Eric Clapton and his music

2SergeK:

>2john lee hooker:
>>Ну вот :(((((((((((((
>НЕ НАДО!
ПонЯл..неудачно пошутил...похоже, совсем здеся "Шашки из ножен выдыргындын"...
Ктса, Сергей где-то нашел фотку Эрика в туровой майке Стонес за 89-90 гг. Ну...которая попала на австралийский бутлег...помните? Ща поищу...

вот она, кач-во отвратительное...На обложе был он один без Кифа...

2Gene:
>Лишний раз подтверждает, насколько важно знать background.
Тогда я вернусь к своему начинанию, о постинге интервьюшек...
The Rolling Stone
Interview
(RS 165)
July 18, 1974

By Steve Turner

LONDON -- Robert Stigwood, his manager, put it about as simply and as playfully as it could be put, after a celebration party in

April: "Old Slowhand is back."

Eric Clapton, who had been called everything from good to God during a roller-coaster ride as one of rock's leading guitar players of the Sixties, was emerging from the mire of three years of silence punctuated only by two benefit concert appearances and rumors of heroin addiction. Now, with a new album, 461 Ocean Boulevard due for release this month, and a 23-date U.S. tour underway, Clapton has returned.

"Slowhand" was the ironic nickname for Clapton, who is 29, when his style -- fluid, creative blues phrases -- came to general attention in 1964 with the Yardbirds. Rock criticism crackled with the notion that a pioneer stylist had been spawned, and waited, often in awe, for him to fulfill the potential.

He left the Yardbirds in 1965, spurning the group's turn from blues to commercial rock, and put in two years as lead guitar with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, a period that saw him and his audience hewing a tight line as "blues purists." By1967, though, the form, as expressed by the Bluesbreakers, had become too rigid, and he left to form, with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, the seminal power trio, Cream.

The group exploded with such force -- sheer loudness and solo extrapolation within a theme being its innovations -- that some saw it (as some still do) as the be-all and end-all of rock. The group disbanded in 1969, after four gold albums and a triumphant "goodbye" tour -- again because Clapton sensed his playing becoming clinched. Clapton fanatics waited in salivation for his next move.

What followed, though, was Blind Faith (Clapton, Baker, Rick Grech and Steve Winwood) -- a supergroup adventure that quickly was written off by both the performers and the audience as a media hype.

Clapton came right back, touring and recording with Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett in 1970, using the same loose group of "friends" for an Eric Clapton album, and picking three of them -- Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock and Bobby Keys --for Derek and the Dominos.

Along with Duane Allman, they cut an album in Miami in 1970, then, without Allman, toured in 1971. Like Cream, Derek and the Dominos convinced a sizeable audience -- both critical and popular -- that it finally had heard what music was all about.

Throughout the high-energy thrust of those years, Clapton was acclaimed in quarters large and small. Melody Maker's "World's Top Musician" in 1969. Guitar Player's "Best Guitar Player in the World" in 1970. He was known as "King of the Blues Guitarists," and the New Music Express said of his work with Cream, "the kind of guitar playing upon which legends are built." The topper, though, appeared in a subway station in 1965, and spread over the walls of London: "Clapton is God."

Behind the sensations and the obvious success, Clapton was a shy ("painfully," some said) and humble (so said many reporters) personality. He confined his excesses -- minor league destructo pranks like pouring Pete Townshend into an egg-and-flour pudding concocted in a shower stall -- to friends and other musicians. He was, outside his music, pretty much anonymous.

Then, following the Derek and the Dominos tour, he disappeared, playing only at the Concert for Bangla Desh in 1971 and the Rainbow Concert in London in 1973. His absence spawned rumors -- that he was dead -- and in the necro-gossipy atmosphere following the deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, he was one of rock's stars accorded the bizarre title, "most likely to die next."

For a three-year period Clapton was silent, playing no new music outside his home, granting no interviews, ducking reporters. Now, comfortable enough that he brought up the subject of addiction himself, he has reemerged. We met through a mutual friend, near the end of February.

The interview was conducted in four sessions, the first three of which took place while he was undergoing electroacupuncture treatment (a method developed in China and only recently introduced in the West) for heroin addiction. He was despondent at first, speaking of "the waste of the last three years" and saying he couldn't see a glimmer of hope for the future. "I still feel that to be a junkie is to be a part of a very elite club," he said. "I've also got this death wish. I don't like life. That's another reason for taking heroin, because it's like surrounding yourself in pink cotton wool. Nothing bothers you whatsoever, man. Nothing will phase you out in any way."

The treatment completed, Clapton went to Wales, where he worked on a farm for a short time. He then returned to his country home in Surrey, and within three weeks had made the decision to record and tour. On April 10th, Stigwood threw the celebration party for him in London, and a few days later Clapton was off to Miami to record 461 Ocean Boulevard.

The final interview took place at Surrey, after his return to England in May. He was relaxed and confident, eager to get on with the tour, pleased with the album, and downright disinterested in dope.

Why the three-year layoff?

I'd overexposed myself. I'd worked so hard and played in front of so many people that it frightened me into hiding for a bit. And I think it's probably going to happen again. I'll go out and work and play for three years I'll go and hibernate somewhere else! You can't keep at it all the time, I'm sure of that.

So how've you been spending your time?

Hibernating! I played a lot. I played here at home probably more than I do now but without really getting anything done. Just keeping my hand in.

Were you writing at all?

Sometimes, but most of the stuff I did in that period was so gloomy that I wouldn't use it now. Also, when you sit and play on your own you write on an acoustic guitar and so if you try and place it in the context of a band it doesn't mean a thing. You have to change it around to suit the sound of the group.

Was there any outside pressure put on you to play again?

