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

THE YARDBIRDS

Pity the poor Yardbirds.  Doomed forever to be remembered only in the shadow of their three former lead guitaritst; Clapton, Beck, and Page.

Yet The Yardbirds were far more than just a proving ground for their guitar heroes.  In their music are the first rumblings of territory that would later be explored by Cream, Led Zep, and Beck's solo albums.  More importantly, those rumblings took place in a context that, for my money, is often a lot more rewarding.

And The Yardbirds were always, a band.  And a very great one.  You can hear their echoes not only in the extemporizations of Cream and the exoticisms and bluesy pounding of Led Zep (for which they are often credited), but also the energy-freeform-freakout of the MC5, Stooges, Television, Feelies, and Voidoids.  And their tough stance and driving music were an enormous influence on American garage bands, nearly as important as their fellow Londoners the Stones and The Who.

Their early records were mostly blues covers.  And mostly average.  They had a lot of energy, but simply never had the expertise and feel of the Stones, Them, or The Animals, all of whom surpassed them by light years in this department.  Also, though already a sterling guitarist, Clapton was not yet producing at the level he soon would be in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.  A few of their r&b covers had some kick (Billy Boy Arnold's "I Wish You Would"), but most are merely adequate.

Then came Graham Gouldman's "For Your Love," a change in direction from straight blues to "pop" ... or more accurately, straight-up rock and roll.  Exit Clapton, and enter Beck.  And now the fun begins.  In a series of singles and EP's (later collected into LPs in the UK and America) from early 1965 to the end of 1966 - an alarmingly short time to produce such a body of work - they inflicted on the world a set of hard-hitting, edgy, strikingly innovative rock`n'roll, driven not only by the overpowering guitars (Beck played lead on all of these), but also a powerhouse rhythm section, a sinister, snaky lead singer, and a dazzling sense of dynamics, mostly courtesy of bassist Paul Samwell-Smith.

Too good to last.  By the end of `66 Samwell-Smith was gone, and Beck would follow him soon after, leaving Page in charge.  In and of itself this was no bad thing, but their last sessions with Mickie Most, while not without interest, were schizophrenic, alternating between bizarre flower-powerish numbers like "Ha Ha Said The Clown" and more typical Yardbirds fare such as "Drinking Muddy Water."

The Yardbirds petered out after a 1968 tour, with Relf and McCarty forming the folkie/medieval Renaissance, while Page and Dreja pursued what would become Led Zeppelin.  Relf passed away in 1976 after a bizarre electrical accident.  Dreja and McCarty reformed The Yardbirds in the 80's and 90's and continue to tour.


Essential Listening

Ultimate!

Essential Reading

The Yardbirds by Alan Clayson

The Yardbirds Wikipedia
The Yardbirds Allmusic
Yardbirds.com (official)

CREAM

For only being together a couple years, there's no getting around that these guys were a BFD.  They capitalized on the burgeoning era of musician (especially guitarist) worship.  They laid out the blueprint for the power trio and (again, especially), what would become heavy metal (Led Zep owe far more to them than to the Yardbirds).    They made Clapton a household name (a rock-listening household, anyway).  Their rep is now soiled by a connection to pointless jamming and hot pickin' for hot pickin's sake.  But their records were mostly damn good.

Formed mid-1966 as a vehicle for more improvisation; the goal was to break away from commercial restrictions (Clapton wanted to avoid "pop" songs) but also to blow past the restrictions of straight blues bands ala Graham Bond and John Mayall, from whence Baker and Bruce came.  Cream made its unofficial debut at the Twisted Wheel on 29 July 1966. Its official debut came two nights later at the Sixth Annual Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival. Being new and with few original songs to its credit, Cream performed spirited blues reworkings that thrilled the large crowd and earned it a warm reception.

Allmusic: "At first Cream's focus was electrified and amped-up traditional blues, which dominated their first album, Fresh Cream, which made the British Top Ten in early 1967. Originals like "N.S.U." and "I Feel Free" gave notice that the band were capable of moving beyond the blues, and they truly found their voice on Disraeli Gears in late 1967, which consisted mostly of group-penned songs. Here they fashioned invigorating, sometimes beguiling hard-driving psychedelic pop, which included plenty of memorable melodies and effective harmonies along with the expected crunching riffs. "Strange Brew," "Dance the Night Away," "Tales of Brave Ulysses," and "S.W.L.A.B.R." are all among their best tracks, and the album broke the band big time in the States, reaching the Top Five. It also generated their first big U.S. hit single, "Sunshine of Your Love," which was based around one of the most popular hard rock riffs of the '60s."

Unfortunately, 1968's Wheels Of Fire saw them spinning out of control. Bruce and Baker had hated each other for years. The album threw good tracks of the Disraeli Gears sort crashing against extended acts of self-indulgence.

Wiki: From its creation, Cream were faced with some fundamental problems that would later lead to its dissolution in November 1968. The rivalry between Bruce and Baker created tensions in the band. Clapton also felt that the members of the band did not listen to each other enough. Equipment during these years had also got better; new Marshall amplifier stacks cranked out more power, and Jack Bruce pushed the volume levels higher, creating tension for Baker who would have trouble competing with roaring stacks. Clapton spoke of a concert during which he stopped playing and neither Baker nor Bruce noticed. Clapton has also commented that Cream's later gigs mainly consisted of its members showing off. Cream decided that they would break up in May 1968 during a tour of the US. Later, in July, an official announcement was made that the band would break up after a farewell tour of the United States and after playing two concerts in London. Cream finished their tour of the United States with a 4 November concert in Rhode Island and performed in the UK for the last time in London on 25 and 26 November. Bruce had three Marshall stacks on stage for the farewell shows but one acted only as a spare, and he only used one or two, depending on the song.

That was it.  One final tour, another thrown-together collection of studio and live tracks, and a couple posthumous live albums.  It was all over.  The reunited briefly in 2005, but egos soon tore the band apart once again.

Essential Listening:

Gold









Fresh Cream 

• Cream page from Ginger Baker Site
• Heavy Cream
• Cream wiki
• Cream Allmusic
• Cream Allmusic Discography