Eric Clapton and his music

Q: How did you and George Harrison go about rebuilding your relationship after you'd effectively stolen her from him?
Well, we've approached it and I think the wounds were and are pretty deep. Even still. With all three of us. And that's the problem with drugs and drink - they make these situations possible. When I was involved in that triangle, drugs were giving me access to propositions which really were quite inhuman. Callous and selfish. I feel like doing this and I'm going to fucking do it. I don't care what anyone thinks or who gets hurt. Drugs were very much involved. Drinking was involved. And, sadly, the damage done, I don't know if it can ever be repaired.

Q: What, in your view, do people think of you?
Oh, I think they see me as just another boring old fart who should really just shut up and go away.

Q: Come, come.
Actually, I get an extraordinary amount of love when I'm out and about. I really like it when a cabbie goes, Awright, Eric! And I think a lot of that stems from the fact that when I lost my son, I didn't run off and hide. I didn't make a big thing out of it. I wrote a song and I gave it to the world because I wanted to share it with them and I think people respected that.

Q: During the James Bulger case, the song was adopted as a sort of soundtrack for child-associated grief.
Yes, it was. I was tremendously moved by that. It's come back like ripples on a pond - people have taken strength and got a lot of help from that. Music and the shared experience somehow managed to alleviate suffering. There is a certain fondness for me here and it's something to do with being English. We're fairly non-bullshit here and we tend to talk in a pretty disparaging way about one another. We don't subscribe to that Hollywood hypocrisy and we learn to live with criticism quite well.

Q: For a time you had an almost quaint old-school playboy image.
And in a way it was true. Before that I'd never had the nerve to go into a top-class restaurant. I never dared to buy an Italian suit. All those years when I was being a drunk I wore second-hand clothes and ate fish and chips and baked beans. So right up until my forties I was living out this phoney working-class ethic. It was part of that drunken prejudice, like a hardline bigot.

Q: Did that same bigotry account for your ill-advised Enoch Powell-has-actually-got-some-great-ideas speech in '76?
Yes. Not from any real political understanding on my part, mind you. It just seemed like a pretty silly pose to take. Just being completely fucking perverse and thinking I was being clever. It's exactly like Alf Garnett. But during my first brushes with sobriety I realised that I had money and I really wasn't enjoying it. I'd always thought of myself as a working-class lad and things like tennis and skiing were definitely not on. No way. You joking? Want a fight about it? Then I thought, Why have you saddled yourself like this? Why are all these things unavailable to you? It was all in my own head. So I had to set about undoing these prejudices. Putting on nice clothes, spending a bit of money. Of course a lot of people got upset but I want to try those things that I'd have previously said no to out of fear or narrow-mindedness.

Q: Did you feel guilty when Jimi Hendrix died?
Ah. I don't know. That's a funny one. Let me think about that now.

Q: Although you were friends there must have been a strong sense of rivalry between you.
Yes. If the cards were down in reality I would have to admit, even then, that what I was doing was just nowhere compared with what he was doing. But I kidded myself along that we were on a par. I'm trying to tap into what I felt. It's really going back a long way. I'll tell you the absolute truth. My experience of death with people who have been close to me, people I've loved or admired, has been, for the most part, a lack of feeling. An absence. It's only when I rationalise what it means to me intellectually that I'm able to tap into an emotion. If someone tells me, So-and-so's dead, I go, Oh, really? And then I go away and think - and I'm being as honest as I can here - what should I feel? Because I don't know how you're meant to feel.

Q: Even though a lot of people around you have died?
I still don't know how to react. What is supposed to happen? I think maybe the fear is so great that you go into a self-anaesthetised state. With Jimi, it's been recorded that I was very angry. It seemed to me to be so fucking careless. But the real truth is I was already really angry with Jimi because he'd come on with this bullshit about, Oh people only come to see me play guitar with my teeth. He developed this real hang-up that his audiences were ignorant and that they wanted him to sell out with a gimmick. But he did it anyway! That was his choice. Even though I didn't have a real grasp of that sort of hypocrisy at the time, I knew I was pissed off with him. If I went to see him play, he would revert to this stuff even when there was no need to. Then you'd speak to him afterwards and he'd say, That's what they want me to do. Plus there was a carelessness developing with the women and the drugs. I came from a very purist point of view. I was very dogmatic and thought we should all be doing it one way. Very scholarly. And there was Jimi going way off the rails. I do still think it's sad that he didn't make it through. I thought he had a long way to go. I don't believe that bullshit about him burning out. It's bollocks.

