One of the next times I met Eric Clapton was after the 1969 Melody Maker awards, which we attended in order to pick up the trophy.

At the time, I had wanted to record an album of Buddy Holly’s songs but I heard from Jenny Boyd (Mick Fleetwood’s wife at the time and sister of Patti Boyd who was then married to George Harrison) that Eric Clapton was about to do the same. I told her that I would drop the idea, especially because he was going to be accompanied by the Crickets themselves!

Jenny came back to me with word from Eric that he, knowing I wanted to do that, would bow out and leave the project to me.

Anyway, Eric was present at the Melody Maker Award ceremony. He asked me about the ‘Boody Hoolly’ project, as he called it and he again told me to go ahead with it. I objected, but he insisted. A gracious move on his part. He ended up recording only a couple of numbers with the Crickets on his upcoming album with Delaney and Bonnie’s musicians (an excellent album, by the way) and I never pursued the Buddy Holly album idea. I would love to, however, and I would like to record his more obscure numbers that had moved me, some of the very ones that Eric had mentioned in our conversation.