mail: daniel_fjall@hotmail.com
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eric clapton rainbow concert 461 ocean boulevard e.c. was here slowhand august journeyman 24 nights unplugged from the cradle pilgrim me and mr johnson back home
Eric Clapton Released: 1970 Rating: 7/10 Track listing: 1. Slunky/ 2. Bad Boy/ 3. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home/ 4. After Midnight/ 5. Easy Now/ 6. Blues Power/ 7. Bottle of Red Wine/ 8. Lovin’ You, Lovin’ Me/ 9. Told You For The Last Time/ 10. Don’t Know Why/ 11. Let It Rain Clapton is regarded as one of the best guitarists ever, the best in my personal opinion. And my personal opinion is what I’m paying you to read, so stay quiet and read on! Eric Clapton is probably known to the wider audience as a ballad guy with that “Heaven”-song. It’s all true, but the fact remains that once upon a time he was one of the hardest rocking people out there. Even everybody’s favorite Jimi Hendrix had to make a serious effort trying to keep up. Eric had been in quite a few bands since 1965 (Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Blues Breakers, Cream and Blind Faith) and also done some work on the side (Beatles, Delaney & Bonnie, Aretha Franklin among others). He finally decided that it was time for him to be on his own, to front his own band. Which was quite troublesome. He was very shy about his singing and had only sang on a handful of songs previously. Delaney Bramlett tried to help him out, and one day when Eric sat stoned, drunk and depressed Bramlett approached Clapton by saying “You’ve got a gift given by God. If you don’t use it, He will take it away from you”. Clapton was from then on eager to start his singing career. Anyway, this album doesn’t rock out or anything. It’s a decent, solid effort but I think it would have been better without horn sections and loads of backing musicans. Almost every song has something like 20 musicians playing and they create a jazzy, R’n’B feeling with some traces of disco and gospel. The musicianship is very high, but not very exciting. Some of the songs did become hits and some of them are rightfully forgotten. Highlights are most definitively the ballad “Easy Now” and poppy “Let It Rain”. Two numbers that should be considered classics. There are a couple of radio hits too (“After Midnight”, “Blues Power”) and some just plain bad songs. “Lovin’ You, Lovin’” me is probably the worst Clapton song ever. A corny thing that should never have seen the light of day. You can judge that just by looking at the title. Eric Clapton was just the start, there would be greater things to come. The main backing musicians would carry on with Eric to form Derek And The Dominos, but also help George Harrison out with All Things Must Pass.
Rainbow Concert Clapton had spent almost three years sitting round his house doing heroin. Pete Townshend found him by the Thames ready to kill himself. In some way, Pete managed to get Eric away from there. He realized that Clapton had to do something during the days to prevent the depression becoming, if possible, worse. He figured Clapton should get out and play in front of people again! So, he called some friends up to help him with Erics big comback concert. Some of the friends were Ron Wood (from Small Faces, Jeff Beck Group and later a member of the Rolling Stones), Steve Winwood (from Spencer Davies Group, Blind Faith and Traffic) , Jim Capaldi (drummer in Traffic), Rick Grech (bass player in Blind Faith). With a backing band like that it’s quite hard to not pull off a decent show. Eric was nervous and had lost confidence in his playing. He had no reasons to be worried. Yes, the performances are a bit raw and not very polished. Yes, he was in better shape before and after this show, both vocal-wise and guitar-wise. He was still good enough to dazzle his competitors. “Presence of The Lord” features furious guitar runs and the cover of “Little Wing” is beautiful and is one of the few numbers here that surpass the studio version. “Let It Rain” and the Cream-classic “Badge” is also among the highlights. The song selection is not very surprising, with a few exceptions. “Roll It Over” was originally a single released by Derek And The Dominos that was censoured by the radio stations and drawn back within a week after its release. Also get a Traffic number with “Pearly Queen”. The performance is enjoyable but it’s not spectacular. Rainbow Concert could be considered essential for its historical importance, though, and if you’re already a fan you might find some peanuts in what seems like an empty bag. The album originally only had six songs on it, but was re-released in 1995 with eight new tracks.
