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WELCOME TO SMOKIN' STEVE'S ESSENTIAL CLAPTON
Glad you trust my opinion! I have listened to EC since my high school days... about 13 years now. Whether or not that makes me an expert on EC... I'm not sure about that. Just consider me a buddy who knows a little something on EC. I wrote this for those of you who may have recently been turned on to Eric Clapton. There's a lot of material out there on him. Anyone can tell you to start with the "Crossroads" box sets or his "Best Of" albums such as "Timepieces" and "The Cream Of Clapton" and go from there. Those box sets and compilations are excellent! I would recommend them to any one! I have chosen to go as deep as I can into his album material and to actually tell you which albums are better than others in my humble opinion. I also want to give you a little historical perspective on those albums as to where EC was in his career at that particular time. This might get kind of long... but what the hey! It will be as comprehensive as I can make it so you can go out into the world of Clapton better informed! Let's begin...
THE BEGINNINGS: YARDBIRDS AND BLUESBREAKERS

To truly understand where Eric Clapton is coming from, you need to know where he's been. He was in several bands before he was a solo artist. His first commercial recordings came with The Yardbirds in 1963. This is where we see his blues chops first starting to come out to the world. They put out a few singles at first. A personal favorite is their version of Chuck Berry's "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" with the B side being their version of "I Ain't Got You". You can find these on the first "Crossroads" box set along with a great version they did of John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom".

Where the Yardbirds went wrong is when they decided to go more pop and commercial. Eric wanted them to stay true to the blues. The rest decided they had to make money first, and this led to a single called "For Your Love". I am not a big fan of this song for one reason... it is the song that led to Eric's departure. It is very pop-oriented for those times. It sounds like something from the Beatles. It was the British Revolution at the time that was dominating pop music, and the Yardbirds capitalized on it with some success. Eric wasn't part of that success, though. He decided to leave and take on another project. Interestingly enough, after Eric's departure, the Yardbirds put out an album called "Five Live Yardbirds" in 1965 that is much more blues and R&B influenced. Eric is on the cover and it ws recorded during live shows when he was with the band. It is a good indication of where Eric wanted his early career to go with songs such as Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" and Eddie Boyd's "Five Long Years". If you come across it, go for it.

EC moved on to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. This is pure EC blues at it's best! During this time period, graffiti started popping up all over London saying "Clapton Is God" for his already legendary guitar playing. EC never paid that much attention, but it shows how his playing was getting through to people. There was one album entitled "John Mayall's Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton". Top to bottom, this is a great blues album and a must have if you want early Clapton! My personal favorite song on the album is "Ramblin' On My Mind".
THE PSYCHEDELIC YEARS: CREAM AND BLIND FAITH

Eric had his fill of doing blues cover tunes by this time. He now wanted to move on and become more creative. He met up with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker... and the rest is music history! Cream was formed. It is probably his most well known work aside from his solo stuff. In my opinion, I am not totally in love with his Cream years. I have been burned out by years of airplay of some of their songs. There are gems in there, however. If you want to dive into Cream, I will take the easy route here... get the box set entitled "Cream: Those Were The Days" shown here.

Literally, everything they ever did in the studio is in the first two discs with lots of live material in the second two. Of course, you have the radio warhorses like "White Room", "Sunshine Of Your Love", "Crossroads", "Strange Brew", and "Badge" are present. My personal favorite songs include "Outside Woman Blues", "Swlabr", "Tales Of Brave Ulysses", "Wrapping Paper", and "Anyone For Tennis". Be prepared for some weird lyrics (such as in "Anyone For Tennis" you'll hear "Elephants are dancing on the graves of squealing mice" and in "Swlabr" we hear "But the rainbow has a beard"... they were on something good back then).

After Cream, which Eric later called "a glorious mistake" (his words... no lie), we get into Blind Faith. Cream broke up for many reasons. Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce constantly butting heads didn't help and neither did the drugs. With Blind Faith, we see the marriage of two of the greatest performers Britain had to boast at the time... Clapton and Steve Winwood. Ginger Baker came along with Rick Grech. The word "Supergroup" was used a lot to describe this band. There was a lot of hype and pressure to come out with something good. They did in 1969 with their self-titled "Blind Faith" album shown here.

