Of Discovery, Religion & God

There were a few artistes whom I had been following since my late high school years into college. I had heard all the studio albums released by Pink Floyd and Dire Straits before I entered college and it was something I was quite proud of. I was a snoot in choices of music, and now looking back, I feel I took an overt pride in the fact that I liked Rock music, and that I had heard a 'lotta shit'. In college I continued to blast the same music from my room for an entire year. I was a rocker (bloody psuedo fuck if you ask me now...but I was only 18) and swore by the abovementioned, Pearl Jam (I still dig PJ), Oasis and REM.

Sometime in my second year I got my hands on the 4 disc Crossroads Compilation of Eric Clapton's studio work over the years. I don't exactly remember why I actually played it but I guess it was because of a friend who insisted upon making me listen to "real music". Since then I've heard that compilation enough number times to have memorised even the order of songs in each disc - my favourite is Disc 3 - and have gone out of my way to collate as much of Clapton as I could. It was the first time I'd heard the blues. It was love at first sound.

The funny thing about Clapton, which is something you don't realise when you start listening to him, is that most of his stuff that blows your mind isn't really written by him. Eric Clapton, contrary to popular opinion, did not start out aiming be a fullblown rockstar. Eric Clapton was a guitar player. According to him, he wanted to be like Buddy Guy. He wanted to play the blues like a maestro, like a demon possessing the souls of all and sundry before him. I think he succeeded. Perhaps too soon in his life. However, over the years I have grown from Clapton's music and have discovered all that I listen to now. It was that compilation that led me to artists like Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson (whom Clapton considered to be his guru - Clapton has a Robert Johnson cover in every album of his - his most famous number Crossroads is his version of the Cross Road Blues by Johnson) and eventually my personal guitar hero Stevie Ray Vaughan. Thus for me listening to Eric Clapton was like an introduction to a form of music that has grown like a cancer within me and now has complete control over my senses and my life. If I had to profess a faith I would call it music - blues specifically - and Eric Clapton would be my oldest God, the patron saint of the blues.

Recently I came across an interview of Clapton's from 1974 that revealed another side to the man who was once touted all over the Islington subways as God. A side that got me interested in his life and career. A side that showed me an emotional, honest, passionated and maybe slightly daft guy who was aware of the tremendous talent bestowed upon him by the heavens, and who understood its value enough to have still kept himself alive. Something that most of his contemporaries and even guitarists after him haven't been able to do.

Eric Clapton started his career in a British band called Rooster which also had Brian Jones on rhythm guitars, and he would often sing in place of friend Mick Jagger on the side - when Jagger would be too high to sing - at a club called The Firehouse . I do not think they ever recorded for I haven't been able to get my hands on any of their music. However, Rooster soon split with Jones joining forces with Mick and Keith Richards to form the legendary Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton joining a blues influenced rock n' roll band called The Yardbirds. His stint with the Yardbirds gained him recognition as a blues guitarist in the British underground in the 60s. However, The Yardbirds were looking to break into the charts and thus were looking to record more pop numbers, moving away from the blues. Clapton, then 18, couldn't care less about the charts. The first pop number recorded by The Yardbirds - For Your Love - was also the last number recorded by Clapton for them. According to him, he wanted to play the blues, and he wanted to know the blues. So after The Yardbirds, Clapton became a construction worker for a while till John Mayall found him and inducted him into the Bluesbreakers. He would also play in a band called The Glands in Greece for a while, before returning to England and The Bluesbreakers to cut his solitary record with them. It was his stint with The Bluesbreakers that gained him recognition all over his homeland as the 'best blues guitarist in the Brit club circuit'.

However, he still hadn't recorded the stuff that his legend is made of. In 1966 Clapton formed the earliest power trio rock-blues band, modelled after Buddy Guy's trio, alongside the phenomenally talented Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Below is Cream (from left : Eric, Ginger and Jack).