461 Ocean Boulevard After the Rainbow-show (infact there were two performances) Clapton returned to his home again. Still having drug problems. However, Pete Townshend’s idea had worked. Clapton went to get help with his problems and it was successful. Ignoring the fact he was allowed to drink alcohol and replaced his destructive needs with another one. Still, it was a huge improvement compared to the previous couple of years, and soon he was back in the studio working. 461 Ocean Boulevard was produced by Tom Dowd (who also produced Layla) but it sounds nothing like their previous collaboration. Yet, different isn’t always bad. This album has a laid back groove. It’s slow, shuffling on nicely with main focus on Clapton’s vocals and his rhythm guitar. Everything blends together thanks to a great effort by Jamie Oldaker on the drums who carries the band throughout the album. Another reason for this album being laid back (the negative people would probably choose the word ‘lazy’) is that Clapton no longer plays notes he doesn’t have to. Yes, sometimes he rips it up a bit, but always tasteful and thoughtful. He embraces the “less is more”-attitude perhaps more than ever here. He also choose to play slide guitar and dobro on most of the songs. Often with lovely results. The record isn’t flawless, though. The first side of the album flows by with some highlights (“Motherless Children”) and some tracks you’d wish he left out (“Willie And The Hand Jive”). It has a cover of Bob Marleys “I Shot The Sheriff” which went to #1 on the US-single list (the album too) and helped popularize reggae to the world outside of Jamaica. The true highlight is the slow, stripped down almost gospel-like ballad “Please Give Me Strength”. An honest confession about Erics drughabbits and it is very affecting. That voice to the gorgeous dobro-melody remains today one of the most simple songs he ever did, but also one of his absolute best. The second side of the album is next to perfect. The easy blues beats of “I Can’t Hold Out” starts things off and is followed by a beautiful countrish ballad called “Please Be With Me”. It’s probably my favorite song here, with its tender acoustic guitar playing and fragile vocals. Clapton’s original “Let It Grow” is also one of the best songs he ever came up with. It’s singable, it’s pretty, haunting and the coda is something that McCartney probably would have killed to write. It would have fitted nicely on his Band On The Run-album. Still, it was Clapton who wrote it and I don’t think anyone could have pulled it off any better. “Steady Rollin’ Man” is the obligatory Robert Johnson-cover and it’s more upbeat. It would probably not have sounded out of place on Layla (“Motherless Children” too, if it had some more bite). Things are closed with “Mainline Florida” written by second guitarist George Terry. It has a radiofriendly sound, good guitar riff and again some good singing. In fact, it would take a long time again before Eric would sound as inspired as here. A hit commercially and artistically. The critics and audience wasn’t sure what to think when it was released since it sounds nothing like his other efforts. With time 461 Ocean Boulevard has grown and passed the test. A semi-classic that shines brighter than the most of the Clapton-catalog.
E.C. Was Here By the year of 1975 the critics and Eric's audience had begun wondering if Clapton had lost his guitar-skills during his long absence from the public's eye. He had released two albums, 461 Ocean Boulevard and There's One In Every Crowd, both albums far away from the guitar based bluesrock he had performed with Cream and Blind Faith. To most people, Clapton was no longer God, just another talented guitarist. The record-company released E.C. Was here, a live album, to prove that their boy still could play. It all opens with a very slow, yet very good version of “Have You Ever Loved A Woman”. Eric uses his guitar to do the talking! "Have you ever loved a woman, so much you..." and then there's some great guitar playing replacing the words. Expressing the feeling the words were meant to. Clapton’s playing is rawer and less technical than ever before. For better or worse. There even is some guitar dueling with George Terry. No question who's the best guitarist... Next is a Blind Faith number, “Presence of The Lord”. This is also very laidback, with the exception of that great guitar part in the middle. Eric's voice is very strong and he's sharing vocals with Yvonne Elliman. Now, I have the original vinyl version and on this “Driftin'” is shortened with a fade-out after 3 minutes or so. The complete version is included on the new, re-mastered CD version and also on the box-set "Crossroads II - Live In The Seventies". Eric's playing acoustic and does a great vocal performance, Terry comes up with some electric soloing while Clapton switches his acoustic for an electric. This is when the fade out begins. The first song on side B is another Blind Faith song, “Can't Find My Way Home”, and again Eric's sharing vocals with Elliman. I like this version too, but I still prefer the original studio recording. Back to the blues: ”Rambling On My Mind”. Eric does a great job with this Robert Johnson written song. Starts within the key of E and during the solo the key gets higher all the time, which gives the song a push forward. Last song on the album is an up-tempo shuffle: “Further On Up The Road”. Without a doubt the best version he ever did of it. Superb playing and very good vocals, although Eric mess up the first verse. Instead of singing "Someone's gonna hurt you like you've hurt me", he's singing "You gonna hurt someone like you've hurt me"!. But that just adds to the charm. All the songs can be found on "Crossroads II"-box set, with the exception of Further On Up The Road which is reason enough to try out E.C. Was Here.
