Clapton's Tricone

[SH]

Hi,

When I went to see Japan tour of E.Clapton last year, I saw that Derek Trucks, a support member was using Tricone Style 3
as you can see pic here.

www.ericclaptonphotos.com/image.php?page=2&gallery_id=16&image_id=576

According to a Japanese magazine, that guitar was borrowed from Clapton, and it is ex-Bukka White's !!
I don't know if it is true or not as I've never seen Bukka holding such Tricone except for the palm tree one.

Does anyone know more about it ?

Satoru

[Michael Messer]

Hi Satoru,

I have not seen this guitar before, but it is possible that it belongs to EC. On a recent tour Doyle Bramhall II used Eric's maple single-cone Fine Resophonic for the acoustic set. Somewhere on this forum we have a photo of Doyle & Eric?

There are many beautiful guitars in the Eric Clapton collection. In 1999 I was involved with the Christie's Eric Clapton auction for the Crossroads charity and at that time as far as I know, there were two Tricones in the collection; a Beltona brass-bodied Tricone and a Fine Resophonic maple-bodied (sunburst) Tricone. The Beltona was sold to Michael J Fox and the Fine Resophonic remained in the collection.

I think the Beltona was used on 'From The Cradle'. As well as the Fine Resophonics and the Beltona, I have seen Eric playing a National Reso-Phonic Jazz Blues model. This guitar was in the Christie's auction and I think it stayed in the collection.

As far as I know, Eric Clapton's favourite resophonic guitar is his spruce top Dobro.

Thinking about EC and resophonic guitars. It reminded me that as a point of interest and a useless fact, that the first person to play my koa single-cone Fine Resophonic guitar was Eric Clapton. It's a long story but Mike Lewis had just finished the guitar at a time when EC was playing in Paris.

Shine On,
Michael.

[Deleted]

Derek Trucks owns a 1930's Duolian that once belonged to Bukka White (single cone biscuit style obviously). He and Warren Haynes have swapped that guitar back and forth. I have not heard of Trucks taking that guitar on tour though.

[SH]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for sharing your interesting story.
Without doubt, EC's favorite is the Dobro, and Martin for flat top.
But I guess that he has a lot of National and Gibson flat top in his collection, just keeping a low profile.

txslide,

Thanks for your note.
Possibly, the magazine may have mixed up with Derek's Duolian about Bukka's guitar.

Satoru

[Michael Messer]

Twice in my life I had the opportunity to buy the Bukka White Duolian. The first time was in 1979 in Gruhn's Guitars in Nashville. They were asking I think....700 dollars. I didn't have enough money at the time! The second time was in the early 1990s when the price was 10,000 pounds....and I still didn't have enough money!

Eric Clapton did have a few Nationals in the collection in 1999, but not many. I remember the NRP Jazz Blues model, a National Studio 66 electric guitar (black with white scratchplate), a plated 14 fret National Duolian, two Dobro electric 12 string guitars, and the Fine Resophonics, Beltona & Dobro mentioned in my earlier post.

Shine On,
Michael.

[SH]

Michael,

Wow, at lease you are lucky that you could see Bukka's Duolian twice !!

Satoru

[Michael Messer]

Hi Satoru,

I only saw the Bukka White Duolian once, in Nashville. The second opportunity to buy it was a telephone conversation. I was a fool in 1979 not to raise that money, but it was more than I had. The guitar was an amazing package - the whole thing...his name on the case, picks, slides, song lyrics. Somewhere I have the Gruhn's catalogue with it in. I'll have have to dig deep for that piece of evidence!

Shine On,
Michael.