed him what I did on the slide. He was amazed by it because I use all kinda different tunings. I got some weird ones. The D is the weirdest one. The top string’s gotta be an F# — you need a light string to pull it up that far. I used that on some of Eric’s things that I produced.
After touring with Clapton and Harrison you gigged with John Lennon.
When I first did a tour over there [in the U.K. and Europe] with Eric and them, we were rehearsing in Eric’s house, and he had some Orange amps. They were godawful things, man, but they were loud. They’d knock a house down. God, they had a tone.
John was just wonderful. He called up and said, “Would y’all be the Plastic Ono Band?” And we said, “Shit, yeah. Show us to the stage.” They had a whole line of them Oranges, and we blew’ em all up into shreds.
I loved John. To me, he was the Beatles. But they were all great. The English Invasion took over for a while. They were kinda doin’ their version of southern music, and kids over here are so dumb, they thought that was original. When we started playin’ it, they thought we was copyin’ them!
Are there one or two tracks that exemplify your guitar style?
Oh, probably “Comin’ Home” and “Where There’s a Will There’s a Way” [both are on The Best of Delaney & Bonnie and Delaney & Bonnie On Tour With Eric Clapton]. That “Comin’ Home” was pretty exciting — it just flew off the top of my head, that intro thing. I think we cut that at United Western studios, which is now Called Ocean Way. I did “Comin’ Home” twice. The studio version I like best, I think. On the live version we all take solos, sometimes all in one whack.
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That’s one good thing about having a lot of guitar players. If they’re really good, they won’t get in each other’s way. And I think Dave Mason was actually on that stage at the same time, too, but I don’t think you’ll hear anybody steppin’ on toes. I think me and Eric swapped off in the middle of the studio version.
Do you recall what kind of amp you used on “Comin’ Home”? You got a real gritty sound
It was this Fender Champ that I had souped up with this Lansing instead of the little ol’ Champ speaker, and I had big tubes put in it. It still had that Champ sound, but with more power.
Eric fell in love with the damn thing, and George did too. I gave one to Eric, one to George, and one to Jimmy Page, ’cause they all loved ’em. That whole recording and Eric’s album [1970’s Eric Clapton] was done with Champs.
We even figured out a way to use them onstage, using them as preamps on top of big amps. We blew a few of ’em up before we found out how to do it I can still hear Eric using it in the studio. I can recognize the sound.
You produced that first Clapton solo album.
We’d just finished our album and went directly into the studio to do his. I told Eric, “You should put out an album on your own.” He said, “I can’t sing.” I said, “God gives you a talent. You don’t use it, he’ll take it away. Better sing.”
I worked for many months to teach him how to phrase, how to say certain things, before we did the album. And he said, “Can I cut your songs.?” We started over in England, then we came back here. God, we was all over the place on that album.
He said, ‘I can’t sing.’ I said, ‘God gives you a talent. You don’t use it, he’ll take it away. Better sing.’”
— Delaney Bramlett
It was a real departure from Eric’s guitar-hero image.
I did it on purpose to try to establish him as a singer. I mixed the vocals over the guitar. The guitars, they’re tasty — he played enough. But he wanted to get away from the English sound. He wanted that sound I was gettin’, that Southern sound.
By then you were using the Let It Be Rosewood Telecaster that George gave you. [In December 1969, Harrison gave Bramlett the Rosewood Telecaster he used in the making of Let It Be. The guitar now belongs to Harrison’s estate.]
I played that Tele mostly tuned to an open chord for slide. Most of the time I was playing that guitar that Duane gave me [a 1961 sunburst Fender Stratocaster]. We’d all snatch guitars. I don’t remember it song by song, but Eric would say, “I wanna play that one a while,” and I’d say, “Give me this one.”
How did you and Duane come to know each other?
Through [Atlantic Records producer] Jerry Wexler. I was gettin’ ready to do an album. Jerry said, “Who would you like?” I said, “Ry Cooder.” He said, “Do you want someone to play real blues or someone to play California blues?” I said, “I want real blues.”
He said, “Let’s do Duane.” I said, “Yep, you got that right.” That was way back yonder. We just fell in love with each other, and it started from there.
Duane was the best [slide player] there ever was, the best there ever will be. He said, “You play wonderful, but it’s real Mississippi blues. Can I show you somethin’ to just stretch it out a little bit? Let me hear how you play.” I said, “I don’t wanna play in front of you.”
He said, “Let me hear you,” and I started playin’. He’s goin’, “How’d you do that?” and I said, “How’d I do fuckin’ what?” He said, “That! I want to know.” I said, “I learned that from R.C. Weatherall, the black guy that lived with us in Mississippi — he taught me that shit.”
So he showed me techniques, and I showed him all that raw crap that R.C. showed me. We got to be such friends that it was just ridiculous.
Your house was something of a way station for traveling musicians.
Duane would stay here. Albert King used to rehearse in my home studio right up until he died. Gram Parsons used to call whenever I was about to leave to go on the road. He’d show up and hang out with Mamo [Delaney’s mother). She’d make him coffee, and he’d say, “You don’t know what you’ve got, man.”
Even Jimi Hendrix played in your band.
Jimi played with me even before Eric, if memory serves. This was at the height of his popularity. My guitarist at the time, Jerry McGee, was drafted out to tour with Kris Kristofferson, I think we were performing in Los Angeles at the Palladium. I was backstage in the dressing room feelin’ down because I didn’t have a replacement.
All of a sudden this shadow of this guy holdin’ a guitar comes across the room. Jimi said, “Can I play with you tonight?” and I went, “You bet your sweet bippy!”
Jimi said, ‘Can I play with you tonight?’ and I went, ‘You bet your sweet bippy!’”
— Delaney Bramlett
And he stayed on for several weeks at least. I also remember running into him later when we would cross on the road when I was with Eric. Jimi was a very quiet, soft-spoken kind of guy, but he’d be excited to show us these new gadgets he’d get. He’d wave us over, open up his bag, pull out a new one, and demonstrate for us.
But when he played with us, he just played straight, no effects. And he could really play. He was so tasty Then every once in a while he’d whip the guitar between his legs, or behind his back, just bein’ Jimi, ’cause he could do that.
Do you see today’s music coming back around your way?
In the two fields I’m really concerned with — country and rock/R&B — I sure do feel it coming back around. Country music went a little too far. I can’t tell the difference between those guys with the hats and the musicians don’t give a shit — they’re makin’ their $100,000 a year.
But you can only take a certain thing so far, and all of a sudden it’s not country anymore. You can only take R&B and rock and roll so far before it’s not that anymore.
But people are starvin’ to death to hear it jump back again. Pick up a guitar and sing “You Win Again” like Hank Williams, and people are gonna stop and listen. They’re hungry for it.
So is your new stuff country, rock, R&B, or what?
Some of all of the above. It’s just my music. I’ll say it again, like Jimi Hendrix said. We were sittin’ around with Jimi, and we said, “What do you call it? Gospel?’ No. “Real rock and roll?” No.
Then Jimi said, “Spiritual, that’s all. Just tell ’em, ‘It’s spiritual. It feels good.’”
