Eric Clapton had a new guitar made specifically for his new album, The Lady in the Balcony: Lockdown Sessions.
His guitar tech Dan Dearnley says, "Around July of last year, I think Eric was thinking ahead to this acoustic kind of show and he asked for his 12-string guitars, but he didn’t have a Dreadnought 12-string, which is the big body size, but I did.
"I had one that I had made at college when I was 17. So, I went over with his guitars and also left mine with him for a week. Then the next time I saw him he said, 'Can you make me one then, how long will it take?' I said 'Yes'...
"Within a couple of weeks though we got sent a 12-string from Martin...and Eric just loved it, so that was my benchmark, to match that guitar. I sourced the wood from a friend of mine...some 25-year-old Rosewood that he had been keeping, and some Sitka Spruce. The spruce had some staining around the edges from being so old, which I thought would come out with sanding, but it didn’t, so the guitar looks a bit old already!"
Clapton plays the guitar on his cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman."