“Duane Allman played a great solo, came back, and Eric says, ‘Well, I want to do mine again!’ This went on for at least an hour or two”: How Eric Clapton went from God to all-'round guitar genius in the ‘70s

Eric Clapton performs live onstage in 1975.

In late 1968, Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood had a conversation that would help define Clapton’s direction in the coming decade. 

“We discussed the philosophy of what we wanted to do,” Clapton recalled in his autobiography. “Steve said that for him, it was all about unskilled labor, where you just played with your friends and fit the music around that. It was the opposite of virtuosity, and it rang a bell with me because I was trying so hard to escape the pseudo-virtuoso image I had helped create for myself.”