Q: Why haven't you died? By rights you should have pegged out ages ago.
Yeah, and the mystery is why haven't I died? I've certainly been close to it and I've walked through a lot of fire.

Q: Have you ever genuinely tried to kill yourself?
(Pause) Once. I swallowed a bottle of valium. And, as we can see (laughs) I didn't die. I woke up about two hours later stone cold sober and very angry, so I didn't want to die. I don't know why it didn't happen. I don't know if you can do it with valium or not. But I did try. The disease of alcoholism was working at me full tilt at that time. But the truth is, as far as I can see, I'm not meant to have died. I obviously have a reason for being here and it's important for me to stay in touch with what that reason is. It's dawned on me in the last couple of years that I'm better off when I'm being of service and that's why I'm being kept around.

Q: You said that when you recorded If You Gotta Go, Go Now with Bob Dylan in '65, he changed your entire perspective on music. What do you think of him now?
The last time I saw him was at that tribute to him in New York. It was very crowded and there were a lot of people around him. Bob's a very sweet man. He's got a heart as big as a house and it's all he can do all the time, I think, to keep it under wraps. Which is why people don't really understand what he's up to a lot of the time. They suspect him and think he's cynical but he's a good, good man. He said some wonderful things to me that night in the moments we were able to talk to one another.

Q: What did you make of his two recent acoustic albums?
I love everything he does. It's the highest form of art because it's always changing. He will not let anything alone. Even if it's going really well he wants to upset the whole fucking thing and start again. I think those two albums are great, really lovely. And he really can do that stuff. It's possible for him to come in here now with a guitar and just tune into himself and entertain himself and us for hours. There's no theatre in that, no stance, no profit, it's simply spending time on something magnificent for no reason other than that in itself. He's a brilliant guitarist you know, and it's not something he has a great deal of hardship in getting back to. He is extremely gifted.

Q: Do you remember playing at Blackbushe with him?
God I was drunk. So drunk. He called me on to play and I started walking from the back of the stage and I thought I was going to walk straight off the front. You know when you're really drunk and once the forward motion has started there isn't any stopping it? A real lurch. Funny night. I was sober when I played my own set, but in the interim I think I drank a bottle of vodka.

Q: A few random things: we were once on the same Concorde flight and you bought duty-free cigarettes. It seemed very ironic - trying to save a couple of quid whilst flying on Concorde.
(Laughs) That type of thing never occurs to me. But it does kind of sum me up, doesn't it? I was probably in between my working-class bloke and international playboy phases (laughs).

Q: Do you still feel like an old mod?
Yeah, I do like to stay, as mods always did, current with clothes. I've always loved street clothes and for that, London is unbeatable and always has been. There's nowhere else in the world that does that: constantly moving on and updating and changing. If you go to Italy where the great designers come from, everyone wears the same thing like a uniform. Same in America. Whereas here it's very spontaneous and individualistic.

Q: In '64 you were probably the only person in London to have owned a pair of drainpipe Levi's.
I probably was. And I still feel very close to that. It attracts me a great deal.

Q: Do you put on different clothes to change your mood?
It's a different kind of fix, isn't it? Not necessarily shopping for clothes but designing what you're going to wear in your head is a good way of getting high.

Q: Do you think you've improved as a guitarist as you've got older?
Minimally. If I think about the amount of fire and power I had as a young man, say with John Mayall or Cream, I'm actually coming back to that style now but the fire may have gone simply because I haven't got that youthfulness anymore. But to counterbalance that I think I play with slightly more technique and more worldliness now. Maybe more emotion. It's certainly as good. It hasn't deteriorated.

