ERIC CLAPTON

important work in color

1970: Eric Clapton. 1973: Rainbow Concert. 1974: 461 Ocean Boulevard * There’s One in Every Crowd. 1975: E.C. Was Here. 1976: No Reason to Cry. 1977: Slowhand. 1978: Backless. 1980: Just One Night. 1981: Another Ticket. 1982: Timepieces (The Best of Eric Clapton). 1983: Timepieces Vol. II: Live in the Seventies * Money and Cigarettes. 1985: Behind the Sun. 1986: August. 1988: Crossroads. 1989: Homeboy * Journeyman. 1991: 24 Nights. 1992: Rush.

Derek and the Dominoes: 1970: Layla. 1973: In Concert.

"TVC 15" leads off side two of David Bowie’s Station to Station (1976) and it’s a fascinating hybrid of funk and roar: arpeggios, rhythmic syncopation and rock power, by guitarists Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick, provide swooping energy outlets that soar above the heavy anchor. Earlier in his career (1972) Bowie released a song called "Moonage Daydream" and Mick Ronson - who was a long way from being a monumental guitar player – provided a heavily echoed, hypnotic solo that was simple, but sublimely evoked Bowie’s spaceage soundscape.

John Cipollina’s inimitable icy-trebly lead guitar cuts through Quicksilver Messenger Service’s big 1970 hit "Fresh Air" and it’s a superbly structured solo, in itself as singable and swinging as any number of songs.

In 1972, Danny Kirwan, played on Bare Trees, the last album he would make with Fleetwood Mac. He provided the dreamy, shimmering texture, which remains the record’s most enduring asset.

A long list of great guitar moments could be culled from guitar players like Robin Trower, Johnny Winter, Jorma Kaukonen, Lowell George, Phil Manzanera, Neil Young, Carlos Santana, Richard Thompson, and Jerry Garcia. With the exception of Layla, why are so few of these moments by Eric Clapton?

Clapton entered the seventies somewhat diminished. In the sixties, as a progenitor of rock and roll excitement in the Yardbirds, as a popularizer of the blues (with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers), as God of electric noise as a member of Cream, Clapton showcased the possibilities of the guitar as rock instrument supreme. Inspired by the blues, a style of music that the temperament of the times and his own indecisive ego seldom let him play in a pure form, Clapton dabbled, compromised, equivocated and drifted his way through the era, finally executing a cohesive album with the release, in 1970, of Layla. Clapton was soon superseded by a more ambitious, disciplined and slyer batch of guitar heroes with stronger aesthetic personalities, though Clapton still received the attention.

The string of albums Clapton released in the seventies, starting with 461 Ocean Boulevard, were a change of direction. He tried to shake his guitar hero status by developing his voice, his rhythm playing and his song-writing. He only occasionally flashed the old chops (E.C. Was Here, Just One Night). By not particularly distinguishing himself on guitar, he became artistically peripheral. It could be argued that Clapton’s band during these year’s – Jamie Oldaker (drums), Carl Radle (bass), George Terry (guitar), Dick Sims (keyboards), Marcy Levy and Yvonne Eliman (vocals) – were a proficient unit. What Clapton and company achieved was a pop-blues formula with the kind of capitulation such a style would imply. On 461 Ocean Boulevard, the incongruity shows. "Motherless Children" becomes a happy shuffle, never quite explaining the difference between the downbeat lyrics and the shiny surface. "I Shot the Sheriff" becomes a slick cover since Clapton’s own rude boy consciousness is non-existent. Clapton’s lack of a strong point of view throughout his career mars his blues songs as well: the lost-my-girl-and-I’m-troubled redundancy exposes a personality that lacks scope and modernity, and a sentimentality that disingenuously looked backwards at a time when other performers (Willie Dixon, Albert King, Albert Collins, Freddy King, BB King, Ike Turner, Duane Allman, Dickey Betts, Johnny Winter, Hot Tuna, the J. Geils Band, etc.) seemed to be trying to open the format up. Clapton always had so many irons in the fire, everything suffered along the way: he didn’t achieve the dauntless focus of the blues because he only intermittently pursued that course; rock and roll's artful heedlessness seemed too sinful for Clapton’s delicate personality, at least on record; rock’s progressive inclinations were too jazzy for Claptons’ conservative purism; pop’s glorious cinemascopic beauty seemed too classy for Clapton’s working –class pretensions. Too many times, Clapton took things halfway then abandoned them.

Late in the game, Journeyman was carefully put together by Russ Titlelman to encase Clapton in a song package that made him look like the blues classicist and sophisticated progressive he’s seldom been on his own.

Derek and the Dominoes’ Layla (featuring Clapton, Radle, Bobby Whitlock on keyboards, Jim Gordon on drums and Duane Allman on second guitar) remains a classic album full of energy, but Duane Allman’s contributions would be hard to overestimate. Allman knew how to lighten up Clapton’s stern lead configurations with melody and harmony. He spiced up everything he played on, taking the songs to a new level. Allman, like so many guitarists, played with more complexity (emotionally and musically) than Clapton and with a wider range of approach. He knew how to hang notes, how to coast and burn, stutter and fly. He knew how to play slow. Clapton, when amped up, tends to play in a hurry, passion being suggested, despite his clean tone, by frenzied speed. The results are evident on Derek and the Dominoes’ In Concert, which was recorded without Allman. Like Cream revisited, everybody is pumped up (with who knows what) and roaring aimlessly. Clapton’s style, on this level, is regressively macho. It’s a style that hasn’t aged well.

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