How an Avant-Garde Puppeteer Helped Inspire a Young Eric Clapton in the Mid-1960s: “It Was a Real Awakening”

Even icons have idols, and for a young Eric Clapton, that idol came in the form of a blues-loving, poetry-writing, avant-garde puppeteer who lived in a flat in Long Acre, Covent Garden, with his girlfriend named Clarissa. Despite far more people knowing Clapton’s name than the eccentric man from whom he drew inspiration, one could argue that Clapton might not have become the musician we know him to be today had it not been for early creative guidance from Ted Milton.

As a teenager, Milton turned to music to escape the bullying, monotony, and dead-end habits he encountered in boarding school. He eventually began playing with local musicians, publishing poetry, and generally integrating himself into the creative scene in London. Eventually, he began dating a woman who lived in Covent Garden, and the pair regularly hosted their equally bohemian, creative friends—one of whom was former Yardbird member, Eric Clapton.

Clapton was still licking his wounds from leaving The Yardbirds and immediately seeing the band take off with Jeff Beck on lead guitar. He was desperate to find new ways to connect to music. In his eponymous autobiography, Clapton recalled the night he found what he was looking for in an impromptu performance by Milton.

How Ted Milton Helped Eric Clapton Reach a Musical Awakening

Eric Clapton left The Yardbirds in the spring of 1965, which consequently gave him plenty of time to hang out with friends in the early summer months of that year. He found himself spending much of his time at the Covent Garden apartment where Ted Milton and his girlfriend lived. It was there that Clapton found his awakening. Writing in Clapton: The Autobiography, he said, “Ted was the most extraordinary man. A poet and a visionary. He was the first person I ever saw physically interpreting music.”

Clapton continued, recounting a night the friends had dinner together. “After dinner, [Ted] put on a Howlin’ Wolf record and began to enact it with his entire being, dancing and employing facial expressions to interpret what he was hearing. Watching him, I understood for the first time how you could really live music, how you could listen to it completely and make it come alive, so that it was part of your life. It was a real awakening. Ted and Clarissa lived in a second-floor flat, which consisted of several rooms opening off a long corridor and a big kitchen, and it was the center of our lives for a while.”

Of course, Clapton would go on to become much more ubiquitous than Milton, although both musicians have enjoyed prolific, decades-long careers. In a 2025 interview with Psychedelic Baby Magazine, Milton brushed off his impact on Clapton’s career. “‘How you could really live music…’,” he retorted. “If anybody lived music, it was Eric in Cream. Unparalleled intensity. Memories of the 60s. Jesus!”

Speaking to The Guardian in 2026, Milton summarized his effect on Clapton by saying, “I think we’re talking about charisma. And charisma is a form of psychosis.”

Photo by David Redfern/Redferns