Eric Clapton – The Cream Of Music

No other musician has earned the right to be venerated as a music God, than the legend himself… Eric Clapton.

The only guitarist to have been universally and unequivocally accepted as the best there ever was, Eric Clapton has established a place for himself in the music world, a place that has been unreachable by other musicians to date.

He is the only musician ever to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times – once each as a member of The Yardbirds in 1992, as a member of Cream in 1993 and as a solo performer in 2000. Eric Clapton was ranked #4 by Rolling Stone magazine in its list of the 100 great guitarists of all time.

The Evolution Of Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton was born on 30 March, 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, England, the illegitimate child of an unwed mother. Under the circumstances, his biological mother, who was only sixteen at the time of his birth, put him in the care of his grandparents who became his surrogate parents. Eric grew up believing that his mother was his older sister.

At 13, young Eric discovered the heady sound of the blues and rock ‘n’ roll which was sweeping England at that time. The of greats like Muddy Waters, blues musicB.B. King, Buddy Guy and Freddie King had a profound effect on the music obsessed Eric. When his grandparents gifted him an acoustic guitar for his 13th birthday, Eric proceeded to devote all his time to the intricacies of learning the guitar, chord by chord, note by note.

After leaving school, he enrolled at Kingston College to study art and stained glass designing. But music interfered in his studies and he was expelled from college for playing guitar in class. At seventeen, Eric decided that playing guitar was his true calling and he set out to realize it.

The Yardbirds

The first band that Clapton joined was an R&B group called Roosters. After a few months of playing with them, he did a seven gig stint with Casey Jones. Soon, Clapton became one of the most talked about guitarists on the pub scene, which earned him an invite to play for The Yardbirds. Clapton accepted the offer and in 1963, he recorded the album ‘Five Live Yardbirds’ with the band. During his 18-month stint with them, Clapton displayed his prowess with the guitar and quickly established his name as a guitarist to watch out for.

An interesting nickname he earned around this time was that of ‘Slowhand’. The story goes that when playing live on stage, Eric’s energetic and impassioned strumming on his guitar would often result in broken strings. He would then restring the guitar on stage while the audience encouraged him on with a slow handclap. From being a blues band, The Yardbirds started moving towards a more pop-oriented sound which was not to Eric’s liking, the hardcore blues-loyalist that he was. Finally, in 1965 he left the band.

John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers

At that time the band John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers had made a name for itself as a purely blues dedicated band, and Eric Clapton hopped on to the bandwagon. The release of the album Bluesbreakers was the defining phase in his musical career which catapulted him into the uppermost echelons of guitardom and made him the premier guitarist in England.

Clapton’s name generated mass hysteria among guitar enthusiasts, a testimony to which was the graffiti ‘Clapton is God’ found scrawled across walls throughout music-crazy England. No other musician had ever been deified in this way before. Eric Clapton had arrived!

Cream

Eric didn’t stay long with the Bluesbreakers even though the band was very successful. In 1966, he got together Jack Bruce on bass (his bandmate in Bluesbreakers) and Ginger Baker on drums, to form a powerband band named Cream.

With the formation of this band, Clapton achieved the only milestone that had as yet eluded him – recognition in America. The band’s three albums ‘Fresh Cream’, ‘Disraeli Gears’ and ‘Wheels of Fire’ were all international successes and elevated Eric Clapton to superstar status all over the world. But ego reared its ugly head leading to infighting within the band and ultimately in 1968, its demise.

Cream – Sunshine Of Your Love – Live

Blind Faith

In 1969, Clapton formed a ‘supergroup’ consisting of Ginger Baker, bass guitarist Rick Grech and Traffic’s Steve Winwood called Blind Faith and cut a self-titled album. The group set out on an ambitious 24-city tour of America in support of the album, the stress of which led to its early demise.

Derek And The Dominos

In 1970, Clapton released his self-titled solo album which was a moderate success. Soon after, he formed a new band with Jim Gordon on drums, Carl Radle on bass and Bobby Whitlock on keyboard and vocals. He named the ensemble Derek and The Dominos.