Slowhand Slowhand is for some reason called not only a masterful and impressive artistic comeback, but also a classic. My guess is that people just know the three singles and assumes that the rest of the album is just as good. The three singles are the three first songs, so you’re in for a pretty nice and safe start. The rest is... ok. I can see why people dislike it. I can see why people like it. But can’t see how people can love it. “Next Time You See Her”, “We’re All The Way” and “May You Never” are all country pop at mid-speed sung with a tired voice hoarse from all the drinking. “The Core” rocks pretty good compared to it’s surroundings and has some pretty good guitar playing, which is a rare thing for 70’s Clapton. However, “The Core” is also presented as a duet with Marcy Levy. I’m sure Marcy Levy is a great singer, I know she is, but she shouldn’t sing lead rock vocals. She sounds like a school teacher or something. A better version is available on Crossroads II. Then “Peaches And Diesel” close the album at a high note, as it picks up the mess after the boring “Mean Old Frisco”. “Mean Old Frisco” might be Eric’s dullest stab at the blues ever and ranks together with Pilgrim’s “Sick And Tired” as one of the most embarrassing blues moments in his career. Good thing that he totally redeem himself with “Peaches And Diesel”. A lovely George Harrison-inspired instrumental with a nice melody, a lovely guitar tone and generally just feels good. A good ending to the album. Don’t forget that the album starts very strong as well. “Cocaine” is a catchy anti-drug song with a laid back rock feeling, but it sounds like a catchy pro-drug song with a laid back feeling. “Wonderful Tonight” is a song about getting so drunk that you can’t drive home by yourself and “Lay Down Sally” is about the awkwardness that could appear after a one-night-stand. Not too hard to see what went on in Eric’s life at the time. Slowhand was Eric’s last big commercial success until, well, Live Aid which helped him to sell August.
August August is one terrible dated sounding affair, which means awful synthesizers, thin horns, some slap bass (think “Seinfeld”), female backing vocals and of course the snare drum isn’t the prettiest one around. Simply put, every prejudices you might have against 80’s productions is all presented here. According to the artist and the producer, Phil Collins, the Warner Bros is the evil mind behind it. Warner Bros apparently constantly dismissed Clapton’s original compositions as uncommercial, out of date and was looking for something modern and right for the time. If Clapton had been able to do it his way, maybe this album wouldn’t seem so out of date and less generic today. How come record companies always thinks in short terms and fast profits, rather than good quality music? Anyway, it isn’t all bad news. There are actual songs underneath all this mess. They won’t jump at you, but they are there, you just need too look pretty hard. Take the opener for instance, “It’s In The Way That You Use It” (Clapton co-wrote it with The Band’s Robbie Robertson), which is basically a catchy Motown pop number, but is ruined by the 80’s sound and down right ugly synthesizers. There is some nice guitar in the background and Clapton is singing it really well and it makes it listenable. Not all songs here are so good that they can survive the production and if the melody is doubtful, the whole song falls apart. Then it doesn’t matter that Eric’s playing guitar in a way he hasn’t done since the 60’s. It doesn’t matter if Tina Turner is guesting. When it is working, it’s good. “Bad Influence” swings pretty good, in a MOR kind of way. The guitar wailing and the great vocals in the up-tempo “Miss You” shows that Clapton still could nail a good song if he put his mind to it. My favorite song here is probably the extremely affecting ballad, “Holy Mother”. A song Clapton wrote together with Stephen Bishop as a tribute to The Band’s Miguel whom passed away during that period. It has a great melody, great vocals, great guitar and the 80’s crap is kept to a relative minimum. I would suggest that you get the good songs I mentioned on compilations or live videos instead for August. Only for people that for some reason needs a complete Clapton-collection.