No, none whatsoever. I mean, I was the one who put pressure on myself in the end. It just got to the point where in order to live in the manner I was living in I was going to have to start selling carsand guitars and stuff like that because I wasrunning out of money very fast. And I just thought, well, if I'm going to have to start doing that then it's all wrong, because the minute you start you'll sell everything in a week and then you'll go out and start stealing things.

So you really reached a crisis point?

Yeh.

Because another part of your problem was that the naughty powder was eating up your money as well, wasn't it?

Yeh. I mean, it's expensive. It's very expensive to live like that.

So it was destroying you both creatively and financially...really pushing you onto the ledge?

Yeh, and it takes away your freedom because you can't go anywhere without having to set up another rendezvous. It's not the way to live.

Did you end up hating it?

The naughty powder itself? I don't think it's that. It's not what you take, it's what makes you take it -- and I hated that. If I see other people now in that condition, I really get the horrors. I mean, it makes you look so ugly. It really does.

To get down to specifics -- it's been because you've now come off the stuff that you've been able to get together, go back on the rod and record -- right?

I couldn't have done it with...I couldn't have done both. And I know it was probably something I had to go through. If I had the opportunity to change it all again I'd probably leave it as it is because perhaps it took that to get me back on my feet again. You can't go up without coming down.

Is it still a struggle?

Yeh. It's not a struggle to avoid getting hooked on anything again -- it's just a struggle to please all the people that you want to please. That's always a struggle. I think it's fatal though, to announce that you've reformed and that you're never going to go back again. The thing about being a musician is that it's a hard life and I know that the minute I get on the road I'm going to be doing all kinds of crazy stuff. It's just that kind of life.

How did it feel when you knew people were saying "Eric Clapton's a junkie"?

It bothered me in a way because at the time I didn't want to be found out. I wanted to keep it a secret. But the thing is, the minute you try to keep a secret, everyone knows it already! But if I come across someone these days who looks like they're on it, I get very pissed off and I don't want to talk to them unless they'll listen. And I know they won't -- because I didn't!

Is it difficult for you to come out like this and declare your problem?

Yeh, because I still don't believe it was the powder. It was just a weakness on my part to face myself.

What did you think of people on H before you got involved?

I used to think they were cunts. Why waste your time? Why waste your life? And then I had my first taste and thought, oh, you know, one snort can't do me any harm. But...dead wrong! Wrong again! After the first time I suddenly understood why junkies were junkies. When I took my first taste and got my first high, then I understood everything immediately -- why they do it, why they smash drugstores to get it, why they mug people to score...

So is heroin the reason there haven't been any interviews?

I was frightened -- really! I felt I had nothing to say and if you've got nothing to say then it's better not to say anything at all. I find it hard doing interviews even now because I still don't think I've got that much to say about the music. I mean, I'll talk about anything you like, but for some reason I find it very difficult to talk about music. I can talk about the reasons for it and the methods of doing it. Also, when you're on H the last thing you want is to be bothered by people. A telephone ringing or the doorbell drives you up the wall.

Have you been at all conscious of building up a mystique?

Only when people tell me I have. I mean, I got that from Robert (Stigwood), my manager. He said that because I hadn't played for three years, and hadn't really appeared except for the Bangla and Rainbow gigs, that I was therefore much more saleable and my market had gone up and such like. But, you know, I'll believe it when I see it. Perhaps it's true.

I went up to Wales and stayed up there for a while and did some farming. Then I came back here and within a week I was off to the States to record. It was just a question of saying, "Look, Robert, I want to work." And he says, OK, you're going to work now...hard!" I like that kind of option because it doesn't give me time to sit around and think about it and have doubts. I just have to do it. I arrived in Miami without anything besides a couple of acoustic things I wanted to do. As far as making an electric album, I had no idea! So we just built it there and then.

You literally wrote it in the studio?

Yeh. It was time-consuming for the other musicians and for the engineers and all that but they got into the swing of it in the end and everyone was sharing the load.

What musicians were you using?

I used Carl (Radle) and a couple of mates of his from Tulsa -- Jamie (Oldaker) plays drums and Dr. Dick Simms is on organ, and they're the sort of nucleus of the band. Then we've got Yvonne Elliman who'd be playing either acoustic or electric guitar an d singing and George Terry, a guy I met in Miami, who plays guitar, writes and does good vocal harmonies. Sort of a six-piece.

When did you decide on the lineup?

It was just a question of first come, first served. People who wanted to play on the album did start showing up as well as some who just wanted to play. Like Steve Stills showed up and was just a bit too late because we'd already settled into our groove and anyone else added would have been a diversion. We did about three weeks' recording, and the first two weeks, whoever happened to be in the studio at the time was on the sessions, you know. After that we got into a groove and stayed there.

Why did you choose Yvonne Elliman? Because of her work in "Jesus Christ Superstar"?

Because she was there. I didn't choose her, I just let her sing on the album because I wanted to hear a female voice. I hadn't sung with a girl before, actually, and it was quite a turn-on.

You believe in chance quite a bit then?

Yeh. That's my faith. Uncertainty, not knowing what's coming next. That's really my faith. I don't want to know -- I just want it to be now and happening. It's very hard to be that way because I've already prearranged the fact that, OK, they were the people that were on the album and now I've arranged for them all to be in Barbados for the rehearsals. Whereas if I'm actually living on the edge properly, I just say, "OK. See you around sometime," and turn up in Barbados and probably play with the housemaid and whoever. Really that's what it should be. But it's hard to live like that.

How much material did you record?

About 30 tracks. We just went in and did as many as we could. We could have booked the studios for 24 hours a day but the routine was days of sunshine and evenings of recording.

How many songs did you attempt to record each session?