Q: What did you listen to in the car on the way here today?
Blues (laughs). A compilation thing.

Q: What new music has impressed you recently?
Very recently, not much. I did all I could to avoid hearing Mr Blobby and I got away with only hearing it once by not listening to the radio. The most extraordinary thing that I heard last year was Bjork's album. I really love that. It got to me on a very different level because it's got nothing to do with what I do and yet at the same time it's very passionate and powerful. And the way she throws herself into it is just so beautiful.

Q: Having slept with a great number of women over the past three decades, was safe sex an inconvenience for you?
You mean condoms? Well, I had a very bad experience with condoms but I shouldn't really talk about it because it's a bit like saying, Say Yes To Drugs.

Q: We're all adults.
Well, when I was 15, my second sexual experience was with a condom. I hadn't used one during my first sexual experience but the second time I used a condom and it broke. And the girl got pregnant. I think it's a very difficult situation because ideally I don't like to make love with a condom on. I'd rather be monogamous and get all the tests but they still don't know how much a test can tell you. I don't know if we'll ever know.

Q: And we're still not entirely sure if you can pass on HIV through oral sex.
Exactly. I reckon the best thing is to be monogamous and then be as abstinent as possible.

Q: That's rich!
(Laughs) I know! It sounds so fucking strange for me to be saying this! I've come around to the idea that sex really is just for procreation. But I'm finding out in my recovery that I've always used sex as some kind of tool. As a way of holding someone hostage, to make an impression, fixing myself, fixing them. It's never been for what it really is, which is as an expression of love and as a means of continuing our existence on earth. But I've found I'm happier if I'm doing it in a monogamous relationship and there's no deceit and there's no lies and it's a pure expression of affection.

Q: If you could be granted one wish, what would it be?
(Long pause) I suppose my one wish would be that I could have some kind of guarantee that I would always be able to entertain myself. That comes from a fear of loneliness and a lack of self-esteem. They're the two big problems in my life and I'm taking them on one day at a time. I've started by accepting that those things exist within me.

Q: Finally, do you have anything to declare?
That I've really enjoyed this. It's been so good to talk.
____________________________________________________________________________

GUITAR WORLD JUNE 1991

ERIC CLAPTON, ROCK'S premier ambassador of the blues, stands on stage in a vast Victorian hall, an ornate pipe organ looming behind him. An all-star rhythm section pumps a blues groove as E.C. rips off a sweet, stinging solo and turns with a smile to stage right, where Robert Cray cradles a Stratocaster. Cray squeezes off a solo and winks at Jimmie Vaughan, who laughs and turns to his left, where Albert Collins stands, his trademark Tele hanging from his left shoulder. Chicago great Buddy Guy stands front and center, bending backwards, his Strat unleashing torrents of screaming, skittering, inspired blues lunacy.
What sounds like a blues guitar freak's wet dream is, in fact, but one night of Clapton's record-breaking four-week stand at the Royal Albert Conceit Hall, London's premier classical music house. Each week featured a different lineup, including a quartet, Clapton's regular nine-piece band and the above-mentioned all-star blues band. The series ended ambitously, with Clapton's nine-piece backed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance of a guitar concerto scored by composer Michael Kamen.
Clapton's manager, Roger Forrester, says that the guitarist views the now-annual Albert Hall shows as milestones, with the engagements growing longer and more ambitous each year.
"We started out six years ago doing six nights," Forrester says. "Every year it's grown and changed-it would get rather boring if we did the same thing year in and year out. It's a very, very, very costly experience, so no one makes a lot of money on the shows. But Eric loves the challenge and the variety."
Clapton's English fans seem to be equally enthusiastic about the dates: all 24 nights at the 5,600-seat Royal Albert Hall sold out in a day and a half. The guitar highlight of the month of highlights, however, was the blues week, which featured the combined string-bending talents of Clapton, Collins, Cray, Guy and Vaughan, backed by NRBQ bassist Joey Spampinato, drummer Jamie Oldaker, harmonica player Jerry Portnoy, long-time Chuck Berry pianist Johnny Johnson and former Allman Brothers keyboardist Chuck Leavell.
We caught up with Cray in his London hotel room as he enjoyed a well-earned day off mid-way through the all-star week. "What's great is you never know what's going to come out of any these guys' amps at any time," commented Cray. "Every night all the solos are different, and every night, it's up against the walls."