They caught some flak for the album cover, as you can see why. This album is highly recommended! It shows more of the spiritual side of EC with a song he wrote called "Presence of the Lord", which I love! "Can't Find My Way Home" is probably their best known song, and another favorite.
EC STARTS TO BREAK FREE

Blind Faith didn't last long... one album and one tour. The pressure and the hype got to Eric and the band. They faded away. Eric wound up doing some work with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends. They were a bunch of American musicians who had a more laid back, melodic, and occasionally funky for their time sound. Eric enjoyed it and recorded some tracks with them including "Comin' Home" which is a favorite of mine. It's on the first Crossroads box set. At this time, Delaney Bramlett was convinced Eric could make it as a singer and solo artist. He tried to convince Eric of the same thing. Eric was a little doubtful of his own singing ability, but he agreed to do it with Delaney Bramlett producing. The result is Eric's first solo album in 1970...

This isn't really a good album to judge EC's guitar playing. It's more of Delaney and Bonnie's soul sound rather than EC. Yet, there is some great music in my opinion on this album. The most well known songs are Eric's version of "After Midnight" as well as "Blues Power" and "Let It Rain". An all-time favorite EC song of mine is on here called "Easy Now". It is an acoustic number which shows some nice rhythmic playing as well as some nice easy singing by EC. I also enjoy "Slunky" and "Bottle of Red Wine".
EC'S GREATEST WORK

In my opinion, we now come to his greatest work. Eric wanted to move on to do his own thing. He recruited some of Delaney and Bonnie's musicians to form a band. This could be considered solo work for Clapton, but he decided to name the band in a way that gave him some anonymity. He came up with "Derek and the Dominoes" and it begat "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" in December of 1970.

The story behind this album is the stuff that rock and roll as well as blues is all about! Eric was good friends with George Harrison of the Beatles. George was having problems at the time with his wife, Pattie. Pattie had turned to Eric for support during this time. A funny thing happened... Eric fell wildly in love with Pattie. It's human nature, to me... a beautiful woman looks to you for support, and you give her that support. In that process, it's very easy to fall for her. This album was Eric's love letter to her! All of the songs have something to do with her in a way. The title track, "Layla" is a name from the Tales of the Arabian Knights meant to represent Pattie. The tears drip off of this album at times like a waterfall! Such songs like "Have You Ever Loved A Woman", "Bell Bottom Blues", and "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad" state this rather eloquently! There is great guitar playing by both Eric and Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers. Allman's slide guitar in "Layla" as well as in songs such as "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" is incredible! Top to bottom... this is the ultimate EC album in my mind. I'll put it to you this way...
IF YOU WANT THE ULTIMATE ERIC CLAPTON ALBUM IN YOUR COLLECTION... MAKE IT THIS ONE!!!
I think that's the best way to put it... get the picture?

Derek and the Dominoes would put out a very good live album called "Derek and the Dominoes in Concert" (though I think they're better represented in 1994's "Live At The Fillmore") and start in on a second album as well. The drugs and band pressure got to them as well, and that second album was never finished. Some great songs were in there, and they can be found on the first Crossroads box set, including favorites of mine like "Mean Old Frisco" and "Got To Get Better In A Little While".
EC'S SOLO YEARS... 1974-1985

The years 1970 to 1974 were tough for Eric. Pattie had gone back to George Harrison and Eric was under the grips of heroin. He became a recluse. Not much was heard musically from him during this time. In August of 1971, he did the Concert For Bangladesh for George Harrison, but that's it until 1973. Pete Townshend of the Who was instrumental in trying to get Eric back on stage. He set up what is known as the Rainbow Concert and an album was released from that performance in August of 1973. It is a decent live album which was remastered recently with more tracks added. It helped... soon, Eric took an accupuncture cure for his heroin addiction, and he even won Pattie as well. They were married soon (eventually to divorce... but who wants the sad stuff now?) and Eric was feeling strong. It was time to put together a solo album. "461 Ocean Boulevard" was released in August of 1974.

This is another must have! Excellent singing, writing, and guitar work are evident in this album. "Motherless Children", the first track, is one of his best! "I Shot The Sherriff", "Let It Grow", and "Willie and the Hand Jive" are some well known tracks on this album. I think one of the best songs that you don't hear very often is "Mainline Florida".

I want to give you a list of some albums from this time period I would recommend...