Journeyman This was a huge comeback for Eric. Well, obviously I mean artistically, since the god awful August (1986) was is best selling album to date, he had hit singles, making duets with Tina Turner and performing on Live Aid. Only problem was that the music was absolutely shite. Now, with bad guy Phil Collins out of the way, Eric slowly starts finding his way back. You can still tell that the album is a victim of the eighties, but is far from being as overbearing and annoying as his last couple of albums. The production is dated, but at least you can tell that the producer, Ross Titelman, was starting out from the actual songs. Good songs, that needed a modern sound. Not getting the sound first and the songs second hand. Does August ring any bells? One thing that is noticed immediately is that the guitar is back. It’s not like in the old Cream-days, but it’s there and makes the music guitar based and short up to the point solos here and there all over the album. That sort of stuff is always appreciated. Just as his singing just gets better and better. “Hard Times” in particular show cases this. “Hard Times” is a Ray Charles cover. “Running On Faith” is a new song written by some guy called Jerry Williams and the performance is soulful and has a bit of blues feeling to it. What else? “Hound Dog” and “Before You Accuse Me” sees more of Clapton finding his way back to his roots. Away from the beer commercials and the lip singing in bad tv-shows. Back to when the music was the thing that mattered more than anything else. Of course there is always something or someone trying to pull him back into the reality of record sales and hit lists. That’s why stuff like “Breaking Point” and “Anything For Your Love” is here. The two weakest songs on the album. That’s probably why “No Alibis” and “Pretending” is included as well. The two latter songs happens to be enjoyable, though. I guess that’s a big fuck up on the record company’s part. “No Alibis” has the best guitar sound ever, and tasteful licks. Even if you don’t care much for the song itself, you must love the guitar parts. “Pretending” is a little bit weaker, but has potential to turn into a guitar monster live. Which it did. It’s quite ironic, actually that Journeyman signals a return to form and back to the roots earned Clapton his first Grammy award ever. Best rock vocalist! Which is ironic in itself, too. He was never known as a great singer. Anyway, the song “Bad Love” was the one that made the jury give the statue to Eric. It’s somekind of a modern hybrid of “Layla” and “Badge”. Very enjoyable with great guitar. Journeyman is a very good album, but I can see why people have problems with it. I also can see why people like it. It’s not the greatest album ever, but it is important. It pushed Clapton back in the right direction, and made it easier to help him find himself artistically with MTV Unplugged, but most of all, From The Cradle.
24 Nights When signing for Warner Brothers in the 80’s, Clapton agreed to record a double live album. These sessions were taking place at The Royal Albert Hall in London in 1990. Eric put together a four-piece band, playing the rock hits, such as “Sunshine of Your Love” and “White Room”, a nine-piece band, playing the pop, mainly from Journeyman, and a blues-band, with a impressive guest list, Buddy Guy and Jimmy Vaughan among others. There was also some shows performed with a full symphony-orchestra, covering beautiful songs such as “Bell Bottom Blues” and “Hard Times” The four-piece band did the Cream-songs “Badge”, “Sunshine of Your Love” and “White Room”. All of them very well done, even if there isn’t anything particularly exciting about them, except for some nice solos. That’s a valid comment about the 9-piece band as well. It’s clean and nice, but there’s nothing magical. Except for a couple of solos, that is. Especially “Old Love” has a couple of great runs on the fret board. However, “Wonderful Tonight” is very successful and definitely one of the albums highlights. The tempo is much slower than the Slowhand-version, which doesn’t stand a chance against this new version. The blues band is represented by some standard blues tunes that has followed Clapton through his career. “Watch Yourself”, “Worried Life Blues”, “Hoodoo Man” and “Have You Ever Loved A Woman”. The latter might just be the best song of entire album! The song has been featured on many Clapton-albums before, but this is my favorite version. A slow, quiet version with fantastic vocals and superb guitar-performance. The intro starts out quiet, as most of song is, and suddenly during the solos, the song is built up into something else. Something fantastic. Clapton sure knows how to bring life to a slow blues... The orchestra part has three songs and is somewhat underrepresented here. In fact, I think it could have been released as an album on it’s own. Just as the blues-songs surely deserves better than being tucked away like this. I guess we have to put our faith to greedy record companies and hope there will be some kind of box set featuring some out takes. However, the final track is another highlight, the instrumental “Edge of Darkness”, a song that was originally used as the theme for a British TV-serie. To sum things up, 24 Nights is more than a live album acting as a greatest hits-package, as it has artistically interesting ideas. It fails to be the masterpiece it could have been, because of the limited format it is presented in. Maybe a box set with exclusively material from these concerts is too much to ask for, surely the blues and orchestra shows deserves better than this.