We'd try and get three out but would be happy with two. What we'd do is we'd walk in and jam and then we'd listen to it back and write the song. You know, pick out a riff, or part of the jam that was good, and then write a song with it. We really got it going in the end. A lot of the stuff that we did like that didn't get used, though. Probably 75% of what we recorded was other people's songs which I'd always wanted to do. You know, I always put one Robert Johnson song on my albums because he was my guru, or is my guru, or something. A lot of the best stuff didn't go on the album because we just thought it was too laid back.

How did you go about choosing the material which wasn't self-written?

Well, they're just things that I've known for a long time. Songs that I've always liked and that creep back into my memory. I just wanted to get them off my chest.

You say that you expect people to be surprised with the album?

You see, I let Tom Dowd produce the album and the groove we got into was getting so laid back, so quiet and delicate, that I just thought -- no, they won't want to hear it. Because there were lots of mistakes in it, and yet the feel was so good. But then Tom thought it would be better to combine, you know, have some of that and also some of the heavier stuff. And he's right, in a way.

Do you have some conception of what people want to hear from you then?

Yeh...and I know they're not going to get it! I know they want me to go on and, you know, try and blow everyone offstage with lead guitar but they're not going to get that. I mean, they'll get a bit of that because I'm inclined that way. I do like to have a bit of a blow now and then. But it's not fair on the band that way and I really like to maintain a sort of sharing of the responsibility with the group, you know. I found that with the Dominos we just got into a thing where they once again became a backup band.

Do you think the fastest-guitar-in-the-west syndrome has now burned itself out?

As far as I'm concerned, it has, yeh. It doesn't seem to as far as the market is concerned, though. The market still wants more and more of that but it really bores me to tears to hear people play that way. My driving philosophy about making music is that you can reduce it all down to one note if that note is played with the right kind of sincerity. I'd love to knock an audience cold with one note but what do you do for the rest of the evening?

Is it still your ambition, as you once said it was, to make an audience cry with a single note?

Yeh, I think so. You see, it happens to me all the time. I put a record on the record player and just hearing Stevie Wonder sing, you know, "Bridge over Troubled Water" or something like that, would, if I'm alone, make me cry. Literally just weep. But you see you've got to be an aficionado in the first place for that to happen, so it's very difficult. Like I've said before, it's an ability which only very few musicians have of producing one note in a certain context in the middle of a solo -- just one note or one lick that can make an audience en masse quiver with emotion.

How was it that you came to play guitar in the first place?

It was a very indirect process. I had one bought for me, gave up very quickly, and then I sort of picked it up a few years later when I had nothing else to turn to. I literally had to make money with it in order to buy a drink and have a sandwich in the pub. I think that's a pretty good incentive, actually. It's when you start making so much money that you don't need to go out to work and play to live that it becomes bad. That was another of the reasons for me laying off. I just knew that there was no necessity for me to go and play in front of an audience, except to please them. That's not right because then you start worrying about whether you're going to please them or not.

Did the money you earned in turn deprive you of having the blues then?

Yeh. You can't play the blues on a full stomach, can you? My attitude to money is that I don't carry it on me and if it's given to me I throw it away on the first nonsense I can buy, because if you get more than you need it burns a hole in your pocket.

You've been quoted as saying that you can't play guitar.

I still can't, you know. If I was to pick up a guitar now I'd have to relearn everything I'd ever played. Of course I can remember the chord structures but what I'm talking about is creative guitar playing -- picking up the guitar and playing something I've never played before.

Were you at all surprised to find yourself rated top guitarist in various musical polls?

Yeh, I was, really, because I didn't think I was. I think I'm probably the 50th if anything.

So who would you shuffle about in the top five?

That's a very difficult question...B. B. King, Joe Walsh, Pete Townshend, George Harrison -- his slide playing. Do you mean musicians that are still living, because there's Duane Allman, Jimi Hendrix...

Did you really relate to Hendrix?

Oh, I loved him. There will never be another Jimi Hendrix. He was the best. When he died I went out in the garden and cried all day because he'd left me behind. Not because he'd gone, but because he hadn't taken me with him. It just made me so fucking angry. I wasn't sad, I was just pissed off.

You told me before that you need an irritant in order to create. Have you still got that?

The irritant now is just getting the band together, you know, and being the leader of the band. That's pretty irritating, I can tell you! Because the minute they know you're the leader you get all their complaints and hassles, you know. That's my blues at the moment.

How're you going out this time around?

Just "Eric Clapton and his band."

Are you looking forward to returning to the road?

Oh yeh. I've been sitting around here for a week now and I'm getting really edgy, bored. Because for those three weeks in Miami it just cooked so fast and so strong we should have perhaps gone straight to a gig from there instead of taking a pause. But I'm sure we'll pick up the threads.

Were you surprised to get things going so quickly in Miami?

Yeh, yeh. I was very worried when I got there. I had the panics. It took me a couple of days just to learn to create from nothing -- to groove on whatever was happening, and then it was all right. But I always get that when I sit down and think about something. I've got it now about the tour to a certain extent. Whether or not we can get all the people to come and see us, that kind of thing, which is so silly, really. It's only when you sit down and worry about it that you ever think about it at all.

You say you always needed pain to create and yet you enjoyed heroin because it took away the pain. How do you explain that one?

I mean, I enjoy the pain in a way because I know I can make use of it if I don't tamper with it. You can take away the pain in a way by playing the guitar, just making music and seeing people enjoying themselves on it. The thing that knocked me out most of all about getting off was the fact that I could feel again, you know. I don't care where I'm going, up or down, or whatever they do to me, as long as they let me keep my feelings.

Did you feel they'd been excluded?

Yeh, well, I'd done that to myself, you see. Because at the time we were doing "Layla," my feelings were so intense that I just couldn't handle it. So that's why I started to cancel them out and that in turn becomes the pain. People used to come around here and try and shake me off by the scruff of the neck and say come on, get out, come with me. I mean, people even considered kidnapping me and taking me somewhere where I'd have to get myself together. And like that's the pain, the fact that afterwards you realize all the people you hurt by doing that.

