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One and Done
Clapton has owned some of the most sought-after guitars ever built, but these days he tours with just three of his Fender Custom Shop signature models. Dearnley explains that he usually plays only this guitar, his current favorite, onstage all night long. All of Clapton's signature Strats have Fender's Blocked American Vintage Synchronized Tremolo, Vintage Noiseless Single-Coil Strat pickups, and a TBX active tone circuit, with a middle tone knob to roll off treble, plus a mid-boost. The only difference between these three and what you would buy in a music store is that Clapton swapped in an old-school 3-way switch. They're all strung with Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys (.010–.046). Since Clapton is a car enthusiast, he went with classic sports car colors for his trio of 6-string hot rods. No. 1 has a dark blue finish you'd find on a Porsche.
The Other Signature
Fender Custom Shop master builder Todd Krause built all three of Clapton's touring Strats and signed their headstocks.
Mr. Bond, Your Guitar Is Ready
The main spare is an E.C. signature that was one of five made in 2019 to celebrate Slowhand's five-night stand at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan arena. It is decked out in a head-turning metallic almond green that was exclusively used by British car maker Aston Martin.
A Rare, Modern Martin
Currently Clapton's favorite acoustic is his Martin 000-42K Goro Custom Tribute model, which was part of a run built to celebrate the life of Japanese designer and craftsman Goro Takahashi. This guitar has no electronics. For the show, Clapton used two DPA 4011TL cardiod microphones mounted on a single stand.
Clapton's Goro Martin has a remarkable flamed koa back.
A Class Act
In a flourish that recalls the subtle elegance of Takahashi's own designs, the bridge of this Martin is adorned with a bit of golden flare.
Elemental Binding
The Martin Goro's Italian alpine spruce top is set off by beautiful, sea-water turquoise binding.
E.C.’s Acoustic John Hancocks
Of course, Clapton's cache of acoustics also includes his own Martin 000-28EC signature model. This East Indian rosewood guitar has an undersaddle pickup, but he prefers the instrument's natural acoustic sound miked up.
Clapton Close-Up
Here's a detailed shot of E.C.'s signature at the 12th fret and a peek inside the soundhole where you can see another Clapton autograph on the inside label above C.F. Martin IV's.
In the Presence of the Lord’s Pedal
For pedals, Clapton—who, along with Hendrix, immortalized the wah-wah—is a minimalist. His guitar plugs into a switch pedal made by Mike Hill, which splits the signal. It divides into a Dunlop Cry Baby GCB95F Wah and to his amp. When the wah is engaged, that signal also goes to a Hammond Leslie 122XB rotary speaker for a supercool swirling effect.
Amped Up Amps
Clapton tours with two Fender '57 Bandmaster custom series amps, but these have a twist. They were built by Alexander Dumble specifically for him. The guitar hero runs one and keeps the second as a miked-and-ready spare. Both combos are blasting into a Audio-Technica AT4047/sv, while the main Bandmaster has an additional Audix i5 Cardioid Dynamic on one of its speakers.
Lucky Number
Clapton asked Dumble to make the amp's sweet spot come alive when all the controls are set to 7.
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Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
A born storyteller, Bedell doesn’t keep his passion to himself. On Friday, May 12, at New Jersey boutique guitar outpost Relic Music, Bedell shared some of the stories he’s collected during his life and travels as part of a three-city clinic trip. At Relic—and stops at Crossroads Guitar and Art in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, and Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton, Maryland—he discussed his guitars and what makes them so special, why sustainability is such an important cause, and how he’s putting it into practice.
Before his talk, we sat in Relic’s cozy, plush acoustic room, surrounded by a host of high-end instruments. We took a look at a few of the store’s house-spec’d Bedell parlors while we chatted.
“The story of this guitar is the story of the world,” Bedell explained to me, holding a Seed to Song Parlor. He painted a picture of a milagro tree growing on a hillside in northeastern Brazil some 500 years ago, deprived of water and growing in stressful conditions during its early life. That tree was eventually harvested, and in the 1950s, it was shipped to Spain by a company that specialized in church ornaments. They recognized this unique specimen and set it aside until it was imported to the U.S. and reached Oregon. Now, it makes the back and sides of this unique guitar.
A Bedell Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides.
As for the ocean sinker redwood top, “I’m gonna make up the story,” Bedell said, as he approximated the life cycle of the tree, which floated in the ocean, soaking up minerals for years and years, and washed ashore on northern Oregon’s Manzanita Beach. The two woods were paired and built into a small run of exquisitely outfitted guitars using the Bedell/Breedlove Sound Optimization process—in which the building team fine-tunes each instrument’s voice by hand-shaping individual braces to target resonant frequencies using acoustic analysis—and Bedell and his team fell in love.
Playing it while we spoke, I was smitten by this guitar’s warm, responsive tone and even articulation and attack across the fretboard; it strikes a perfect tonal balance between a tight low-end and bright top, with a wide dynamic range that made it sympathetic to anything I offered. And as I swapped guitars, whether picking up a Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides or one with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, the character and the elements of each instrument changed, but that perfect balance remained. Each of these acoustics—and of any Bedell I’ve had the pleasure to play—delivers their own experiential thumbprint.
Rosette and inlay detail on an Adirondack spruce top.
Ultimately, that’s what brought Bedell out to the East Coast on this short tour. “We have a totally different philosophy about how we approach guitar-building,” Bedell effused. “There are a lot of individuals who build maybe 12 guitars a year, who do some of the things that we do, but there’s nobody on a production level.” And he wants to spread that gospel.
“We want to reach people who really want something special,” he continued, pointing out that for the Bedell line, the company specifically wants to work with shops like Relic and the other stores he’s visited, “who have a clientele that says I want the best guitar I can possibly have, and they carry enough variety that we can give them that.”
A Fireside Parlor with a Western red cedar top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
