Six Encounters with ‘Layla,’ One of Rock’s Most Beloved Songs

The song’s “piano finish,” written by drummer Jim Gordon and Rita Coolidge, was originally meant to stand alone. Duane Allman’s slide guitar rocked the Layla sessions.

The song “Layla” is the crowning achievement of the one-and-done Derek and the Dominos, a band patched together by Eric Clapton from the remnants of the husband-and-wife duo Delaney and Bonnie and the studio players who helped create George Harrison’s magnificent post-Beatles album All Things Must Pass. The song was recorded on September 9, 1970, at the Criteria studio in Miami, Florida.

Here are six encounters with one of rock’s most beloved songs.

1. Pattie Boyd

Most readers are familiar with the love triangle involving two rock giants: Eric Clapton wrote “Layla” to express his love for Pattie Boyd, who was then married to George Harrison, Clapton’s close friend. The coupling didn’t happen overnight. Boyd stayed with Harrison until 1974, when she moved in with Clapton. They married in 1979. The Harrison/Boyd split was amicable, and George even played a song at the wedding.

Eric Clapton’s “Layla” inspiration was rooted in a book he was reading, The Story of Layla and Majnun, a 12th-century tale of an Arabian princess whose father marries her off to a man she did not love, leaving “her true love in despair that turns to madness.” The story of unrequited love struck a deep chord in Clapton.

Eric and Pattie divorced in 1989.

2. Duane Allman and his Chirping Bird

Around the time the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs was being recorded, Eric Clapton and his band members caught an Allman Brothers concert in Miami Beach. Clapton listened to Duane Allman’s slide guitar for the first time and was smitten. After the gig, the two bands repaired to Criteria and jammed for hours. The Allman Brothers had completed their second album, Idlewild South, a month prior, which freed up Duane to join Clapton for the Layla sessions.

“Layla” was the last song recorded for the album, of which Bobby Whitlock remarked, “Eric brought that seven-note lick with him to the recording session, and Duane stirred ’em up.” Observing the synergy between Eric Clapton and Duane Allman, producer Tom Dowd remarked, “There had to be some kind of telepathy going on, because I’ve never seen spontaneity happen at that rate or level. One of them would play something, and the other would react instantaneously. It was like two hands in a glove.”

“Layla” ends with Duane Allman playing a high-pitched birdcall on his slide guitar. (Who else believed it was merely a sound effect?) Here is that birdcall, along with the rest of “Layla,” audio only, published by Derek and the Dominos – Topic via YouTube:

3. The Piano Finish I: Rita Coolidge and a Song of Two Halves

A coda to end all codas: The piano finish (also called “piano exit” or “piano coda”) began its life as a stand-alone ballad written by Jim Gordon and his then-girlfriend, the talented singer-songwriter Rita Coolidge, titled “Time (Don’t Get In Our Way).” In her memoir Delta Lady, Coolidge charts its evolution:

We played the song for Eric Clapton in England. I remember siting at the piano in Olympic Studios while Eric listened to me play it. Jim and I left a cassette of the demo, hoping of course that he might cover it.

Around a year later, with Gordon no longer in her life, Coolidge first heard “Layla” on the radio.

I was infuriated. What they had clearly done was take the song Jim and I had written, jettisoned the lyrics, and tacked it on to the end of Eric’s song. It was almost the same.

Jim Gordon received songwriting credit for “Layla” while Coolidge did not. Here is a video of “Time (Don’t Get in Our Way),” performed by Rita’s sister Priscilla Coolidge and Booker T. Jones in 1973, published by P.J. Padialla via YouTube:

4. Piano Finish II: Jim Gordon

The songwriting credit Jim Gordon earned for “Layla” would come in handy, as his battle with mental illness would topple him from rock’s elite session players and cost him his freedom.

At some point during his adult life, Gordon began hearing voices, most often his mother’s insistent pleas. His behavior became erratic and his temperament hostile–a bad combination for a session musician. He was also drinking and drugging regularly, as he described to Rolling Stone in 1985: “I was drinking every night, but I wasn’t getting up in the morning for a drink; I would put a needle in my arm. When I stopped taking the heroin, I began to drink all day.”

On June 3, 1983, he attacked his mother in her home, taking a hammer to her head and stabbing her with a knife. Gordon was convicted of second-degree murder. Although diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he didn’t qualify for the insanity defense due to a loophole in California law. His sentence was 16 years, but he was denied parole several times. Jim Gordon died of natural causes in prison on March 13, 2023, at age 77.

5. Tom Dowd Manages the Chaos

Rumor has it that Tom Dowd introduced Eric Clapton to Duane Allman at that fateful Miami Beach concert. As a top producer at Atlantic Records, Dowd recorded albums for such artists as Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, Cream, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sonny & Cher, the Rascals, Otis Redding, and Booker T. & the MGs.

The Layla sessions have long been known to be the scene of prolific drug-taking. Indeed, bassist Carl Radle lived to only age 37, having succumbed to “the effects of alcohol and narcotics” on May 30, 1980. And Eric Clapton has admitted to being a heroin addict for the three years between the Layla sessions and his comeback album, 461 Ocean Boulevard.

Tom Dowd was having none of it. “There have been a lot of stories about how much drugs these guys did,” recounted Dowd before he died in 2002. “But we started sessions every day at 2:00 and everyone arrived clear-eyed and ready to work. As I dismissed people, they may have floated away, but it did not interfere with the album. Even in his wildest moments, Eric arrived at the studio on time, with his instrument in tune and ready to play–and he would give absolute hell to anyone who didn’t. Eric and Duane shared that.”

I guess you can’t argue with the results.

6. Unplugged

In 1992, Eric Clapton was invited to appear on the MTV Unplugged series. Among the songs he played for an acoustic album and concert film was “Layla.” He famously preceded the live acoustic number with the words, “See if you can spot this one.”

Not only was “Layla” the hit of the unplugged album, but the song recast Clapton as “low-key but seductive” and “a tender side without forfeiting intensity” to a new generation of rock fans. The song reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Canadian Singles Chart.

The unplugged “Layla” won Best Rock Song at the 1993 Grammy Awards. Eric Clapton was also awarded Best Male Rock Performance.