So it was the crisis that happened around "Layla" time that sent you into it?

Yeh. There were quite a lot of factors involved. Also, I mean, I used to go on about how I wanted to have a voice like Ray Charles and everyone had said that he was one of those, that he had that problem, and that's why he sang like that. Now I know that that is utter bullshit. I've got the first album that he made and his voice there was unbelievable, you know, and it's just got nothing to do with what you take or what you put in your bloodstream.

Whose music turns you on now?

Whenever I put my new album on and start to think it sounds great, I always put Stevie Wonder on afterwards just to get pulled down again! He's the one for me. I think he's got it well covered. I think when it comes down to it, I always go for singers. I don't buy an album because I like the lead guitar. I always like the human voice most of all.

What's your domestic background?

I was semi-adopted. I was brought up by my grandparents because my mother went away when I was very young and got married to someone. So I've got a stepfather but I don't see them because they've got a family themselves and they live in Canada. From there I just grew up in all the local schools around Ripley in Surrey and went to art school (Kingston Art College).

What sort of kid were you at school?

I was the one that used to get stones thrown at me because I was so thin and couldn't do physical training very well! One of those types. I was always the seven-stone (98-pound) weakling. I used to hang out with three or four other kids who were all on that same kind of predicament. The outcasts. They used to call us the loonies.

What effect did that have on you?

It was quite nice in a way because we started up a little clique. Although we were underprivileged, we were the first ones to get Buddy Holly records and things like that. I mean, we were considered freaks because of things like that.

What happened at art school?

I played records in the lunch break most of the time! That's also where I started to play guitar and began listening to blues records all the time.

Who in particular?

Muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonzy...I could go on for hours. There's no point. Just the blues.

How did you get to hear these records in the first place?

I think they used to play a couple of them on the radio. It's unbelievable that things like that were getting through but they were. Chuck Berry was getting played and I definitely heard Big Bill Broonzy records on the radio. And Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. I used to get catches of these things which sounded much better than Jimmy Young. Max Bygraves and Frankie Vaughn to me. So I started looking around and buying them. I still started out by liking Holly and Berry and people like that who were the first things I ever bought, but then I'd read things on the back of album covers like, "rock'n'roll has its roots in blues," and stuff like that. And so I thought, what's that all about? I'll have to find out.

How were you performing at this point?

Casually. I wasn't professional, didn't have a band. I was just a blues aficionado with a guitar attempting to sing. When Mick [Jagger] got a sore throat I used to get up and dep. for him at the Ealing club.

Were the old days "good" old days?

Of course. Yeh, lovely times. Probably because it was another clique thing. We felt honored to be members of this sort of club of people who just liked rhythm and blues records. It was like security in a way, and it was nice...I feel much more alone these days. Whatever I've got to achieve, I've got to achieve on my own. In the old days it seemed that there was always a crowd you hung out with.

What happened after that?

I bummed around for a bit. I tried busking around Kingston and Richmond and of course it was the beat scene then so if you sat in a pub and played "San Francisco Bay Blues" and stuff like that, you'd get a drink and a sandwich and perhaps even somewhere to sleep for the night. Then my mum and dad, that's to say my grandparents, were getting a bit pissed off because I obviously wasn't making a name for myself in their eyes, so I went to work with my old man on the building site for a couple of months. And that was good fun. At the same time, I was playing clubs in the evenings with a band called the Roosters. Brian Jones and Paul Jones were in the band before me but they'd both gone their separate ways -- Paul with Manfred Mann and Brian with the Stones.

Did Casey Jones and the Engineers come next?

Oh dear! Yeh. Didn't last long though. But it got my chops together. It was all good experience. The Mersey thing was just happening and to be in a group like Casey Jones and the Engineers, I mean, you got a few good gigs just because he was a Liverpudlian.

Were you an original member of the Yardbirds?

No. They'd already been going a couple of months and they'd had a lead guitarist who'd quit, or they'd chucked him out, and just by word of mouth I got the job. Then they wanted to make a hit record and I wasn't ready for that at the time. I probably never have been unless it's on my terms. But they thought that if they changed what they wore and did more Top 40-type material they would get a hit record, and that's just exactly when I left them. I played on the record ["For Your Love"/"Got To Hurry"], it was OK, but I could see it was a pop tune written for the purpose of getting into the charts and nothing else. I think I left after the session. I was only out of work for a couple of weeks, though, and then John Mayall called me up and said, would I like to be in his band, and that suited me fine because it was a blues band and I was going through my purist number then. So it suited me down to the ground. For me, in those days, blues was the only kind of music and I didn't like anything else.

When you left Mayall to form Cream were you at all influenced by Jimi Hendrix's Experience?

No. We'd been going about two weeks when he came to England. I remember Chas [Chandler] brought him to one of our gigs. We were playing somewhere in London and we jammed and I thought. My god! I couldn't believe it! It really blew my mind. Totally. And then he got a three-piece together.

How did all this affect your music?

It opened it up a lot because I was still at that time pretty uptight by the fact that we weren't playing 100% blues numbers, and to see Jimi play that way I just thought, Wow! That's all right with me! It just sort of opened my mind up to listening to a lot of other things and playing a lot of other things. Jimi and I always had a friendship from a distance because we never really spent a lot of time together -- only during the acid period I used to see him a lot. Occasionally we'd spend time alone together just raving about, but, I mean, it was always a distant friendship. Playing together was something else.

How early on in Cream's existence were you dissatisfied?

