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This blog was established by Patrick Hughes (1948 - 2022). More content that Patrick intended to add to the blog has been added by his partner, Glenda Mac Naughton, since his death. Patrick was an avid and critical reader, a member of several book groups over the years, a great lover of music histories and biographies and a community activist and policy analyist and developer. This blog houses his writing across these diverse areas of his interests. It is a way to still engage with his thinking and thoughts and to pay tribute to it.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Eric Clapton: the autobiography

Eric Clapton: the autobiography. (2007) (With Christopher Simon Sykes) London: Century.

Summary
Eric Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 and has been playing guitar for the past 47 years. Like most children in post-war Britain, Clapton’s early musical ‘education’ came from BBC radio, folk clubs and occasional imported folk, jazz and blues records. Initially, he played the growing network of blues and folk clubs in South-East England, then between 1963 and 1965 he was a member of The Yardbirds (1963-65).

Clapton left The Yardbirds, whom he thought were becoming too commercial and joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers (1965-66). Then came Cream (1966-68), which established Clapton as an international star; the short-lived Blind Faith (1968-69), then time as a ‘sideman’ with Delaney and Bonnie (1969-70), which spawned Derek and the Dominoes (1970). In between time, Clapton played on various albums, notably the Beatles’ White Album and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass; and was a member of John Lennon’s one-off Plastic Ono Band.

Then came three years as a heroin addict, during which Clapton retreated from the music business and the world at large. He ‘came back’ as a solo artist, recording a series of albums starting with 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), each featuring a mix of styles including reggae, gospel, pop and rock. However, Clapton retained his affection for the blues and has released several blues albums: From the Cradle (1994), a CD of Chicago blues; Riding with the King (2000), a collaboration with B. B. King; and Me and Mr. Johnson (2004), his tribute to Robert Johnson. Clapton’s Unplugged (1992) remains his best-selling album and mixes blues standards with his own compositions.

My comments
The Autobiography chronicles all those events well enough, but it adds very little to the various biographies of Clapton, dating back as far as Ray Coleman’s Clapton! The authorised biography (1985). I had hoped to find out more about the guitars and the music, but while Clapton gives detailed descriptions of his first two guitars, how he chose them and what they were like to play, he writes virtually nothing more about his guitars and barely mentions most of his music. Indeed, Wikipedia’s current entry for Eric Clapton is a better source – it carries quite a good discussion of some of his better-known guitars and has an extensive discography and a list of artists with whom Clapton has played (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Clapton).

In contrast to the superficial treatment of the music, The Autobiography reveals a lot about Clapton’s addictions to drugs and alcohol. However, he presents these harrowing events in such bland terms that he could have been writing about fishing – of which he does a lot. Towards the end of the book, Clapton writes warmly of his wife and children and about his work to establish a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre in Antigua. This begins to colour-in what, until then, had been a very two-dimensional and formulaic picture of the man.

Eric Clapton continues to be a major figure in the world of the blues, but if you’re looking to learn about his relationship with blues music, then you’re probably better off listening to his records than reading The Autobiography.