Why was eric Clapton called Slowhand?
According to Yardbirds rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja, whenever Clapton broke a guitar string during a concert, Clapton would stay on stage and replace it. The English audiences would wait out the delay by doing what is called a “slow handclap”. The Yardbirds’ manager, Giorgio Gomelsky, turned the phrase “slow handclap” into a nickname for the album notes of Five Live Yardbirds. The record was released in December 1964. Clapton recalled, “He (Gomelsky) coined it as a good pun – he kept saying I was a fast player, so he put together the slow handclap phrase into ‘Slowhand’ as a play on words.” In a June 1999 on-line chat, Clapton gave a slightly different version of how his nickname came about: “I think it might have been a play on words from the “Clap” part of my name. In England, in sport, if the crowd is getting anxious, we have a slow handclap, which indicates boredom or frustration. But it wasn’t my idea, it was someone else’s comment.