After the Fillmore [1967] we did a tour that went on for five months -- one-nighters. That did me in completely. I just experimented one night -- I stopped playing halfway through a number and the other two didn't notice, you know! I just stood there and watched and they carried on playing 'til the end of the number. I thought, well fuck that, you know! You see, Cream was originally meant to be a blues trio, like Buddy Guy with a rhythm section. I wanted to be Buddy Guy, the guitarist with a good rhythm section.

What sort of gigs did you intend to play?

Small clubs. We didn't want to be big in any way.

When did you realize things weren't turning out this way?

The Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival 1966, which was almost our first gig. We found that we ran out of numbers so quickly that we just had to improvise. So we just made up 12-bar blues and that became Cream. That became what we were known for. I liked it up to a point, but it wasn't what I wanted.

Why did you release "Wrapping Paper" as your first single when it was so un-Cream and unblues?

Well, another idea we had with Cream was to be totally dada and have weird things onstage and stuff like that. It never really happened but "Wrapping Paper," I suppose, was part of that kind of attitude. You know -- put out something weird! We did one gig at the Marquee where we had a gorilla onstage and stuff like that -- dry ice, freaky things. No meaning, no purpose...just lunacy!

Do you think press reaction affected Cream in the end?

Do you really want me to bring that up? You see, there was a constant battle between Jack and Ginger because they loved one another's playing but couldn't stand one another's sight. I was the mediator and I was getting tired of that and then this ROLLING STONE [No. 10, May 11th, 1968] came out with an interview with me boosting my ego followed on the next page by a concert review deflating it, calling me "the master of the clichй," which knocked me out cold. At that point in time I decided that I was leaving Cream. Also, another interesting factor was that I got the tapes of Music from Big Pink and I thought, well, this is what I want to play -- not extended solos and maestro bullshit but just good funky songs. The combination of the ROLLING STONE thing and hearing Big Pink decided for me that I was going to split Cream.

What about the fact that, as you've already told me, the audiences were responding to music which you weren't happy with. Where does that come in?

Well, once we'd got our wings we couldn't play a note wrong. I thought, this isn't right because the music we're playing is useless. OK, it has its moments but it's not what they deserve. They're paying too much, they're applauding too much and it makes me feel like a con man. I don't want to feel like a con man. I want to feel that I've earned what I got. You see, it got to the point where we were playing so badly and the audience was still going raving mad -- they thought it was a gas. But I thought, we're cheating them. We're taking their bread and playing them shit. I can't work on that basis.

You said that you'd never been happy with your performance with Cream, although you'd got a couple of good licks in here and there.

With Cream we had our ups and downs. We had good gigs and bad gigs. We had gigs when you could have mistaken us for Hendrix, it was that good, and other times we were like the worst band in the world. It was this kind of inconsistency that relied upon the improvisation factor. All our songs had a starting theme, a finishing theme, and a middle that was up to us. On a good night it was great and on a bad night it was awful. I couldn't take this kind of up and down. So I got in a few good licks while Cream was going. But like on Farewell we did "Badge" and I liked that. It was all because I played them Big Pink and said, look, this is what music is all about, let's try and get a sound like this-that we got the sound like "Badge" and the rest. After I left Cream, let's see...what did I do? It was Blind Faith wasn't it? Almost straight away? Well, I promised Ginger that whatever I did, I'd take him with me because we had a close thing going. So, what happened was that we didn't rehearse enough, we didn't get to know each other enough, we didn't go through enough trials and tribulations before the big time came. We went straight into the big gigs and I came offstage shaking like a leaf because I felt once again that I'd let people down. There are 36,000 people waiting to there for what you're going to do and if it's not what you think is right -- no way! And then I met Delaney and Bonnie on the second night of the '67 American tour and they were just such downhome humble cats and they were getting very litte applause, very little money, and the only reason they were on the bill was because I'd asked for them to be the second act. So I started a rapport with Delaney, which became very strong and severed my relationship with Blind Faith. So, Blind Faith was breaking up in that Stevie and Ginger were arguing, Rick was kind of in the middle and I was out altogether. I was with Delaney and Bonnie. I already saw ahead that I didn't want Blind Faith. I wanted to be lead guitarist with Delaney and Bonnie because they were singing soul music.

Initially, what did you think you could have done with Blind Faith that you couldn't have done with Cream?

I didn't know. I never have that positive an idea of what direction I'm going in. I mean, I just thought, Cream's got to go, but I still want to play, and I'd always wanted to play with Stevie because I knew that he was a very laid-back musician.

So, ultimately, why didn't it work out?

Because we rehearsed for three weeks, publicized and all that hype, and the first audience we played to was 36,000 people at Hyde Park, London!

Why did you allow this to happen?

We had no control over it. We jut sort of went along, we thought it would be all right. All the time we were touring, though, I was hanging out with Delaney and Bonnie because they were getting no money, bottom of the bill and no one was clapping them, and we were being adulated and all that rubbish and getting lots of bread. I think I did the right thing going off with them and then stealing the Dominos away from them, you know. But the funny thing was that once I'd got "Layla" out of my system, I didn't want to do any more with the Dominos. I didn't want to play another note.

How did you get into singing?

It was something Delaney said and it was also something Lord Buckley said, which is that if God gives you a talent and you don't use it, then He'll take it away. If you don't put it to use you won't be able to use it when you want to use it.

How did you feel about the Rainbow gig?

I thought it was OK. I had a good time doing it. It was when I listened to the tapes afterwards that I realized that it was well under par.

What specific musical criticisms did you have?

It's hard to remember now. I think the music was reasonably OK, I just think that there were too many people onstage for the way it was recorded. They recorded it on something like an eight-track and so they had to mix a lot of things together while they were recording it, which meant that the rhythm section suffered and you get the bass and drums mixed in together.

So you weren't disappointed with your licks?

