“DON’T THINK TWICE, IT’S ALL RIGHT”
Eric Clapton
RECORDED LIVE
IN 1992, this inspired, Chicago blues-style reading of Bob Dylan’s celebrated folk song, set here in the key of F, features Eric Clapton singing and going to town on his richly overdriven Fender Stratocaster. Backed by a “dream team” blues-rock rhythm section consisting of the one and only Booker T. Jones on organ and veteran sidemen, including Steve Cropper and G.E. Smith on guitars and Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass, Slowhand has a solid accompaniment for presenting his beefy version of the musical story and is obviously feelin’ it here, playing with a fluent and relaxed yet aggressive touch and pouring out seemingly effortless streams of soulful 16th-note licks over the 12 arrangement’s medium-tempo 8 groove.
Particularly noteworthy is the way Clapton, with impeccable timing, neatly interjects lead fills between his vocal phrases during the song’s verses. Per his signature M.O., the guitarist makes great use of the key’s parallel major and minor pentatonic scales — F major pentatonic (F, G, A, C, D)
Ab, Bb, Eb) and F minor pentatonic (F, C, — providing moments of both “light and shade” as the song progresses.
At the beginning of his main solo, at section G (bar 62), the guitarist starts out in 13th position, playing notes in an F major pentatonic box pattern before switching to F minor pentatonic licks in the same position. At the end of bar 65, Clapton moves up to the 18th position and proceeds to wail away in the so-called “B.B. box,” which is a widely used blues guitar fretboard pattern popularized by the legendary B.B. King and based on a major pentatonic shape centered around a 2nd-string root note, in this case, F. Interestingly, notice how, in bars 67, 69 and 70, Clapton reaches way up to A at the 22nd fret on that same string to perform lofty one-and-one-half-step bends up to C, in each case returning back to the aforementioned B.B. box. When performing these high bends, avoid the temptation to use your pinkie (for an easier stretch) and instead employ your more sure-footed ring finger, supported one fret below by the middle.