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A circa 1964, Gibson SG electric guitar, no serial number, in custom psychedelic finish, stage-played by legendary guitarist Eric Clapton throughout his career with iconic rock band, Cream. This guitar is not only an instantly recognizable instrument because it is a unique work of art with cultural significance to the psychedelic era, but it is also the instrument upon which Eric Clapton fully realized the “woman tone” that has become one of the most influential and recognizable sounds in rock history.

The guitar, known as Clapton’s Fool guitar, has a custom-painted psychedelic finish created by founding members of the Dutch art collective, Marijke Koger and Simon Posthuma, that became known as “The Fool.” Although The Fool went on to collaborate with many other famous musicians – notably designing costumes worn by The Beatles during their broadcast performance of “All You Need is Love,” and in their film, Magical Mystery Tour as well as painting the mural adorning the side of their Apple Boutique store in London – this guitar has survived to become the pre-eminent emblem of the psychedelic era. It was Cream's manager Robert Stigwood, who first enlisted their help to add some special psychedelic magic to Cream's instruments and costumes. The most famous of these instruments is this guitar, that was sanded and primed before executing their design with brush-applied, oil-based enamel paints. Koger has reportedly stated that the theme of the guitar’s design was about… “good versus evil, heaven versus hell, and the power of music in the universe to rise above it all as a force of good.”

The Fool guitar came into Clapton's life at a pivotal moment in his career, having just left John Mayall's Bluesbreakers to form Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. It has been widely reported that Clapton received this guitar from George Harrison who was known to use SGs, including the 1964 Gibson SG Standard he plays in the videos for “Paperback Writer” and “Rain.” Harrison gave that guitar to Pete Ham of Badfinger in 1969. Clapton received this guitar just after the band had released their first album, Fresh Cream, in 1966 and were planning their debut U.S. tour the following year. As it turned out, 1967 would witness the Summer of Love now considered the pinnacle of the 1960s psychedelic culture. Stigwood hoped that The Fool’s artistry would help Cream make a splash when they performed during Murray the K's “Music in the Fifth Dimension” shows.

The concert series began March 25, 1967 at the RKO 58th Street Theater on 3rd Avenue in New York City, with a lineup of artists that included “Direct from England, The Cream and The Who.” Neither band had played in the United States before. Cream was not yet well-known enough to receive top billing, and the chaotic nature of trying to fit 10 acts into a 90-minute show reduced Cream’s “set” to an abbreviated version of “I Feel Free.” Despite the brevity of Cream’s role in the show, their custom painted instruments, hairstyles and clothing made a huge impact and successfully launched their career in the United States and beyond. Clapton’s Fool guitar remained his principal instrument for most of the work that followed Fresh Cream.

A 2022 Guitar Player Magazine article commented: “By the time Cream cut their 1967 follow-up, Disraeli Gears, in New York City over five days, they had integrated psychedelia’s surreal lyrics into a heavier riff-oriented blues-rock style. By this point Clapton had begun playing a 1964 Gibson SG painted with psychedelic images by the Dutch art collective the Fool, an instrument that was key to the harmonically rich, vocal “woman tone” that would characterize his playing during this era. Clapton’s longest-lasting contribution to the genre may well be his singular "woman tone" which remains both a hallmark of the era and a Holy Grail for many guitarists more than 50 years on.”

The influence of Clapton’s “woman tone,” developed on this guitar, cannot be overstated and it has seldom been successfully imitated. The albums that followed Fresh Cream, include Disraeli Gears (1967), the world’s-first platinum double album, Wheels of Fire (1968), and Goodbye (1969), and all are infused with the sounds of this guitar. Disraeli Gears was largely recorded at Atlantic Records studio in New York City in early May of 1967 and was produced by Felix Pappalardi and engineered by Tom Dowd. The album includes the defining Cream song, “Sunshine of Your Love,” and other signature songs such as “Tales of Brave Ulysses,” and “Strange Brew.” Wheels of Fire contained a broader, more adventurous set of songs, that included “White Room,” “Politician,” and perhaps the most-copied song in any blues band’s repertoire, “Crossroads.” Clapton continued to use The Fool regularly, though less exclusively, until the end of Cream in November 1968 when the band had finished recording their Goodbye album, released in February of 1969.

Although Clapton first began developing the “woman tone” with his Les Paul, he only fully achieved the tone he was after on The Fool. Clapton described the tone in his own words in the August 1967 issue of Beat Instrumental magazine saying, “I am playing more smoothly now. I’m developing what I call my ‘woman tone.’ It’s a sweet sound, something like the solo on ‘I Feel Free.’ It is more like the human voice than the guitar. You wouldn’t think it was a guitar for the first few passages. It calls for the correct use of distortion.”