Cream is arguably the most influential rock-blues band in the history of Rock n Roll. They released 4 studio albums and in them they created the kind of power blues that would go on and influence the creation of rock trios like The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Beck, Bogart and Appice (BBA). While Clapton did sing on a few numbers, it was Jack Bruce who handled most of the vocal work and songwriting for the band.
Personally I feel they were the most creative and individually talented outfit of musicians to have ever come together. In the long run their onstage talent was probably rivalled only by Led Zeppelin, and their creativity by Jethro Tull. Still the work they did in the 4 albums remains unparralled in my opinion. Especially their live recordings. I also possess a 4 cd Cream Compilation (Those Were The Days) of which 2 consist their live recordings. I think the stuff they have on those 2 cds, should be made a compulsory part of music lessons in every high school that imparts music lessons (mine did...they never played us Cream though, fucking idiots).

Cream reached dizzying heights of fame and fortune. They became the biggest band of their time and Eric Clapton was at the peak of his career. In fact when Chaz Chandler, Jimi Hendrix's manager, offered to take Jimi to England and get him a band, all Jimi asked was, "will you introduce me to Eric Clapton?"

Fame came with its price. 2 years into the band Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce were reportedly at loggerheads with each other more often than not. Clapton on his part was getting disillusioned as a musician. He wasn't singing as much as he would've liked. But more importantly he felt that as a band they were performing "absolute rubbish" at their live gigs and the fans were still going wild. He is said to have purposely stopped playing in the middle of a gig to note his band's reaction. To his surprise neither Baker nor Bruce realised he had stopped and continued playing on their own. To add to this Clapton was now listening to more voice driven soul music. In his interviews he mentions listening to Stevie Wonder the most during his final Cream days, in fact he co-wrote Badge with George Harrision in his last album with cream, minus any over the top guitaring because thats what he was aiming to move away from.

Cream eventually disbanded in 1968, and Clapton moved through several acts in rapid succession. He formed Blind Faith first alongside Baker, Steve Winwood and Rick Grech. It bombed. On being asked the reasons for its failure, Clapton said, "Our first live gig was before an audience 36000 strong. We couldn't handle it". He literally fled the arena with their opening act Delaney, Bonnie and Friends. Clapton had found this husband-wife soul outfit singing at a pub with no one listening to them. He liked them and invited them to open for Blind Faith. He toured with them as an additional guitar player for a while before stealing their rhythm section to go on to form Derek and the Dominos with whom he would release his ballad filled megahit album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. It was during his tour of America with the Dominos that he met Duane Allman and invited him over to record with the Dominos. Duane Allman is found playing the slide guitar on 5 tracks in the album.

This album marks the end of the Clapton I worshipped and who led me to the kind of music and musicians I have now come to follow. Clapton would go on to become an immensely successul solo artist who played every kind of music that ever turned him on, without the fear of not being accepted or failing commercially. It was his art that was the only thing holy to him. Clapton would much later cover I shot the sherriff which would introduce reggae and Bob Marley to a global audience. In the 80s he started patronising the annual Crossroads Guitar Festival where he brought his teenage hero Buddy Guy to the world. Most of the Buddy Guy electric guitar albums available in music stores today have been recorded in the 80s even though he's been a recording artist since 1958. Clapton would also discover Stevie Ray Vaughan on the radio while driving his Cadillac, and bring him to the notice of the world.

To me Eric Clapton has been a sort of personal preacher/guru. His work introduced me to the music I listen to which in turn influences the way I choose to live and behave. Further he has influenced multitudes of guitar players I like including the likes of erstwhile blues artists such as Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt and John Mayer. Also if it hadn't been for Clapton we would've probably never have known Stevie Ray Vaughan.

If I did believe in God I have a feeling he'd look like this.

A true blues spirit. May the legend of Slowhand live on forever. Atleast till I get to meet him. I don't know what I would say when I do meet him (and I will...before he dies on me) but I guess I will say Thank You to him, amongst everything that I might blurt out. A big fat Thank You for all the music Sir Eric. God of Guitar.