“Buddy Guy, George Harrison, and I are playing the Roxy tonight,” Eric remarked over the phone one day. You are going to arrive and perform.” The evening Richie Sambora was invited by Eric Clapton to a fantastic jam session.
Once he cut his teeth playing the blues as a young, aspiring guitarist, the former Bon Jovi member talks up about being embraced by the blues world and his heroes.
Beyond his well-known role as the Talk Box man behind Bon Jovi’s megahit turned wedding party song Livin’ on a Prayer, Richie Sambora has a deep-seated passion for the blues.
At twelve, he picked up the guitar and became a hero of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and B.B. King. They would go on to become much more than heroes in later life.
He would go on to have a close friendship with King; Jimmy Page signed his early band, Mercy, to the Swan Song record label owned by Led Zeppelin; and in 1995, Eric Clapton gave him an order to participate in an incredible jam session at the Roxy. Nobody asked for it.
In an interview with Guitar Player’s most recent issue, Sambora traces his career with real-world tales of life after Bon Jovi. More significantly, he talked of being welcomed into the blues community and the occasion when Slowhand gave him a lyrical “full-circle” experience.
He recalls, “I wrote a song, Mr. Bluesman, about a young man like me following blues guys around in 1991, when I was finishing up Strange in This Town.” Eric agreed to play on it when I asked him to.
“One day, in March of 1995, he called and introduced himself as Eric, Richard. I’m like, I’m still insane and starstruck, [drops his lips in awe]. “I’m playing the Roxy tonight with Buddy, George [Harrison], and myself,” he says. You’re going to play some music.
“I’m saying, ‘No, I’m watching Price Is Right, Eric?'” I swear to you that I will be there! I’m pissing in my pants in the interim.
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