Well, I mean. I didn't think they were great. They were reasonable. Everyone made mistakes and what I heard when I heard the tapes back was how many mistakes we all made. But then I'm very self-critical in that way.

Was Bangla Desh a similar situation?

That was quite a lot different and I just had to do it again. Because of George, you know. If he asks me to do anything, he's got the best that I can give whenever I can give it. I did it, but again I thought, no way. I mean, I was laid up sick for a week while all the rehearsals were going on, you see. Everyone got there a week early for the gig and I got very ill and couldn't move, I was literally in a very bad way. So I missed all the rehearsals, I just got there in time for the first show. So, I mean, just being in tune was enough of a problem for me. I really felt they were carrying my weight, in a way.

Is there any particular song of yours which you prize over all the rest?

Yeh, but that's only because it's one of the last I put on record. It's on the new album. I'm proud of two of them. One's called "Gimme Strength" and one's called "Let It Grow." Yeh, I am proud of them because they were done very quickly and they sound good on record and they were the last things I achieved. I'm never going to be that proud of stuff I've done in the past. Before this album the only thing that meant anything to me was Layla, which was because it was actually about an emotional experience, a woman that I felt really deeply about and who turned me down, and I had to kind of pour it out in some way. So we wrote these songs, made an album, and the whole thing was great.

What did the woman in question think?

She didn't give a damn.

Did you ever think you could say things to her through the album that maybe you couldn't face to face? Did you ever think you'd get through to her that way?

Yeh, yeh. Yeh, I did think that. And also the emotional content of some of the blues on it, you know. But no, man. I mean, her husband is a great musician. It's the wife-of-my-best-friend scene and her husband has been writing great songs for years about her and she still left him. You see, he grabbed one of my chicks and so I thought I'd get even with him one day, on a petty level, and it grew from that, you know. She was trying to attract his attention, trying to make him jealous, and so used me, you see, and I fell madly in love with her. If you listen to the words of "Layla": "I tried to give you consolation/When your old man had let you down/Like a fool, I fell in love with you/You turned my whole world upside down."

Did you need to go through a crisis to write?

Yeh, I think I did.

Where did the name Layla come from?

It comes from a Persian love story written in the 11th or 12th century, a sort of love story, that's all. It's called Layla And Majnoun.

Does Layla reject Majnoun then?

No, neither of them rejects the other. It's like boy meets girl but parents don't dig it.

That was nothing to do with your experience, was it?

Not really. It was just that I liked the name and the story was beautifully written. I related to it in that way.

Did you consciously write "Layla" as a concept album about unrequited love?

Well, it was the heaviest thing going on at the time so, yeh, I suppose it came about like that. I didn't consciously do it, though, it just happened that way. That was what I wanted to write about most of all.

I heard that you had a spiritual revelation when you were in the States before this?

Two guys came to my dressing room. They were just two Christians and they said, "can we pray with you?" I mean, what can you do? So we knelt down and prayed and it was really like the blinding light and I said, "what's happening? I feel much better!" And then I said to them, "let me show you this poster I've got of Jimi Hendrix." I pulled it out and there was a portrait of Christ inside which I hadn't bought, had never seen in my life before. And it just knocked the three of us sideways. From then on I became a devout Christian until this situation occurred -- the three...the triangle.

How did that knock you out?

It just knocked me out that...he'd been into Transcendental Meditation for so long and yet couldn't keep his wife...I mean, his wife just didn't want to know. All she wanted was for him to say, "I love you," and all he was doing was meditating. That shook my faith completely. I still pray and I still see God in other people more than I see Him in the sky or anything like that.

In 1970 you were quoted as saying you now wanted to write songs about Jesus.

That was probably when I moved down here. That's when I wrote "Presence of the Lord." You see, I was on the run for a start. Pilcher [a well-known London policeman] was after me. He wanted me because he was a groupie cop. He got George and he got John and Mick and the rest of them. So I was on the run from flat to flat and when I finally got out of town the pressure was off. It was such a relief, man, and it was just such a beautiful place that I sat down and wrote the song.

So you were superimposing your religious experience onto the actual situation of being on the run? Rather like the early Negro spirituals?

Exactly. At the time you couldn't separate the two things. It was the first song I ever wrote.

How do you feel about "Cream vacuum" bands such as Mountain and Grand Funk?

I think it's OK. I think that's great, you know. I mean, I'm honored, in a way, that they felt like doing it that way. We must have done something good in order for them to want to carry it on. It relates in a way to people going around saying "Isn't it a drag that Jimi's dead. There'll never be another guitarist like him." I turned on the radio in the car the other day and I thought, that's weird, that's Jimi and I've never heard that track before, and it turned out to be a guy called Robin Trower who used to play for Procol Harum. I mean, it's great. In a way Jimi's still alive because as long as you don't forget, you preserve. I must admit, though, that I've never gone out of my way to listen to any of them. I'm very segregational like that. There are very few white bands whose records I'd actually buy. I like to listen to black music anyway. If I'd have been introduced to their music by someone, if someone had played it to me and said, "Look, this is nice," I'd listen to it. But if I walk into a record shop I know I always go for the blues rack or the soul rack, you know, not the heavy metal rack at all.

How did you feel about being voted one of the rock world's next fatalities

I thought, great, you know! They're never going to get me. I don't care what they say. I mean, they like to create that kind of mystique, I know. They want to get a lot of people there to see if so-and-so's going to die onstage. I mean, think what an event that'd be! But it's all a joke. I'm sure they don't really mean it. You see, Keith [Richard] was top of the list and what would they do if Keith died? They'd feel pretty sorry about putting that in their paper for a start...It's vicarious...they want to see someone else do it, see if they can get their rocks off that way. Well, I'm a bit like that myself-not to the extent that I'd want to see someone die onstage-but I remember I used to go to Ronnie Scott's club when the house drummer would literally come out of the dressing room and crawl across the floor because that's the only kind of energy he had. And then he'd get behind the kit and it was magic! I'm impressed by that kind of thing, very definitely.