A now famous video of a 1968 interview with Clapton captures him demonstrating various guitar techniques including the “woman tone” with The Fool guitar on camera. He says during the interview that, “The woman tone is produced by using either the bass pickup, or the lead pickup, but with all the bass off…In fact, if you use both pickups, you should take all the bass off on the Tone control. That is, turn it down to 1 or 0 on the Tone control, and then turn the Volume full up.”

Despite the absence of a serial number, which would definitively date Clapton’s Fool, the year has been established based upon certain characteristics of the instrument. Although the guitar was once thought to be a 1961 SG/Les Paul, the guitar features a six-screw pickguard rather than a five-screw pickguard which would have been standard on an earlier 1961 guitar. The guitar also features patent-number pickups, not the "Patent Applied For" pickups that Gibson used until circa 1962. The guitar was given to Eric Clapton circa 1966 when the 1959 Les Paul Standard he was using earlier with Cream was stolen, further narrowing the date range of the guitar. With the date range narrowed to 1963/1966, the presence of a 1964 potentiometer that appears to be original to the guitar has informed the circa 1964 date now assigned to this guitar.

The body and neck of the guitar are mahogany with rosewood fingerboard and the frets appear to be original. Both pickups appear original, and the bridge pickup has a patent number decal. The nut has been replaced with a brass nut that is 1 and 11/16 inches wide. The guitar has chrome hardware and an original five-ply black pickguard. The volume potentiometer for the bridge pickup has been replaced with a 1970s pot. The tuners have been replaced with Grover Rotomatic tuners, and the bridge has been replaced with a Wide Travel, Harmonica-style, Tune-o-Matic bridge and stop tailpiece. There is evidence that other tailpieces have been previously mounted, and indeed there are pictures of Clapton playing The Fool that show a trapeze-style tailpiece, as well as a long-arm Maestro Vibrola which can be seen clearly in this image of Clapton backstage before Cream's Murray the K Music in the Fifth Dimension U.S. debut show in 1967. Although the pickup rings are not original to the guitar, they do still have original paint residue and were therefore on the guitar when it was originally painted. The control and pickup cavities have copper shielding, the truss rod cover has been replaced, and the output jack area has been repaired.

When Todd Rundgren received the guitar from Jackie Lomax, the wood of the upper neck and headstock had deteriorated whether from playing wear, sweat, or simple neglect. Another theory is that the paint had never properly cured trapping moisture and causing the wood to deteriorate. Wanting a playable instrument, Rundgren had a portion of the neck and headstock replaced. Today, the exact spot of the repair is only slightly visible, and it was repainted to a near-exact copy of the original. In addition, Rundgren had the body coated with a sealant that better protected the oil-based enamel paints, and retouched some of the missing paint.

Exhibition: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Play It Loud - Instruments of Rock & Roll, New York City, April 8 - October 1, 2019

References

Guitar Player “Watch Eric Clapton Demonstrate His Signature "Woman Tone" in This Classic Cream-Era Video” By Damian Fanelli, Christopher Scapelliti, published November 11, 2022

Vintage Guitar Magazine “Clapton’s Fool History’s Greatest Guitar?”
By J. Craig Oxman et. al., published December 2011, Vol. 26 No. 02

The following excerpts have been taken directly from the December 2011 issue of Vintage Guitar Magazine that featured a cover article about Clapton’s Fool guitar, a copy of this magazine is included with this lot.

More on The Fool

The Fool began with two members, but eventually grew into a collective; its core members were Simon (a.k.a. Seemon) Posthuma, Marijke Koger, and eventually, Josje Leeger, Koger’s art-school friend. Others, particularly photographer Karl Ferris and Barry Finch, were also associated with the group. Posthuma and Koger, who met circa 1961 and a few years later began participating an “alternative” Amsterdam boutique called Trend, were living on the island of Ibiza (off the coast of Spain) before relocating to London in early ’66 with a grant from the Von Pallandt Foundation. There, they sold posters to the galleries and boutiques around London. They also began to design clothing and other things for leading rock bands such as The Beatles, The Hollies, Procol Harum, The Incredible String Band, The Move, and others. One weekend, they painted the three-story mural on the side of The Beatles’ Apple store in London that delighted their fans – and so outraged local merchants that only three months later, the Westminster city council issued an edict that it must be painted over. They designed many other famous items, including George Harrison’s fireplace, the original album liner for Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album, and others. It’s often thought that The Fool painted John Lennon’s famous Rolls-Royce, though in fact it was painted by the same gypsy painters who painted a gypsy wagon Lennon kept in his garden, after Koger spied it and gave Lennon the idea.

