Clapton invited to play North Korea: embassy

Guitar legend Eric Clapton has been invited to play North Korea, a spokesman at the country's embassy in London said Tuesday.

"We have invited him for a concert in Pyongyang at a time of his convenience," a diplomat at the mission told AFP by telephone.

"We invited him in mid-January. We haven't received an answer yet. Mr Clapton is a famous guitarist, an icon of the Western music.

"It's a good opportunity for the North Korean people to understand better Western music. Everybody knows who Clapton is."

The invitation emerged on the day the New York Philharmonic orchestra played a landmark concert in the North Korean capital, in a bid to improve relations between Washington and Pyongyang.

The North Korea State Symphony Orchestra is to play two concerts in Britain -- one at London's Royal Festival Hall and in Middlesbrough, north-east England, where its footballers were based for the 1966 World Cup.

Clapton, 62, has a distinguished career in blues and rock music, shooting to fame in the 1960s as a guitarist with The Yardbirds, where he earned his nickname "slowhand".

He went on to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and also enjoyed fame with Cream, Derek and the Dominos and as a solo artist.