How is your relationship with Robert Stigwood?

Sort of, er, humorous! If I take him too seriously, then I start to have doubts about it all. I think he's a good businessman and he's definitely very fond of making money and the thing is he'll look after you. I mean, he looked after me when I wasn't making money. I was definitely not living up to my part of the contract and yet he never actually came down on me very heavy about it at all. He just waited for me to make up my mind that I was going to play again and then he gets on the ball, calls up promoters.

Again, why do you think people will be surprised at the new album?

Because I'm still being thought of as the lead guitarist and that's not me, it really isn't. I'm jut an unskilled laborer musician who finds it difficult to get it in tune, let alone play the lead guitar solos. What I tried to achieve on that album was satisfying the people I was playing with. That's what I really like doing -- just sitting down with people who play anything and singing the lowest common denominator that we can all groove with and getting something going. It's not -- who's going to take the front now? I mean, you take the front now, I'll take the front now! It's everyone together, all the time.

So what's your function in the new band?

The leader of the band. Occasionally I'll hit a lick that'll blow someone's minds, I know that. And if it's not mine, it'll be someone else's, only they can't have it all the time. That's probably what people want -- just one long lead guitar solo.

Does the fact that you're playing less intense music mark a change in attitude?

It's not a change in attitude so much as a...change in attitude! It's loitering with intense! No, really I'd like it to be that way, but I know that when I get up onstage I'm going to be very tempted to play loud and get nasty and do lots of naughty things with my guitar, but I'm fighting it with everything I've got. It does you in, all that, it really does. I'll tell you about something. Once with the Dominos we dropped some acid in San Francisco, of all places to drop acid, and apart from the fact that the guitar was made of rubber, every bad lick I had, every naughty lick, blues lick...whatever you want to call it, turned the audience into all these devils in sort of red coats and things. And then I'd play a sweet one and they all turned into angels. I prefer playing to angels, personally.

What about the George Harrison tour rumors which sounded good to your ears when you first heard them?

They still sound good except that he's got a lot on his plate at the moment. Let alone thinking about touring. Sure, I'd love to work with him onstage. I really would. But he's got his own fish to fry and so've I.

What's the best Eric Clapton rumor you've heard?

That there are strong chances that I'll be committed very soon! Actually, I've heard some funny rumors about me, you know, about what I'm supposed to be doing, where I am, what I have been doing...and none of them were anywhere near it, really.

You've been acting in Ken Russell's film of "Tommy?"

Oh, yeh. Phew, that was quite a number, I can tell you! Acting out a part! They had this church hall...I mean, it wasn't mucking about. They had me there to play the preacher and I had to be the preacher 'cos they had about 60 or 70 people who really were in a bad way. Well, I mean, they say they're in a bad way. They couldn't keep their arms under control, couldn't see and all that, and it was quite heavy having to be their preacher for the day. Tommy's looking for a cure and I'm just one of the geezers he goes to and it doesn't work again. He still can't see and hear. The thing about it is that it's about this chick who can heal you if you kiss her feet. I mean, she's not there -- it's a statue of her, and the chick is Marilyn Monroe. So they've got this big statue of Marilyn Monroe and they're leading all these blind people and paraplegics and kissing her feet and I'm the loony in charge.

Do you have to play guitar?

Yeh. Well, I had it around my neck. I have to sing "The Hawker" -- Richie Havens did it on the Tommy album.

Do you ever think beyond the end of this tour?

I can't even face tomorrow. It's going to be another three years before they wear me out. And apparently, because of my tax problems, I've got to do one of those Stones numbers -- you know, I've got to leave the country for a year at some point because they've, well got me by the short and curlies, I can tell you. So, I'm on the move, I'm on the road. It don't matter. They'll never get me. They can take my body but they can't have anything else!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2john lee hooker:
Спасибо, но я такой не видел, даже где он один... Что за бутлег был?

2Gene:
Cледите за темой, я буду продолжать...

2SergeK:

>2john lee hooker:
>Спасибо, но я такой не видел, даже где он один...
>Что за бутлег был?


Кажись, из серии "Неавторизированные записи" "Черри"- пиратка или что-то в этом роде...Увы, давно было, лет 10 назад, себе не оставил..Какой-то местечковый лайф средней паршивости...
(на фотке вместе с Настасьей Кински)

JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE AUCTION TO BENEFIT CROSSROADS CENTRE ANTIGUA
Bid to own a piece of Jimmy Kimmel Live history! Jimmy Kimmel and twenty-two celebrity guests autographed a chrome finish Fender resonator guitar to support Crossroads Centre, founded by Eric Clapton. Autographs by past guests include Kelsey Grammar, Magic Johnson, William H. Macy, Tyra Banks, Dick Clark, Sharon Osborne, Mr. T, Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Martin Short and more!

2john lee hooker:
>Кажись, из серии "Неавторизированные записи" "Черри"- пиратка или что-то в этом роде...
Я вроде их тогда все скупил, но такой там не было...

Кстаси, Сергей, сегодня принесли мне одну замечательную пластиночку в стили госпел ветеранов стиля "The Blind Boys Of Alabama" под чудным названием для "церквопенья" "Atom Bomb" (2005) :))) Просто отличная пластиночка...Так вот... На ней есть очень интересная версия "слепцоф" "Презенс оф зе Лорд"...А представьте себе, что в "нужных местах" в этой песенке на "хаммонде" Билли Престон :)))))..Да ышо на пластинке "харпер" Чарли Мэзелуайт, да гитараст из "Лос Лобос" :))) Короче, полный, ахтунг :))) Рекомендую

вот обложка "Слепцов" :)))
А по поводу "Черри", я не уверен...Хотя, где-то засело, что они...Всплывает в памяти характерная поперечная трафаретная надпись...Хотя...столько воды утекло с тех пор...