Unplugged Clapton did this acoustic gig for MTV, which was one of the first shows in the MTV Unplugged-series. A show that took place when it still was genuine and had a concept. The concept was to rearrange classic songs and personal favorites and perform them intimately in front of a small crowd. Clapton did this, and played with acoustic instruments, something many other acts cheated a little with. He showed his blues roots for the younger people that missed that part of his career. He played the blues for the older people who had forgotten about it. Clapton also sneaked in a couple of songs from his latest album, Journeyman which had been standards during his past tours. Particularly “Old Love” gains from this new stripped down format and features a great solo, which is one of my favorite solos by not only Eric, but by anyone. Clapton also performed a number of new songs. Songs written during his mourning of his son’s passing. “Tears In Heaven”, which we all know, and overplayed as it may be, it is a great song. Another new song that sadly falls in the shadow of the hits is the excellent “Lonely Stranger”. A song in which Eric takes the chance to prove his vocal ability. A pretty interesting fact is that Clapton also performed “My Father’s Eyes” and “Circus” during this concert, two songs that would end up on the sterile Pilgrim six years later. Too bad that they weren’t included here, because bootleg sources witness of emotions that might have been lost in the Pilgrim-versions. Unplugged shows Eric as something else than the emotionless, moneymaking machine of the 80’s. An album filled with joy and love of the music. Filled with grief and sorrow. No matter which, Clapton and the band (keyboardist Chuck Leavell is given most space) puts on a great performance. The album earned Clapton six grammy awards and regained his status as an icon. An album that the artist himself wasn’t sure if it was good enough to release. Sometimes record companies do make good decisions. After the actual show Eric draged his band all the way to Japan to back up George Harrison on his tour, which resulted in another live album.
From The Cradle Thanks to the commercial success of Unplugged, Eric and the record company was confident enough to release a pure blues album. From The Cradle is all covers and whilst some of the songs already have been recorded by endless of different artists, some of them are fairly obscure for a non-blues fanatic. What is notable about the album is that Clapton finally lets his guitar roar for the first time throughout a whole album since the Dominos days. Even if Journeyman featured some fine playing, it was never a guitar album. It was based on the songs, and the guitar solos was merely a bonus within the songs. Songs such as “Five Long Years”, “Someday After Awhile” and “Groaning The Blues” has some of the most furious playing Eric ever did and you begin to wonder why Eric never put out an album like this earlier in his career. He clearly loves this music, his fans loves when Eric plays the blues which means it sells good, which makes the record company happy. From The Cradle might come off as boring and hardly varied for someone whom isn’t a blues lover, but if you know the blues you can tell that there are different approaches on nearly every song. Some acoustic stuff (“Motherless Child”, “Driftin’”), some piano based slower numbers (“Sinner’s Prayer”, “Third Degree”) some stumping, lightweight fun (“I’m Tore Down”, “It Hurts Me Too”) and some more laidback, shuffle (“How Long”). Fans of guitar playing will be happy to hear Clapton embracing different styles such as slide, fingerpicking, dobro and the already furious, almost shockingly playing. Vocally, this is an uneven album. On songs such as “Sinner’s Prayer” and “Driftin’” Clapton shows a clear development and proves himself as a great singer, whilst some of the harder tracks, “Blues Before Sunrise” and “It Hurts Me Too”, are less successful. Partly because he tries to mimic the vocals on the original recording. That is a minor complaint, though. The guitar manages to speak for itself and the band is very competent throughout. From The Cradle is Clapton at his best, but I also think it is his way of saying thank you to all the musicians that inspired him to pick up the guitar in the first place. He gives the old bluesmen some attention, they get some royalty for songwriting credits and maybe, just maybe, some young teenager is curious enough to pick up the original recordings. I think Eric would like that.
Pilgrim It might seem strange. A rating that doesn’t quite match the number of highlighted songs, a rating that doesn’t quite match the general opinion of this universally despised album and certainly not a number of highlighted songs that match the actual highlights. Confusing? Very. See, it all depends on how you listen to the album. Taken song by song, these songs are enjoyable, but it is impossible to listen to Pilgrim from beginning to end. The production is frozenly sterile and bleak, and never very alive. Computer programmed drums, the bass up front in your face and layers and layers of synthesizers making it sound like a techno or modern r’n’b record which is frustrating in the long run. There’s nothing breathing on the album. On the other hand, the cold production matches the depression and hopelessness in the overall excellent lyrics. It might be hard to hear it because of the way they are presented, but the songs here are arguably the strongest set of songs Clapton ever came up with. Also notable is that Eric’s progress as a singer on From The Cradle was not a temporarily strike of luck, as he shows he has grown even more vocally in the three years between the albums. Especially impressive are “She’s Gone”, “One Chance” and the falsetto parts of “Fall Like Rain”. As probably already made clear, this is not a guitar album. However, just because the guitars doesn’t jump at you as on Layla, for instance, it doesn’t mean that there are no guitars at all. In fact there are plenty of guitars here and lots of superb solo playing going on. The only problem is that they’re too low in the mix, too far off in the sound picture, that they come to the rescue too late. Just remember that there are guitars here, don’t be fooled to believe anything else. The guitars, good songwriting and excellent singing doesn’t help, though. The production is too cold, the songs are too long and the album seems endless. If the songs had been presented in a different, more loose and lively way, I am certain Pilgrim’s reputation would have been different. There are good sides and bad sides of this album. It’s up to you to decide what to focus on.