Though the concerts never degenerated into competitive cutting contests, Cray says that the presence of so many great guitarists forces him into an advanced state of readiness. "It's really completely different from leading my own band. It's relaxing To know I'm not always the center of attention, but it's also high tension because I've got three songs to do my thing before standing in back with everyone else.
"I get very hyped up because Albert was just out before me, Buddy Guy's coming next, Eric was out there first, and I'm standing next to Jimmie Vaughan. So I definitely want to have my chops together. The only competitive aspect is that everybody's throwing solos at one another. If you don't get one thrown at you, you feel kind of bad."
"I really like playing with Robert," Clapton said in a 1989 interview. "He's remarkable, and having him around always pushes me. You don't have time to warm up or anything because it's there for him and you'd better be ready."
Several weeks after the final concert. Buddy Guy said he was still riding a natural high from the show. "It's like a dream," he said. "Then you go to sleep and wake up and say, 'It's true, man. I was there.'"
Guy and Cray, both of whom also appeared at Albert Hall last year, were logical choices for Clapton. Cray, because he and Clapton have become close over the past few years, touring together and collaborating on "Old Love"' for E.C.'s Journeyman. And Guy, because he was a primary influence on Clapton.
"The more raw players were who first grabbed me," Clapton said. "In fact, part of my reason for forming Cream was I suddenly had this kind of mad idea about leading a blues band and being the English Buddy Guy. I wanted to be Buddy Guy with a composing bass player."
The remarkable Guy is anything but a museum piece. His razor's-edge attack has become only wilder over the years, and Damn Right I've Go! The Blues (Silver-tone), his first recording in ten years and his first ever distributed by a major label, is due out in June. Clapton, Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler all make guest appearances. Guy also continues to be an exhilarating, if inconsistent, performer. At the Albert Hall shows, he quickly stole the thunder, drawing the spotlight like a magnet does a bar of iron.

"Buddy Guy is Buddy Guy," says Cray. "And he's not going to change because of where he is or who he's playing with. He's a master showman, and when he's on stage, it's his show. Everyone knows that and everyone enjoys that."
Clapton, who certainly knew what to expect, must have enjoyed Guy's antics. He also deserves accolades for daring to appear with a guitarist he himself has often called untouchable. "When Buddy's on, I still don't think anyone can touch him," Clapton said with admiration. "He takes you somwhere else, somewhere completely else. He's just tremendous."
Guy, however, casually deflects any talk of him taking over the show, preferring to praise the talents of the other guitarists. "The thrill of being invited and having that many great guitarists on stage at the same time just took hold of me," he said, trying to explain his fiery performance. "When a bunch of us get together like that, it's the most enjoyable feeling. I think it's great that as famous as Eric is, he still has that same feeling-let's get together and do it."
During the Albert Hall shows, Clapton demonstrated just how much he enjoys playing with Guy and the others by standing discreetly in front of his amplifier during their spots, smoking cigarettes and playing rhythm-content to let the others stand in the spotlight and lead the band. Cray says that he wasn't the least bit surprised by Clapton's magnanimity.
"That's exactly his personality," said Cray. "He's a real nice, easy-going guy. We're all friends and it's as simple as that."
But Collins, who never met Clapton prior to the rehearsals for the Albert Hall shows, was pleasantly surprised by his host's grace. "It's beautiful," Collins says. "When I was doing my songs, I always called him up to take a solo. But if I hadn't called him, he would have just stayed in back of the stage. I guess he's already got his name and just wants to give us an opportunity."
Collins, like Guy, is an extremely aggressive guitarist in the midst of a personal resurgence. Unlike Guy, however, he has never been cited by Clapton as a major influence, making him a surprising choice for the Royal Albert shows. "I really don't even know how this worked out," Collins admitted. "But I sure am happy to be here and have this chance."
"We're really just having a whole lot of fun," Cray said. "That's the simple truth. There's nothing else like this week for me."
Guy was equally enthusiastic. "My mother taught me never to wear out my welcome," he said. "But if I'm invited back again, I'll risk wearing out my welcome because this is one thing I'd never miss."
____________________________________________________________________

IMMACULATE

Why Eric Clapton will always have the blues.

