10 Classic Rock Music Songs That Sounded Better Stripped Down

By the time the ‘90s kicked into gear, Eric Clapton was a far different person than he was when he was going by Slowhand in the ‘60s. After his stints with some of the greatest guitar players in the world, Eric had fashioned himself more as a songwriter in his later years, trading in the distorted sounds of his Gibson guitars for the smooth silky sounds of his Fender Stratocaster. And when he unpacked his guitar for one of the biggest shows of his career, he didn’t need any electric guitars to make some magic.

While Clapton’s Unplugged record predates the idea of the MTV Unplugged sessions by a few years, this seems to be the prototype for what they were trying to do with that platform, as Eric takes a few blues standards and some of his old tunes and builds them back up from scratch. Though it would make sense for him to do this with older blues cuts that were designed for acoustic guitar in the first place, his different take on Layla gave his tale of romantic devotion a new lease on life.

The first version that he made with Derek and the Dominoes already has its place in rock history as one of the greatest riffs of all time, but taking it to the acoustic makes for something a lot more mellow. Don’t confuse mellow for just dad rock though…this is Eric looking back on this song like an old friend, maybe even trying to find a way to ease his own troubled mind after years of going through hardship. There were definitely a fair share of blues tunes that were played on the stage that night, and hearing Eric deconstruct his own song felt like watching him grow up into the blues journeyman that he loved as a kid.