The origin of The Fool’s name was from the Tarot card Arcana Zero, which shares a name with a wild trump card. The Fool card, Posthuma said, “represents Truth, spiritual meaning, and the circle which expresses the universal circumference in which gravitate all things.” The Fool were not merely artists – they designed their own costumes, and made quite an entrance wherever they went, with their splashy, hippie-gypsy style. Eventually, The Fool even formed a band and released a few singles, along with at least one eponymously titled ’68 album on Mercury Records (produced by Graham Nash). Ginger Baker once remarked that Koger was the best tambourine player he had ever heard. They also were the driving force behind the ’60s psychedelic classic movie Wonderwall, in which they act and which was named after a Fool-painted armoire and bust in their apartment that served as Lennon’s inspiration to hire them in the first place.

Before ever meeting the Beatles, however, Koger and Posthuma were commissioned by Robert Stigwood, Cream’s manager, to work their artistic magic on Cream’s instruments and costumes. Simon Hayes, then-owner of Mayfair Public Relations agency, was a friend of Koger and Posthuma. Mayfair (where Finch also worked) represented the Saville Theatre, owned by Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager. It was Koger’s commission to create a poster for the Saville Theatre’s Sunday night rock concerts that indirectly led to the Cream commission. Stigwood, often broke but never poor, needed to promote the band’s upcoming American tour in a bold and different way. Having seen the poster for the Saville Theatre, Stigwood was very intrigued, and through Finch set a meeting with Koger. He gave her a commission to create costumes, graphic promotional material, and when she suggested that she paint the instruments, those, as well. The Fool disbanded as a group in about 1970, leaving Posthuma and Koger, who were married for a time, to continue as a duo.

After leaving London, Posthuma and Koger relocated to Hollywood, where they painted the exterior of the Aquarius Theater on Sunset Boulevard for the 1968 production of Hair. Today, Posthuma is based in Amsterdam and Koger is based near Los Angeles. Finch and Leeger married on the day Americans landed on the moon, had six children (each named for a color) and remained together until her death by stroke in 1991.

Koger was the lead designer of Clapton’s Fool, in close collaboration with Posthuma. According to Posthuma, “Usually, Marijke created the figures and the landscape, and I did the colors and the color strips. People often refer to Eric’s guitar as The Fool SG. This is not correct. The Fool was not formed by that time. This job was done by Simon and Marijke. The Fool started when we were setting up the Apple Shop.”

Clapton’s Fool

Koger and Posthuma took Clapton’s SG, and after having it sanded and primed, applied their design by hand, using oil-based, brush-applied enamel paints. The theme of the guitar’s design is, broadly, good versus evil, heaven versus hell, and the power of music in the universe to rise above it all as a force of good. A clue to this is found in a quote from Koger’s web page (maryke.com/fine.html) explaining her fascination with themes she has used throughout her artistic career.

“The single thread running through all of my paintings is nostalgia for paradise (the Illud Tempus). In more or less complex forms, the paradisiac myth occurs all over the world, in all religions. It always includes a certain number of characteristic features: Immortality, Beauty, Freedom, the possibility of ascension into Heaven and meeting God (the Gods, Goddesses), friendship with the animals and knowledge of their languages. It expresses the urge to restore communication between Earth and Heaven; to abolish the changes made by the primordial disruption of ‘the fall.’ It embodies Hope for a better world with more Joy, Beauty and Peace, whether it be in the mundane or on the Other Side.”

On the face of Clapton’s Fool, a cherubic angel holds a triangle in one hand and the triangle beater in the other, sitting high in a celestial sphere. Yellow hexagonal stars (signifying the cosmic spirit, according to Posthuma) against a blue celestial sky (a Fool hallmark, still in evidence on Koger’s website) form part of the background. Below, flames lick upward from the lower treble bout toward the Volume and Tone controls and beyond. The angel looks back toward the lower bass bout and a rainbow-painted set of arcs – the Fool’s trademark, according to Posthuma. The inspiration for the angel was in no small way influenced by Clapton’s permed hair at the time, according to both Koger and Posthuma.

The back of the guitar is a set of concentric, rainbow-gradated circles that start in the center with yellow, and end with deep red on the outside. Outside the circles are waves of brightly-hued, contrasting colors. According to Koger, Posthuma was responsible for this part, as well as the corresponding “circle of light” on the back and front of Jack Bruce’s Fender Bass VI painted at the same time by The Fool.

“The pickguard was painted by me,” said Koger. “I principally painted the body, as well. Simon painted the circle of light on the back, and the circle on the front of Bruce’s bass.”

The neck and headstock are painted in psychedelic rows of bright-colored, wavy stripes. The truss-rod cover is a white plastic laminate.

