From Derek and the Dominos to Eric Clapton

This is about George Harrison's wife, Pattie. She and Clapton began living together in 1974 and married in 1979. Clapton and Harrison remained good friends, with George playing at their wedding along with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Clapton left her for actress Lory Del Santo (with whom he had his son, Conor) in 1985. In an article published in The Guardian December 13, 2008, Pattie said: "I wasn't so happy when Eric wrote 'Layla,' while I was still married to George. I felt I was being exposed. I was amazed and thrilled at the song - it was so passionate and devastatingly dramatic - but I wanted to hang on to my marriage. Eric made this public declaration of love. I resisted his attentions for a long time - I didn't want to leave my husband. But obviously when things got so excruciatingly bad for George and me it was the end of our relationship. We both had to move on. Layla was based on a book by a 12th-century Persian poet called Nizami about a man who is in love with an unobtainable woman. The song was fantastically painful and beautiful. After I married Eric we were invited out for an evening and he was sitting round playing his guitar while I was trying on dresses upstairs. I was taking so long and I was panicking about my hair, my clothes, everything, and I came downstairs expecting him to really berate me but he said, 'Listen to this!' In the time I had taken to get ready he had written "Wonderful Tonight." I was a bit more hurt when Eric wrote Old Love (1989). The end of a relationship is a sad enough thing, but to then have Eric writing about it as well. It makes me more sad, I think, because I can't answer back."

Duane Allman came up with the famous guitar riff and played lead with Clapton. Allman was a big Clapton fan and arranged to drop by the session through Tom Dowd, who produced the Allman Brothers' album Idlewild South. Dowd was working with Clapton on the Derek and the Dominos album and made sure Duane paid a visit. When he came by, Allman was thrilled to learn that Clapton not only knew who he was, but also thought he was a great guitarist. They got along very well and Clapton asked Allman to record with the band.

Allman's death in a motorcycle accident in October, 1971 helped renew interest in the song.

Clapton went into a drug-filled depression when the single tanked in 1971. He couldn't understand why it wasn't a hit. The record company did very little to advertise the album, figuring any project with Clapton would get plenty of publicity. It eventually did, and the record company made out very well.

Derek and the Dominos formed after Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon worked on George Harrison's first post-Beatles album, All Things Must Pass.

At the end of the song, Dwayne Allman produced the "crying bird" sound with his guitar while Clapton played acoustic. It was a tribute to Charlie Parker, a jazz legend known as "bird."

The piano piece at the end was edited on a few weeks later. Drummer Jim Gordon came up with it as a solo project and had to be convinced to use it on "Layla." Gordon was one of the most successful session drummers of the late 1960s and early 1970s, playing on many classic albums of the time. The piano at the end has become famous. It was used to great effect at the end of the movie Goodfellas, and radio stations almost always play the version with the piano.

Clapton performed a slow, acoustic version for an MTV Unplugged concert in 1992. It was released as a single and made #12 in the US, getting lots of airplay on pop, rock, and adult contemporary radio stations. This version also won a Grammy for Best Rock Song.