Eric Clapton – Unplugged
By Eric Clapton

Excellent reference to Eric's riffs and his style throughout the performance. You'll never play like Eric, but this book will help you sound really good by learning true blues.

I have been playing guitar for 15 years. I have to admit Jesse Gress must have put some serious elbow grease into transcribing that whole unplugged album. Applause for that. That may be more than I have ever transcribed my whole life. But!! Tears In Heaven doesn't seem right...

. Or at least I hope i'm not the only one who thinks so. Theres just some off ideas in there. Some interestingly guitar unfriendly fingerings. Some of the left hand positions seem almost to much at times compared to what the song actually sounds like. I think Jesse is a talented player/transcriber and may have taken this number too far. Anyway, after all my complaining, its probably pretty close but I cannot agree 100 percent with the transcription.

If you think this songbook has some mistakes, take the video or improvise! The songbooks aren't perfect. Just practice the songs. Don't need to play exactly,it's very hard to do it.

First of all, Jesse Gress is the worst "professional" transcriber on planet earth. (I'm sorry Jess... I'm sure you're a nice guy). He should be fired, this book should go out of print, all the remaining copies should be burned, and the publisher should have to pay...

us compensatory damages. THEN, they should get a REAL transcriber to write this thing. Second, the LACK of the guitar carrying the melody on several songs, is VERY annoying. Whether or not it's CLAPTON playing that particular line, everyone wants to play a FULL song and not "second guitar" for pete's sake... that's why they bought the book in the first place! Third, there are some WAY wrong notes and positions on here. You'd think they'd check it before they printed millions of books. Oh well... In summary, all these songs are ridiculously simple. It's easy to play, but takes forever to memorize. THAT'S the hard part. Practice makes perfect! (Though an accurate transcription would sure be appreciated!)

I generally agree with the other reviews. The TABs are anywhere from 85-100% correct. The lack of a second guitar on "Tears In Heaven" is a disappointment, as I think a single player can incorporate elements of both. Curiously, some other songs do have music for two guitar parts...

. I would also like to have seen a solo guitar version of "Running On Faith", but I guess that would defeat the spirit of "note for note" transcriptions. It does leave a lot of room for creativity, though, at least for this song. No TAB book is perfect, and this is no exception. As long as you know that there will be mistakes, then the book is otherwise very true to the recording. Just be prepared for mistakes and be prepared to correct them or improvise.