ERIC CLAPTON

I'm not sure there's another guy out there I want to like more than Slowhand.
Problem is, there's few who are as elevated beyond their station.
There, I said it.

In case you haven't already started scrawling a venom-filled comment, allow me to clarify.

As a musician - superb.  One of the finest guitar players around.  An immaculate player, but also filled with passion.  He's never let technique overwhelm feeling - it's always technique fueled by feeling.  The difference is crucial.

But Clapton's on the pedestal as an artist in his own right.  A full-fledged member of the Classic Rock Pantheon, not merely as a sideman.  Notice that the equally estimable Cream-mateGinger Baker, as fine a drummer as Clapton is a guitarist, is not there.

No, Clapton now must be judged not just for his guitar chops, but for the whole package, as do peers like Townshend, Keef, Hendrix ... and there's where the trouble starts.

I'll make it very simple for you.  Think of any of the three above, and at least a half-dozen great, great songs and at least a couple consistently great albums come to mind.

Think of Clapton, and there's one.

"Layla" is a mother of a song.  Majestic, rocking, driven by a great riff, and beautiful in its coda.  The album that surrounds it is damn fine.  A deep, bluesy, soulful album with great playing, good songs, and all delivered with a passion and fire that's contagious.  Listening to the Layla album (and one of its greatest strengths is that it gets better with age), what comes off is that the whole band is just into it all the way, pushing themselves harder and harder.  It's as intense as the most passionate punk rock, and yet it isn't even, strictly speaking, a hard rock album.  The sound is soulful and easy-grooving... it's just soulful and easy-grooving turned up to eleven.  You can hear it in the singing, the sheer joy on "Anyday", the sheer fear and pain on "Bell Bottom Blues" as Clapton and Whitlock join forces.  Neither of them's a great singer, nor even has a strong voice, but they're cutting loose with everything they've got.

No, the sad thing is that Layla was the first and last time he really let it rip.  Layla gave him the map - a smart move away from guitar-hero indulgence; a mature, blues-soul-based sound.  Great musicianship in service of good songs.  All admirable things.

But, as Dave Marsh put it, reviewing Backless in 1978: It's disheartening only if you're still looking for a Clapton album with a hint of the power and fire he brought to his best work.

Note the word "still".  By 1978 Clapton had been ambling his way down the laid-back road for seven years. Albums like Backless and 461 Ocean Boulevard and Slowhand were all nice albums full of pleasant music and fine playing.  They weren't dreck, they had a little more bite than your typical "mellow", "soft" rock of the time.  But they never bit you.  They never scratched or tore or shook things up.  You never heard the kind of unhinged passion you heard on Layla, and you never heard the beauty, either.

After cleaning up in the 80's Clapton reinvented himself as a Phil Collins-style pop-rocker.  Oh joy.  His music got livelier, anyway.  He scored a few hits and then scored himself a few more, reinventing himself in the 90's as a kind of blues ambassador, making tough Chicago-and-Delta blues accessible to yuppies not ready to deal with icky-looking old black men (most of whom were dead anyway).  This did make for better music, because Clapton is a superb blues guitarist, and its only on blues staples that he ever shows even a hint of the old days.

We're not even gonna talk about Unplugged or "Tears In Heaven".  Not even.

Now that he's achieved Grand Old Man status, his decades-long lack of ambition no longer matters much.  Perhaps that's why the one post-Layla Clapton album I can get excited about is Me and Mr. Johnson, his 2004 collection of Robert Johnson songs.  Me and seems to be pretty maligned as being too slick and lifeless, especially given the source.  I don't agree.  ProTools credit or no, the band sounds good and raw, and the very virtue of it is that Clapton doesn't try to beat Johnson at his own game (a fool's errand, anyway).  He just sings and plays hot guitar.  Clapton loves these songs and his devotion to them comes through.  What you have is a first-rate blues-rock album, played by top of the line musicians who are getting off on what they're doing, and the songs are of course faultless.  It's not Layla, but at least its powered by some of the same sort of impulse.

But two great albums and one great song isn't much of a showing for a guy with Clapton's rep.  I'm just sayin'.

Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton Allmusic
Eric Clapton wiki

Essential Listening

Bluesbreakers 
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
Me and Mr. Johnson

Essential Reading

Clapton: The Autobiography by Eric Clapton  

Essential Viewing

Sessions for Robert Johnson