Portal:Guitar/Featured articles

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[edit] January 2007

"Layla" is the title track on the Derek and the Dominos album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, released in December 1970. It is considered one of rock music's definitive love songs, featuring an unmistakable guitar figure, played by Eric Clapton and Duane Allman, as lead-in. Its famously contrasting movements were composed separately by Clapton and Jim Gordon.

Inspired by Clapton's unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend George Harrison, "Layla" was unsuccessful on its initial release. The song has since experienced great critical and popular acclaim. Two versions have achieved chart success, first in 1972 and again twenty years later.

[edit] June to December 2006

John Williams (born 24 April 1941) is one of the world's best-known classical guitarists. Born in Melbourne, Australia, Williams was taught initially by his father Len Williams. At the age of twelve he went to Italy to study with Andrés Segovia. Later, he attended the Royal College of Music in London, studying piano because the school did not have a guitar department at the time. Upon graduation, he was offered the opportunity to create such a department. Being such a lover of the instrument, he seized the opportunity and ran it for the first two years. Williams has maintained links with the College (and with the Northern College in Manchester) ever since.