Clapton's "River of Tears" solo slide guitar

My improvised solo slide guitar rendition of Eric Clapton's song "River of Tears."

For those interested, the guitar is a pile of parts I put together. The body is from a Squier Affinity Tele, the neck is from a Squier '51, and it's wired like a Les Paul Junior (vol. + tone) with a GFS Lil Puncher pickup. I made the steel pickguard from an old computer. It's strung with D'Addario Chromes flatwound strings (.015-.056) in open D tuning. I am playing it through a Boss TR-2 tremolo and OD-3 overdrive as well as a Line 6 Verbzilla for the reverb. The amp is a solid state Fender Frontman 212R.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• solo
• slide
• guitar
• Eric
• Clapton
• river
• of
• tears
• fender
• squier
• telecaster
• esquire
• frontman
• 212r
• daddario
• chromes
• flatwound
• Ed
• Ricco

[Maafa1619]

Did you raise the action... or do those flatwound 15s just pull the neck up?

[voided3]

@Maafa1619 Yep, the nut is shimmed up a little and the saddles are raised. Most of my slide guitars are not playable fretted.

[texasfrets]

If more folks who read guitar boards and GAS would look at what you've done with Squire Teles and Strats, I think they'd have better chops, better sound, and would have more money in their pockets--this, of course, comes from someone (me) who is now poor from so much GASing and not enough playing. Thanks for sharing the cool mods and the great sounds. Best, Todd

[voided3]

@texasfrets Thanks! That's the nice thing about slide playing (at least my approach to it): you don't need a guitar with good fretwork or a perfectly straight neck. Guitars that would be hard to play or unplayable fretted work fine for slide. The '63 Eko Mascot I have done a few videos with has a severely twisted neck and the TrashCaster Strat I just put together is missing the truss rod nut! There's nothing wrong with wanting a quality guitar, though; I have a Taylor 214ce I very much enjoy.

[kylejtrask]

Awesome job dude. Completely beautiful. Which Lil Puncher bridge pickup did you use?

[voided3]

@kylejtrask Thanks! It's the overwound model; mine reads about 12.5k on a multimeter.

[Maafa1619]

@voided3 ...and those shiny slippery D'Darrio Chromes sound great.

[Maafa1619]

@voided3 Ahhhh. I figured as much. Every time I attempt to make a foray into the world of bottleneck slides and open tunings, I'm constantly rattling the slide (especially a heavy brass one) on the frets... plus, there seems to be too much radius. I'm thinking about getting a cheap Affinity Tele and pulling the frets so I wouldn't have to raise the action so much that I couldn't "fret" a minor 3rd "behind" the slide. In any event, you've inspired me to give it another go.

[Maafa1619]

Oh... and you can play your ass off!

[naveed211]

Incredible. Beautiful. I enjoyed that a lot.

[JohnRoyRyun]

Awesome cover. You sound a lot like Derek Trucks xD

[BluesDfender]

soo much emotion ! brilliant!