Just heard this classic again - the best part, of course, is the last few minutes with the piano chords and that magnificent plaintive guitar - multi tracked I think, though there may also be more than one.

However I've always heard it's NOT Clapton playing that mournful lead but one of the Allmans - Duane?

Anyone know for sure?

Well, Duane Allman was on that album so it probably is him... I wouldn't know because that long piano part is the boring part of the song for me!

In the recording studio the drummer Jim Gordon was playing one of his compositions on the piano. Clapton liked the song and used it for Layla. And Gordon even got credit as the co-composer of the song.

The guitar riff is played by Duane Allman. Neither he nor Albert King, who composed the guitar lick, got any credit.

The answer is both Allmans are playing on that coda-Duane and Gregg

The piano part maintains many an admirable soundtrack.
Love it, but never sure if it was relevent to a single and Polydor edited well for the single version and made us all long to hear the full version at the time that could not afford it, that had read about it in one of the music papers.


Maybe there is a lesson there, singles were once previews of great songs and became hits as well, then sold albums as a result.

These days, the album/single track is pretty much the same version as you buy from the CD or album download.

But yes, Walter, I also believe it was the Allmans.

According to the Clapton-Biography "Crossroads", only Duane Allman played on Layla.

There was a jam session at Tom Dowds studio with the Allman Brothers Band after Dowd and Clapton went to a concert by the band in Miami. (When Duane saw Claption in the audience, he was "scared to death" and stopped playing.)

But the recording session was later.

Mart, there is one flaw to your theory: The single - and the album - were flops.

Yes, I do recall the album was very slagged off at the time and I couldn`t say the single chart position without googling.
However, I think time has registered the whole track as a major money spinner and I would not mind it on my PRS statement.
The mix always sounded muddy and disappointing at the time and probably a little hurried, but it would take a very brave man to change it now.

I remember once having a long conversation with the late, great Fluff Freeman where we both agreed we would NEVER play Layla without the brilliant coda.

As he was doing the chart, thank heavens it never made the list!

Thats` testing my brain, but I seem to recall that Fluff did tell Melody Maker magazine the same thing, which of course made us all want to hear it, which we couldn`t without buying the record which the same paper had, I believe , slated.

Either way, this thread has made me just play my original copy of the single again, completely stored perfectly, as are all of my old records and I tell you what?
Who the heck pressed that!? Dear oh dear. The final cut sounds like someone was in a hell of a rush still and that is the one we all bought.


Was it Nigel Hopkins on piano on the album version?

From the liner notes of the Crossroads-box-set:

Eric Clapton - vocals, guitar
Bobby Whitlock - organ, piano, vocals
Carl Radle - bass
Jim Gordon - drums, piano
Duane Allman - guitar

Recorded at Criteria Studios, 6/9 & 1/10/70
Produced and Arranged by Derek & The Dominos
Executive Producer: Tom Dowd

Checking the stats on Guinness, the original 7" edit made #7 in 1972 (two years after the album came out). But then the single was reissued in 1982 in the form of a 12" containing the full seven-minute cut and second time around it peaked at #4.

Thank you Mc Mc.
I do believe I reclaim my theory as that contstitutes a hit to me, granted, a bit of a slow burner.
One can only imagine how much was spent on the recording and circulating financial events as a result, I rather think recouping was achieved though!