Duane Allman had a brief career that ended tragically in 1971, when he passed away at the age of 24, yet he became one of the most influential guitarists of all time, leaving his mark not only with the Allman Brothers Band but also through his work with Eric Clapton in Derek & The Dominos. Also known as "Skydog," the musician was one of the most prominent guitar players of his generation and greatly impressed the famous British guitarist at the time. Although Duane did not give many interviews during his short career, he did talk extensively about Eric Clapton, sharing his opinion and saying some very interesting things about the legendary guitarist. What was Duane Allman's opinion on Eric Clapton Duane Allman was a huge fan of Eric Clapton and said he was the best and the one who "wrote the book". “Eric Clapton, man. Let’s talk about him, he’s a gas, he wrote the book, you know. He is contemporary white Blues guitarist volume one. But his style and his technique is what really amazes me. He’s really got a lot to say too but the way he says just knocks me out, man. He does so well, man,” Duane Allman said in a radio interview back in 1970. They had the chance to work together on Derek & The Dominos album "Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs" and Duane talked about that incredible experience, calling Eric a very wonderful and beautiful man. "I went down to Miami when they were cutting that album. Tom Dowd (Producer) called and said: 'I know you want to watch this cat play, because you've always thought that he was the best'. And I have, man, I believe (in that). I love his playing, I love the attitude with which he plays. I love everything he does. He's a very wonderful, very beautiful man, you know. So he (Tom Dowd) says: 'He's here, you wanna come down and watch?' I said: 'Yes!' So I shot down there, man. But just as a little insurance, he said: 'Well, maybe you better take all your guitars down there, you know. Because you might just get a chance (to play)." Duane Allman continued: "'Maybe you don't get to talk to the cat. Maybe if you get to talk to him, maybe he's going to want you to lay a couple little things in, you know'. So I take it down there and come to find that the cat (Eric Clapton) just heard everything I ever did, man. He digs my playing and he says: 'Did you bring your amp? Put your stuff up now and we'll make us an album'." "I said: 'Okay, man. If that's what you want, that's what we'll do'.  Then we did it". The interviewer then asks him how much he played on the album. He says: "Just enough to make it right. For anybody who cares to know about that (what I played and what Eric played), I played the Gibson, Eric played the Fender, all the way through. If you can tell a Gibson from a Fender, you know who plays what. If you don't, then you just go ahead and hallucinate, man. I don't care, you know. (In layla) I do the highline, Jim Gordon plays the piano on that, by the way. Nobody knows who did that." He continued: "(That whole last part is) Jim Gordon (playing). I got two slide tracks on it, Eric's got an acoustic track on it. I'm not sure, but I believe there's an extra percussion track on, I'm not sure, man. There's a lot of goodness on that album, I mean it," Duane Allman said in an interview with WABC Radio in 1970 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). Duane's life and career would tragically be cut short the following year when he was killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 24 in Macon, Georgia. He was only one year older than Clapton and had a career spanning just ten years (1961 to 1971). But that period was enough to show his talent, which still places him on lists of the best guitarists. His brother Gregg continued to lead the Allman Brothers Band until 2014 when the band retired from touring. He passed away three years later, in 2017, at the age of 69. Clapton had the chance to play with them a couple of times, bot only performing their songs. They also played together tracks from the Derek & The Dominos album that Duane had been part of, as a tribute to him. Eric Clapton said he was "mesmerized" by Duane Allman's playing “I was mesmerized by him, Duane and I became inseparable. Between the two of us we injected the substance into the Layla sessions that had been missing up to that point. (...) Because of Duane’s input, it became a double album. (Due to his) interest in playing between his style and my style, we could actually have played any Blues or any standard and it would have taken off. (Robert Johnson) was where we connected. We didn’t really talk about the modern players much at all. It was really the roots that we were meeting on,” Eric Clapton said as reported by Bob Beatty in his book “Play All Night! Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East”. Curiously, after the album was completed Clapton tried to convince Allman to join Derek & The Dominos. But the American musician told him he needed to be loyal to "the family. Tom Dowd, the producer of the album said that Clapton and Duane looked like two long-lost brothers when they were together. That was the impression Duane got from Eric when he went into the studio that first day. "I saw him and he acted like he knew me, like I was an old friend. ‘Hey man, how are you” y’know. He said: ‘As long as you’re here we want you to get on this record and make it with us. We need more guitar players anyway’. So I did. I was really flattered and glad to be able to do it,” Duane told New Have Rock Press in 1970. Clapton is a big fan of the Allman Brothers but loved Duane’s guitar solo on another artist’s song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hFJQUsblsw Clapton was a big fan of the Allman Brothers Band and when he went to see them play live at the Miami Beach Convention Center on August 26, 1970, he said their music was "unbelievable." He was especially impressed because they were doing "all the harmony playing". Even in the guitar solos, which he said was "fantastically worked out." Clapton also mentioned them as an influence, ssaying they were making "really, really good music that was really thought out." However, the first time he heard Duane’s guitar playing was not on an Allman Brothers album. It was actually on Wilson Pickett’s version of The Beatles’ "Hey Jude," released in 1969. He then called the Atlantic label to find out who that guitar player was. “I remember hearing ‘Hey Jude’ by Wilson Pickett and calling either (Atlantic president) Ahmet Ertegun or Tom Dowd, and saying, ‘Who’s that guitar player?’ To this day, I’ve never heard better rock guitar playing on an R&B record,” Eric Clapton said as told by Guitar Player.The post Duane Allman’s opinion on Eric Clapton appeared first on Rock and Roll Garage.