10 Amazing Rock Bands That Almost Had The Wrong Members
2. Eric Clapton - The Beatles
Most diehard Beatles fans know that replacing anybody in the Fab Four is pretty much impossible. Even though a lot has been said about the dominance of Lennon and McCartney, every single member of the group made the Beatles what they were, along with the honorary Fifth Beatle George Martin bringing their songs to their fullest potential. For a brief period during the Let It Be sessions, things were dangerously close to turning a corner with George Harrison.
After being fed up with having to compete with the Lennon-McCartney songwriting machine, George quietly sauntered off in the middle of one of the sessions, telling the band that he wasn't intending on coming back any time soon. In the Get Back documentary, you can see the band not taking this well, with most of them getting more and more angry and unsettled until they break out into a discordant jam at the studio they were working in.
Offscreen though, Lennon had originally suggested that if George didn't turn up within the next few weeks, they would consider drafting in Eric Clapton, having already worked with him on the solo to George's While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Granted, Clapton has always balked at the opportunity, saying that he could have never filled the void that George made in the Beatles if he tried. Hired guns come and go in rock music, but what the Beatles had during their heyday truly is lightning in a bottle.