“John Hammond Jr is the son of John Hammond, the great A&R man at CBS who signed Bob Dylan. Oddly enough, he never signed his son, but Rory loved John Hammond Jr’s albums and his playing, and one of his ambitions, once he got out to the States, was to meet up with him. This was on the ’69 tour, and Rory was trying to track him down in New York.
“In the end I think Eric Clapton provided a number for John, but Rory didn’t connect with him on that tour – it was when we went back in ’71. Rory called him up and had a chat and obviously, like all good guitar players, he knew where the best guitars were, and Rory was particularly after something to play blues on.”