SLOWHAND (1977) - Includes "Cocaine" and "Lay Down Sally" as well as "Wonderful Tonight". I think "The Core" is the best song on this album, though.

BACKLESS (1978) - "Promises" is a great song and probably the most well known. I recommend "Walk Out In The Rain", "Watch Out For Lucy", and "Tulsa Time".

JUST ONE NIGHT (1980) - The best live album he's put out, period! Besides Crossroads 2, of course.

MONEY AND CIGARETTES (1983) - Another great top to bottom album. Most well known song is "I Got A Rock And Roll Heart" which I love. But check out "Ain't Going Down", "The Shape You're In", and "Crosscut Saw".

Other albums from this time period include 1975's "There's One In Every Crowd" and the live "EC Was Here", 1976's "No Reason To Cry", and 1981's "Another Ticket". They all have their plusses as well. The 4 I listed stand out in my mind, though.
EC'S SOLO YEARS... 1985 TO PRESENT

I put the cut off date at 1985 for a reason. It was this year that Eric started to develop a more popular sound from Phil Collins' influence. We hear this influence in the Phil Collins' produced "Behind The Sun".

Much more of a synthesizer, pop influence throughout. There are some great tracks, though. You may know "Forever Man" which became Eric's first music video. I love this song, even though it was never meant to be on the album. The record company made Eric record it before they would release it. When the finished album was brought to Warner Brothers, they didn't think it had enough hits, so they added Forever Man (which got some airplay and chart time) as well as "See What Love Can Do" and "Something's Happening". Those two are decent songs, but I prefer "She's Waiting" along with "Just Like A Prisoner", "Tangled In Love", and the masterful "Same Old Blues" which displays some angry guitar work (literally... it was said that Eric was angry at the band and Phil after an argument and he took it out in the song... INCREDIBLE). I enjoy this album more than the other Phil Collins produced album "August", though that does have some songs I like such as "Miss You", "Holy Mother", "Run", "Tearin' Us Apart", and "Hung Up On Your Love". I will admit, I even like the overplayed "It's In The Way That You Use It".

I think his next album is a masterpiece... "Journeyman".

There are some excellent songs on this album! The two that got the most attention were "Pretending" and "Bad Love". The latter netted him a Grammy as well and both are high-powered rock songs. Other songs you may have heard here and there are "Running On Faith", "No Alibis", and "Before You Accuse Me". I personally love "Old Love", a blues number he does with Robert Cray. He also does great covers of Ray Charles' "Hard Times" and Lieber and Stoller's "Hound Dog" (he covers the original version... not Elvis').

After that, we hear from EC on his live double album "24 Nights". It's a good piece of work broken up into 4 segments. The first segment is to represent his band as a quartet, the second is straight blues, the third is his full band, and the 4th (and I think the best) is his band backed by a full orchestra. I recommend it.

The "Unplugged" album in 1992 is a benchmark in his career.

It is his most commercially successful and it is the time when he practically swept the Grammy awards. This album is most well known for "Tears In Heaven" written for his son Conor who died tragically in 1991 (also recorded for the soundtrack to the movie "Rush") and for the acoustic version of "Layla". I personally love it for songs such as "Signe", "Rollin' and Tumblin'", "Alberta", and a song that I think is a hidden gem also written for his son "Lonely Stranger".

I also love his all blues album, "From The Cradle" in 1994.

The most well known track is "Motherless Child" which is excellent. But pay particular attention to "Five Long Years" and "Standin' Round Cryin'" which are my favorites. Top to bottom, though, a great album!

Of course, this brings me to "Pilgrim", his release from 1998.

This is a unique album. I have reviewed this album in my site. I love it, though it is not for every EC fan. Some of the more rock-oriented of EC fans dismiss this as being too poppy and synthesized. I think that beyond all that is some of Eric's most heartfelt writing and guitar playing. "My Father's Eyes" has been all over the radio, and I love the song. I also love the rockin' feel of "She's Gone" as well as the despair-filled "River Of Tears". Other recommended tracks are another one for his son entitled "Circus", "Sick and Tired" which is a raw blues number, "Born In Time" written by Bob Dylan, and "One Chance" which has a slick soul feel.
I hope this tour through EC's career has helped you. HAPPY EC HUNTING!
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