Me And Mr Johnson Clapton returns with a collection of newly recorded Robert Johnson covers. These sort of albums are always hard to judge. There are several things to consider. For instance, the actual performances by the artist, the original artist’s versions as well as if there are any use for the newly recorded tribute. In this particular case, I think there is reasons for a tribute album. Especially since the Johnson recordings has poor sound quality, being recorded in the 30’s, and are presented in such a rough way that it might be hard to appreciate the songwriting. Johnson is a legend and there are other similar tributes available (Peter Green released on a few years back), but as Clapton always has praised his work like no other and been so fascinated it is obvious that he should do it. However, as professional the performance by Eric and his band (featuring Billy Preston and Doyle Bramhall II) may be, it is a little stiff. It seems as they are a little bit too concerned to not do any violent remakes. There are no dramatic re-arrangement such as Cream’s version of “Crossroads” or anything like that. Yet, whilst songs such as “Love In Vain” will be a disappointment, there are moments shining brighter than most of Eric’s previous work since the Dominos-days. Especially the somewhat distorted “Milkcow Calf Blues” and the “Rolling And Tumbling”-inspired arrangement in “If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day” will shake some life into the listener. Songs featuring passionate vocals, great guitar sounds and mean harmonica playing. The little calmer, acoustic “Come On In My Kitchen” also is a clear stand out. The main problem is not the sound or the arrangements in general, but the lack of blistering guitar solos. The guitar sound is amazing throughout the album, but is not given enough space. It’s only “Kind Hearted Woman” (also available in a different live-version on various E.C. compilations) that has some of that Clapton-magic. Comparing this to From The Cradle is inviting and whilst Me And Mr. Johnson has a rougher sound and maybe a little bit more dirt under the nails, it fails to truly challenge the 1994-album. It is good, no doubt about that, but a little disappointing considering its potential and the expectations from fans and blues critics. Far from an embarrassment, but hardly a touch-down, either.
Back Home After a couple of blues albums (Me And Mr. Johnson, Sessions For Robert J.), reviving old Derek And The Dominos songs in concert and reuniting with Cream, expectations on Clapton’s new album were high. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a rocking album in a Led Zeppelin-way, but sure as hell it would be dirty, gritty and better than Reptile, his most recent album with original material. However, married-life and fatherhood furiously kills those hopes. This is without a doubt the exact opposite to Layla And Assorted Love Songs. This is slick r’n’b about your children waking you up in the night and how happy you are watching your wife cleaning the house. “Say What You Will” along with the Boys II Men-sounding ballad “Love Don’t Love Nobody” ranks among Clapton’s worst and most embarrassing moments as a recording artist. Even George Harrison’s “Love Comes To Everyone” is completely ruined. Thankfully Clapton and producer Simon Climie didn’t pick a more classic Harrison track to destroy. Just the thought of having a song like “All Things Must Pass” or “Isn’t It A Pity” trapped in these sterile arrangements is painful. Not all songs are quite that bad, though. The reggae-ish single “Revolution” with great brass sections holds up well against his best material over the last two decades. Also “Going Left” have potential to be a great live number. As presented here, it is slightly too clean, reminding a lot of the Phil Collins-produced August-songs. Although “One Day” is dull as watching dust gather beneath your bed, at least it has some good guitar wanking going on. The acoustic guitar in “One Track Mind” is also on an exceptional level, and despite the slick production, the song itself is strong enough to come across without suffering as much as a lesser song would have done. There’s a lot of contemporary MTV-soul vibes on Back Home. And Clapton doing a soul album sounds great to me, although I wish he’d done it in the style of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett or Ray Charles rather than Alicia Keys.
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