Around this time, Clapton had fallen deeply in love with Pattie Boyd Harrison, the wife of his close friend George Harrison. But Pattie did not return his overtures.

Clapton poured out his heart and his pain of unrequited love into the band’s debut album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. The album was a miserable flop, and resulted in the exit of yet another Clapton formed band. The failure of Layla coupled with personal struggles caused Clapton to plunge into a full-blown heroin addiction.

Solo Career

After three years of wallowing in his addiction to heroin, Eric Clapton emerged from his Surrey estate on the advice of his friend Pete Townshend, to check into a rehabilitation clinic. Successfully fighting off his addiction, in 1974, Clapton bounced back with the exhilarating ‘461 Ocean Boulevard’. This album marked a shift in Eric’s style from guitar virtuosity to an emphasis on his husky, relaxed vocals and melodious songs.

The cover version of the Bob Marley hit ‘I Shot The Sheriff’ was an inspired, reggae-influenced single that hit #1 in the US. The album itself was a success and reached number one on the Billboard charts. With this album, Clapton went on to recapture his superstar status, releasing successful albums one after the other, in the process emerging as an assured singer and composer. In 1979, he married his long time love Pattie Boyd Harrison.

The eighties carried on in much the same manner, with Clapton issuing a string of albums which constantly kept him in the charts and consistently hit platinum and gold in terms of sales. Just One Night (1980), Another Ticket (1981), Money and Cigarettes (1983), Behind The Sun (1985), August (1986) and Journeyman (1989), were all certified hits. The music was vintage Clapton, and reaffirmed his venerated position at the very top.

Eric had never been in finer form and reinvented himself with every new effort. In the process, he also rediscovered his magic touch with the guitar, which had his fans delirious with delight. In 1982, he was also able to get rid of the alcoholism which had threatened to overshadow his career. In 1986, Italian actress Lori Del Santo gave birth to Clapton’s son Conor, while Clapton was still married to Pattie Boyd. In 1988, Pattie Boyd filed for and was granted divorce from Eric Clapton on grounds of infidelity.

Family Tragedy

Clapton’s career went from strength to strength as he continued to tour and record extensively. But tragedy struck on 10 March, 1991, when his four year old son Conor died after falling fifty stories from a window of his mother’s Manhattan apartment. Clapton was shattered and completely stopped recording for some months.

In 1992, a year after his son’s tragic death, Clapton released the single ‘Tears in Heaven’, a poignant and heart-wrenching eulogy to his son, which was a worldwide hit. The single along with the album Unplugged, garnered Eric Clapton a total of six Grammies that year, including the Grammy for Best Song and Best Album.

Eric Clapton – “Tears In Heaven” Live

The 1994 ‘From The Cradle’ marked Clapton’s long awaited return to his traditional blues roots and was a delight for die-hard Clapton fans. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album and became the highest selling blues album in history. In 1997, there were no signs of slowing down, as Clapton released the R&B flavored ‘Change The World’, from the soundtrack to the John Travolta starred Phenomenon, which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The next year, Clapton surprised everyone by releasing the pop and soul flavored Pilgrim containing all new material.

The year 2000 saw Clapton collaborating with his long time hero, blues legend B.B. King, on the seminal ‘Riding With The King’, followed by the rock-inspired Reptile in 2001. In 2004, Eric issued the album Me and Mr. Johnson, a tribute to blues maestro Robert Johnson, the one man Eric considers his true musical idol. ‘Back Home’ in 2005 and ‘Road to Escondido’ in 2007 proved beyond doubt that Eric Clapton is the most prolific musician ever, to grace the musical stratosphere.

Eric Clapton says, “When all the original blues guys are gone, you start to realize that someone has to tend to the tradition. I recognize that I have some responsibility to keep the music alive, and it’s a pretty honorable position to be in.”

Eric Clapton has remained true to his words, recording prolifically, initializing younger audiences into the blues fold, and the forefathers of the blues can rest easy in heaven.

Eric Clapton Biography By
Scotty Smith
Guitarist Rock ©2008-2009

Photos by Photobucket