THE FILLMORE, SAN FRANCISCO November 7, 1994
Somewhere back at the other side of the bank of recreational mistwhich fogged over much of his'70s and '80s, Eric Clapton once played this place before. You've probably heard the result a hundred times, or half the result, anyway: for few played the second side of Cream's Wheels Of Fire live album -the one containing Train Time and Toad - more than once. The other side, the one featuring Crossroads and Spoonful, now that got played. A lot. Indeed, some still hold its dazzling barrage of collective soloing partly responsible for the avalanche of heavy metal sludge which slumped over the ensuing decade, but we'll draw a line under that particular argument for the moment. Do you recognise the place from that time, Eric?
"Yes. Essentially it hasn't changed at all," muses the oft-deified guitarist. "Although itseemed much bigger to me then ..." He's probably right, although his contention that The Fillmore was "about as big as we'd played in those days" speaks volumes about the vertiginous corporatisation of rock music that occurred through the '70s, a cultural shift sometimes laid at the door of the original Fillmore impresario, the late Bill Graham. For despite the anachronistic grandeur of its 10 huge chandeliers, the Fillmore is no enormodome. It's not even a Kentish Town Forum. This one-time cradle of the counterculture has a reputation and historical significance way out of proportion to its actual size: tonight, it has a capacity of around 500 - just enough to feel part of a community, but not really lost in a crowd.

It's the place's undeniable intimacy which Clapton is interested in capitalising upon tonight. After five weeks of 20 and 30,000-seater arenas, he's scaling down the size of the venues for the latter stages of an American concert jaunt which, like the enormously successful From The Cradle album, takes listeners on a guided tour of the blues, from the Mississippi Delta inceptions of Robert Johnson up-river to the Chicago heyday of Muddy Waters and Howlin'Wolf.
"There is an element of being a scholar in this," confesses Clapton, "of trying to get to the root of it all, that sort of keeps me going, and I plug back into it every now and then. If I was just starting to play the guitar now, I wouldn't know what to listen to, and I think a lot of people getvery confused and a bit discouraged by what's in front of them in the marketplace today-and not knowing where it comes from makes itvery difficult. If I was a young guitar player and I thought it started with Hendrix or Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck or me, then I think I'd lose hope. I need to know there's a tap-root somewhere that goes all the way back, and all the way in front, as well."

Sitting with an old acoustic guitar, left foot pumping, Clapton opens the show with a nimble Motherless Child, a song which, reflecting as it does on something akin to his own perplexing childhood, is perhaps the most personal here. He's backed by substantially the same band as he recorded the album with: Dave Bronze on bass, Chris Stainton on piano, Andy Fairweather-Lowfilling in the rhythm guitar parts, and mouth-organ maestro Jerry Portnoy, a dead ringer for movie director John Waters with hisslicked-backwidow's peakand pencil-thin moustache, blowing up a succession of storms. Drummer Andy Newmark is the only new face, but he soon sets about grafting his own personality here and there, like when he underscores the slide and dobro stylings ofthegood-timey, rolling blues How Long with a brisk scrub of washboard.
The acoustic section of the show concludes with a splendid couple of songs by Big MaceoMerriweather, of which the rolling boogie shuffle Kidman is one of the show's highlights; the electric section which follows is ushered in with the 10-league-boot stomp of Howlin' Wolf's majestic 44, Newmark's upright, military snare work anchored by an additional thump of big marching-band bass drum, pummelled by one of the three Kick Horns, whose presence looms larger as the set progresses. Portnoy's tremulous wail is spine-tingling on the couple of Muddy Waters songs which lead up to the concert's halfway-point, but then Clapton did first encounter him playing in Waters's band, which is a pretty decentgig fora harmonica player to have on his CV.
Indeed, of all the blues giants featured in the show, Muddy Waters still sits at the top of the pile for Clapton. "Muddy was like a king in some ways. There was something incredibly pivotal about the time that he moved up from Mississippi to Chicago, the way the music was evolving then," he believes. "Right in the middle there, when the whole thing went from being acoustic to electric, and moved from the country to the city, was Muddy, with it on his back, y'know?"
Clapton's heroes are given due homage in turn, usually a couple of numbers each. Clapton switches guitars to replicate the precise tones used by Freddie King (fierce but fluid stabs) and Elmore James (a raw, razoring slide from a beautiful antique blonde Gibson Byrdland). It's his combination of tonal verisimilitude with sheer attack on the letter's It Hurts Me Too and Blues Before Sunrise which finally gets the audience up from their tables, and afterwards Clapton admits that the Elmore James cuts are among his proudest moments on the new album, too.