Though many have speculated otherwise, the entire fretboard was never painted – a fact confirmed by Koger – and pictures of the guitar in this state have not been found. [Since the publication of this article in 2011, the author was contacted by Marijke Koger correcting her earlier assertion that the fretboard was never painted. She found photographs of the guitar showing a painted fretboard confirming that the fretboard had indeed initially been painted] Clapton may have removed some of the paint on the back of the neck, which was flaking due to the fact it wasn’t clear-coated or sealed, and the high wear he was giving it. When, and by whom, the back of the neck might have been repainted are still a mystery.

The pickguard has an entirely separate scene – a picture within a picture, almost a Dutch miniature. Though it, too, was painted by Koger, it has a different style – a pastoral landscape with a path in the foreground leading into the distant hills, with a red sun overhead and plants and scenery all around. According to Koger and Posthuma, it represents Paradise. “The pickguard was painted by me. I was, and still am, intrigued by the idea of paradise which the landscape on the pickguard represents,” said Koger.

The guitar – along with Bruce’s bass and Ginger Baker’s bass-drum head, both of which were also largely designed by Koger – was painted over a span of two weeks. The Fool also produced costumes, graphic designs, a booklet illustrated with Koger’s art, photographs of Cream, and poems by Finch.

Todd’s Tale of The Fool - Interview by Michael Dregni

For a portion of its life, The Fool, Eric Clapton’s famed Gibson SG, was in the possession of renowned guitarist/songwriter/producer Todd Rundgren (VG, August ’11). There has been much speculation about how Rundgren came to acquire the guitar from Jackie Lomax, its condition at the time and in subsequent years, what he did to restore it, and even the number of replicas that were commissioned by him. We posed the key questions to the man himself.

Do you remember approximately when you met Jackie Lomax?

I think it was in Woodstock, while [producing] The Band’s Stage Fright record. I really didn’t know Jackie that well, but he was living in Woodstock and someone said, “You want to go over and meet Jackie?” And, I’m not sure, but I think he was already looking for someone to buy the guitar, because I only really met him that one time and the first thing he did was get out The Fool. It had been horribly abused by that point, it was in terrible shape. He had been using it as a lap guitar. Original hardware down to the bridge was gone – he had a wooden bridge on it. The action was a mile high.

Was the neck bent then, too?

The neck was all beat up, especially near the headstock. Eric had played the guitar so much that he had worn the finish off the neck, so it was just bare wood and was rotting, essentially, because so much sweat had gone into the wood. It was like balsa wood at that point.

I played the guitar for a while and eventually, the headstock just snapped off, so I had to have that reattached. That eventually was replaced, but if the guitar was going to be played, I had to repair it. And the original paint had never been sealed – they used, like, acrylic paint, but never put sealer over it, so bits of paint had been falling off over the years.

Was that touched up at some point?

I got an artist friend to restore the paint job and seal it so that it wouldn’t fall apart anymore. Plus, I had to repaint the back of the neck since it had been replaced. I did a little work just to keep the guitar from turning into a pile of lumber.

What do you remember about acquiring it from Jackie Lomax?

Well, Jackie was not known as a great guitar player, so it seemed to me the instrument had been completely orphaned by everyone who owned it. He was desperate for money or something and said, “Give me $500 for the guitar and maybe someday I’ll buy it back from you.” I didn’t hear from him again until sometime in the ’80s, when he showed up at a gig we were at in L.A. and wanted to buy it back. Of course, by that time I had invested thousands in restoring the instrument.

In any case, I hung on to it until the auction Eric had – the first one to benefit his Crossroads clinic. And he asked if I would contribute the guitar to the auction. Unfortunately, I was in trouble with the I.R.S. at the time, so if anything I had that was valuable, I had to sell it – I couldn’t give it away. So I wasn’t able to simply donate the guitar. But I hung on to it, and a year later, after Brownie had sold for $550,000, I started to think “I have no business owning an instrument this expensive. What if somebody stole it?”

At the time, Sothebys was just getting into online auctions and wanted to include the guitar as part of one. It got two bids over the minimum asking price, which was way below what Brownie sold for, and we’d expected it to go for at least as much. But I’d told Eric that if I ever did sell the guitar, I would contribute 10 percent of the proceeds to his clinic, which we did. So I gave him 10 percent and gave the rest to the I.R.S. (laughs)!

And you had a replica made, right?

Actually, someone made it and gave it to me without solicitation. It was a Japanese guy, back in the mid or late ’80s, when I was touring Japan twice a year. One gig, this guy showed up with this guitar he had reproduced using the same model, same year, using photographs in magazines. He handed me the guitar and asked nothing in return. And as a matter of fact, the replica was a bit better-sounding than the original. Apparently, someone, Eric or somebody had [modified] the pickups in the original, and when you A/B’d the two, the original sounded thinner. I preferred to play the replica because it had a more robust sound.

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