I Prefer Playing to Angels

In Deep Blues, the 1981 "musical and cultural history of the Mississippi Delta," author Robert Palmer squeezes the following anecdote into a passage on the widespread influence of Robert Johnson. I suspect, however, that the reason he includes it is the same reason I'm sharing it here: it's perfectly and wonderfully insane.

After an extended bout with heroin addiction, [Eric Clapton] reemerged in the early seventies playing in a more restrained, less bluesy style. In 1974, Rolling Stone interviewer Steve Turner asked him if the change in his music reflected a change in attitude, and instead of answering the question directly, he told Turner a story. "Once with the Dominos, we dropped some acid in San Francisco," he said, "and apart from the fact that the guitar was made of rubber, every bad lick I had, every naughty lick, blues lick ... whatever you want to call it, turned the audience into all these devils in sort of red coats and things. And then I'd play a sweet one, and they all turned into angels. I prefer playing to angels, personally."