"I like the Elmore James stuff, because that was something I thought I could never get anywhere near," he says. "But I think the best one for me is Eddie Boyd's Five Long Years, because in a sense all the others are very derivative of the original recordings, but that one is my own version - it's not sticking to anyone's version, it's the way I do it, y'know?"
The album, he points out, was recorded entirely live in the studio, without even using headphones, which he claims make him too critical:
"I would havehadtodoitagainand again, and eventually you just bleach the shitoutof it, and there's nothing leftbuta really sanitised, clinical version of what the song's supposed to be," he explains. "Whereas if I'm not looking at myself doing it, if I'm just doing it with pure emotion and don't give a fuck what anyone thinks, the heart of it comes alive.
"The essence of the blues is Fuck you I believe it or not-it's not music for entertainment, it's justtoease my mind. Basically. I'm a loner, and when I first learned to play the guitar, I played in isolation, without any idea that it would reach anyone-it was really simply to keep me somehow anaesthetised, and when I saw how it touched other people, I wasn't sure that I liked that at first, because it stopped me from being a loner. But now I can enjoy that experience. Sometimes. Not all the time."

Tonight, the hyper-self-critical
Clapton thinks the latter stages of the show are spoilt by excessive loudness, though he's probably the only one in the hall who does. From the back, it seems a potent blend of power, technique and emotion, with frequent highlights. Lowell Fulson's Reconsider Baby lopes along with immense, swaggering assurance; Eddie Boyd'sThird Degree has several intense, immaculate runs inscribed across its mournful countenance; Albert Collins's Crosscut Saw sways a funky rumba-rolling hip; and Robert Johnson's Crossroads is presented as a combination of Bo Diddley beat studded with horn stabs and a Clapton solo which, in marked contrast to the frantic, speed-driven Wheels Of Fire version, has something of J.J. Gale's gentle sublimity. It's typical of a show which seems to mark an attempt to jump back to before that powerhouse period, back to when the blues was a purer, more spiritual thing. For, widespread fame and acclaim notwithstanding, in his own opinion, the Clapton of today is a less noteworthy bluesmcm than the one that originally began inscribing his own personality on the form in The Yardbirds and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
"I'm working my way back to it," he says ofthatyouthful purity of spirit. "And ittakes a while. The Fillmore is a ballroom club, but I'm still playing the arena set, so I've got to work on breaking down this showbiz attitude that I've developed over the years. Because it's hard to get back to standing on stage in front of an audience and being relaxed enough to say, Let's see how this feels. That's the way I thought and played then -1 didn't give a monkey's about what the audience wanted, it was what /wanted to do. And to get back to that after all these years doing big shows where you start with a fixed set, perfect it, and stay there... I'm trying to throw that away, and itain'thalf hard.
"I've realised it's going to take quite a lot of acclimatisation to get back to the size of these places-and itdoesrequirea completely different attitude in playing, a lot more dynamics, and a lot more restraint. So the next few weeks I'm going to be going back to school to learn how I was when I was playing with John Mayall and The Yardbirds, 'cos that's the way it was." Andy Gill
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Специально для Коли Денисова!
Май 2005!