Билли я обожаю! Особенно после КОНЦЕРТА ДЛЯ БАНГЛАДЕШ и его перформанса на ONE MORE CAR...
...но вот Blind Boys, ну НИКАК!

2 SergeK:
>> "Моего мнения" здесь нет, только информация... <<

.... ??? то есть, во всей этой теме ВООБЩЕ нет твоего личного мнения?

>> Со "своим личным мнением" (как обычно) засветилась ты. Надеюсь это ясно? <<

А это в этой теме запрещается?
Просто интересно, может в этой теме - в отличие от остальной части форума - свои обычаи...

OUT FROM BEHIND THE SUN
guitar player 1985


Do you see Behind the Sun as a departure?
Very much so, yeah. And also, it's not truly me, either. "Forever Man" and two other songs on the al bum were something I did to ap pease the Warner Bros, heads. The dif ference between the Phil Collins-produced project and the cuts with [producers] Lenny Waronker and Ted Templeman was chalk and cheese [apples and oranges] to me. To the outsider, it probably seems like they're blended very well, but to me the feel is totally different. Really, what I was trying to do with "Forever Man" and the other two was get a feel that I heard on the demos. That's [songwriter] Jerry Williams from Fort Worth, Texas. He is, to me, the best white person in the States, but he can't get a record deal because his personal ity is larger than life, to put it mildly. He wrote "Forever Man," "See What Love Can Do," and "Something's Happen ing." I've got a cassette with 19 of his songs, and all of them are blinders.

Why the division between the Phil Collins productions and the songs produced in L.A. by Waronker and Templeman?
Well, Phil and I completed an album in a month and mixed it in a month. And it had three tracks on it that are gone now, which were definitely not vi able to the Warner Bros, picture of having a complete album of hit singles. They wanted a very "up" rock and roll album from me - they expected that, without having to say anything. And they didn't get that; they got kind of a rounder picture - a couple of ballads and a slow blues with just an acoustic guitar. I thought, and I still do, that a lot of people would have liked to hear that side of me. As it happened, it wasn't what the heads of the compa ny wanted, and they made this clear to me. I said, "Well, why don't you tell me what you would like it to be, and I'll see if I can go with that." They sent me these Jerry Williams songs, and I real ly was knocked out. He's been around a long time, but he hasn't got a record deal, mainly because he doesn't make compromises - at all. Of course, the demos are what he considers to be fin ished product. He doesn't like to refine them or clean them up. And in actual
fact, he's right [laughs]. Anyway, I said, "Yeah, I'd love to record these." I got Lenny and Ted to produce them with musicians of their choice because Phil was unavailable, and I thought if they were going to produce it, they would probably want to use their people - the L.A. "A Team." If I'd taken my band, there would have definitely been a "camp" feeling; my band would only listen to what I say, so there would have been an "us and them" situation straightaway. Whereas with the ses sion people, it was really only a ques tion of me fitting in.

Did you feel like they had a camp, so it was you and them?
Not at all. They were great. There may have been that from me because af ter getting to L.A., I felt a little alien about the whole project. I started to wonder if I was selling myself down the river, or selling myself short. But they soon got rid of that feeling. They're very good peo ple, and very quick. Of course, I was immediately put into the studio with Steve Lukather and his fantastic box of gizmos, and I was very intimidated by that for a little while. Then he crossed the bridge - he made the first move to make me feel welcome.

He was probably even more intimidated by you.
This is what everyone kept saying to me. But when it's one of you and a gang of them, it's a little different. I re ally admire those guys, and I respect them for the way they treated me.

The new album sounds quite a bit more high-tech than what you've done in the past. Did you have to adapt to the technology much?
No. In fact, I wrote most of the songs for the album on synthesizers. I'd run out of ideas on the guitar. And I can't play the piano, you see, so it's the same old thing as when you first buy a guitar - you think you're inventing all this stuff. You become an instant composer, really. You think they're brand-new chords - until you meet people who really play, who tell you what you're do ing is the same old stuff. But it sounds so great, I write easier. I got a [Sequential Circuits] Prophet-5 be cause it's got such a nice memory bank, so it's easy to write on it. Put a claw shape down [laughs] and you've got this nice sound.

How did you record the guitar parts?
I played on the tracks and over-dubbed most of the solos. It was great with Phil, because he's a real fan. I was saying, "Well, what do you think of that one?" He'd go, "It's dynamite, man. Dynamite!" I'd say, "No, it isn't." I felt like I could have played any thing and he'd love it. That's great from a producer. So I'd do three or four solos on a song and say, "You sort it out." And I knew that he could be more enthusiastic about it than I. I'd probably listen to a solo three or four times and get fed up of hearing it, whereas in the same situation, he could work for two days picking which parts of each solo. Some solos - for in stance, on "Just Like a Prisoner" - he edited down from quite a length.

Had you done that with producers in the past?
Yeah, yeah.

When you take three passes at a solo sec tion, how similar is one take to the next?
They would all be identical in every way, except that the high points would be in different places. If I was to spend a day in the studio recording the same solo for the same song, each one would have its high points. It would be up to me or the producer to say, "We can ei ther have a solo of all high points, or we can leave one as it is," depending on what you want. I mean, I would prefer to be able to go in and play the solo and just leave it, but you never do that in the studio. As much as everyone wants to leave it alone, they all want to actually make something of it. "It's great, but wouldn't it be that much greater?" And they're right - for the finished product. You can't do that in a live situation, so why not do it in the studio? It's just tak ing creativity that one step further.