Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton is a British guitarist who rose through the 1960s blues boom with the Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Cream, and who has since become one of the most thoroughly documented players in rock gear history. The 1966 Bluesbreakers album is tied to a Gibson Les Paul Standard, the so-called "Beano-burst", played through a Marshall combo, a pairing often cited as a blueprint for the British blues-rock guitar sound.

His Fender Stratocasters became the other pillar of his story. "Brownie", a 1956 Strat he bought in London in 1967, is the guitar on the Layla sessions; it sold at Christie's in 1999 for $450,000, with the proceeds going to his Crossroads Centre in Antigua. "Blackie", a Strat he assembled from parts, became his main stage and studio guitar in the 1970s and was retired in 1985. It sold in 2004 for $959,500, and Fender's first Eric Clapton signature Stratocaster, introduced in 1988, was modeled on it.

On acoustic he is closely linked to Martin. He played a 1939 000-42 and a 1966 000-28 on MTV Unplugged in 1992, and Martin's first Eric Clapton signature model, the 000-42EC, followed in 1995 in a limited run. Clapton also founded the Crossroads Guitar Festival, which Guitar Radar follows each time it returns.