ERIC CLAPTON
BACK HOME
REPRISE

***

After scratching his blues itch with Me and Mister Johnson (Reprise), Clapton’s back in his pop bag. The title has some resonance, since "So Tired" and other tunes celebrate the everyday joys of parenting and family. That’s no small matter to Clapton, an orphan who’s longed for a stable home for much of his life. Guitar playing takes a back seat to songwriting, though strains of blues, R&B, rock, and reggae run deep throughout the dozen numbers. The best track is "Love Don’t Love Nobody," with high-powered vocal testifying and a chorus that re-creates the classic sound of ‘70s Philly soul. (It was first cut by the Spinners, but think Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.) It also has the album’s finest guitar solo — an arching crescendo that symbolizes the sense of joy and liberation true love provides. The single "Revolution" hits a convincing Jamaican groove, the call-and-response between EC and his female choir showing the influence of Bob Marley and his I-Threes. The title track swaddles vague but autobiographical lyrics of loss and ultimate salvation in acoustic guitar and organ. When Clapton sings "I know that I am loved" in its chorus, he sounds as if he really believed it.

Eric Clapton - (Reprise/Warner)
Back Home
Bugs Burnout

**1/2

Old Slowhand is back with his first studio album in five years, and, quite frankly, I wished he'd stayed away. This 12-track, 60-minute album has just three good songs: the lead-off single Revolution, with its pounding roots reggae riddim and excellent Wailers-inspired, I-Three-style female backup vocals; the gospel-flavoured ballad Run Home to Me; and the southern-fried rock of Lost and Found with Billy Preston on keyboards and axeman Doyle Bramhall II on duelling guitar. And that's all.

Cream, Royal Albert Hall May 2-3-5-6

*** (Rhino/Warner Music Vision, two DVDs)

Richard Williams
Friday September 23, 2005
The Guardian

At an interview during rehearsals for their debut in 1966, Cream - Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker - promised to deliver "sweet and sour rock'n'roll". The trouble was they became famous for something else, namely endless loud blues jams that unwittingly helped give rise to heavy metal. As these well-produced DVDs attest, the band's reunion in London last May met their old fans' appetite for reshuffled blues cliches - although, in the more thoughtful construction and richer textures of White Room, Badge and We're Going Wrong, they reaffirmed the soundness of the original manifesto. Even now, though, Cream seem short of a keyboard, which presumably occurred to Clapton when he joined Steve Winwood in the ill-fated Blind Faith.

The much-anticipated Cream 2005 Reunion DVD and CD will be released on 4 October in the U.S. and 3 October in the rest of the world. “Cream: Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6 2005” was filmed in HD and recorded in 5.1 sound.

Pre-order your DVD copy now
Also you can pre-order your CD now

DVD TRACK LIST
DVD Disc One
I'm So Glad / Friday May 6
Spoonful / Friday May 6
Outside Woman Blues / Friday May 6
Pressed Rat And Warthog / Friday May 6
Sleepy Time Time / Tuesday May 3
N.S.U. / Friday May 6
Badge / Tuesday May 3
Politician / Friday May 6
Sweet Wine / Friday May 6
Rollin' And Tumblin' / Friday May 6
Stormy Monday / Thursday May 5
Deserted Cities Of The Heart / Tuesday May 3
Born Under A Bad Sign / Friday May 6
We're Going Wrong / Friday May 6
- Alternate Takes -
Sleepy Time Time / Friday May 6
We're Going Wrong / Tueday May 3

DVD Disc Two
Crossroads / Friday May 6
Sitting On Top Of The World / Friday May 6
White Room / Tueday May 3
Toad / Thursday May 5
Sunshine Of Your Love / Tuesday May 3
- Alternate Take -
Sunshine Of Your Love / Friday May 6
- Interviews -
Ginger Baker
Jack Bruce
Eric Clapton

Color / appr.130 Minutes
Directed By Martyn Atkins
Executive Producer: John Beug
Producer: James Pluta
Co-Producer: Scooter Weintraub
Concert Producers: Mick Double and Peter Jackson
Audio Produced By Simon Climie