Eric Clapton

Born: Eric Patrick Clapton
March 30, 1945
Ripley, Surrey, England

Eric Clapton ranks as one of the classic great rock guitarists who influenced the direction of the music in the late sixties.  His career continues to the present day, and his story is here, with research and excerpts from Wikipedia.

Clapton was born the son of 16 year old Patricia Molly Clapton and Edward Walter Fryer, a 24-year-old soldier from Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  The two were not married.  Fryer shipped off to war prior to Clapton's birth and then returned to Canada.

He grew up with his grandmother, Rose, and her second husband Jack, believing they were his parents and that his mother was his older sister.  Their surname was Clapp, which has given rise to the widespread but erroneous belief that Clapton's real surname is Clapp (Clapton is the name of Rose's first husband, Eric Clapton's maternal grandfather).

Eric Clapton and his mother, Molly (right).

Years later, his mother married another Canadian soldier, moved to Canada and left Eric with his grandparents.  When Clapton was nine years old, he discovered the true situation when his mother and six year old half-brother, Brian, returned to England for a visit.  The experience became a defining moment in his life.

He stopped applying himself at school and became moody and distant from his family.  Brian died in 1974 in a road accident.  Clapton also has two half-sisters from his mother's marriage: Cheryl (born in May 1953) and Heather (born in September 1958).

Clapton grew up quiet, shy, lonely and in his words a "nasty kid", who was very serious about his musical goals. However,  he is also known to have had a sense of humour.

Clapton spent his secondary school years at the Hollyfield School in Surbiton.  His first job was as a postman. 

Clapton received an acoustic Spanish Hoya guitar for his 13th birthday.  He found learning the instrument very difficult and nearly gave up.  He was influenced by the blues from an early age and practiced long hours to learn chords and copy the music of black blues artists that he listened to on his Grundig Cub tape recorder.

After leaving school, Clapton completed a one-year foundation art course in 1962 at the Kingston College of Art but he did not go on to undertake an art degree.  Around this time Clapton began busking around Kingston, Richmond and the West End of London.

When he was 17 years old, Clapton joined his first band. It was an early British R&B group called The Roosters.  He stayed with this band from January through August in 1963.  Clapton did a seven-gig stint with Casey Jones and the Engineers in October 1963.

The Yardbirds  [ top ]

Clapton joined The Yardbirds, a blues-influenced rock and roll band, in 1963 and stayed with them until March 1965.  Synthesising influences from Chicago blues and leading blues guitarists such as Buddy Guy, Freddie King and B. B. King, Clapton forged a distinctive style and rapidly became one of the most talked-about guitarists in the British music scene.

The band initially played Chess/Checker/Vee-Jay blues numbers and began to attract a large cult following when they took over the Rolling Stones' residency at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond.  They toured England with American bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson II; a joint LP, recorded in December 1963, was issued belatedly under both their names in 1965.

In March 1965, just as Clapton left the band, the Yardbirds had their first major hit, "For Your Love", on which Clapton played guitar.

It was during his time with the Yardbirds that Clapton acquired the nickname "Slowhand".  Whenever he broke a guitar string on stage he would immediately replace it himself; British audiences would respond with slow hand claps until he was finished and ready to play again.  Inspired by this, and also in ironic reference to Clapton's 'fast' playing, the Yardbirds' manager Giorgio Gomelsky christened him "Slowhand" Clapton.

Still obstinately dedicated to blues music, Clapton was strongly offended by the Yardbirds' new pop-oriented direction, partly because "For Your Love" had been written by pop songwriter-for-hire Graham Gouldman, who had also written hits for teen pop outfit Herman's Hermits and harmony pop band The Hollies.

Clapton recommended fellow guitarist Jimmy Page as his replacement, but Page was at that time unwilling to relinquish his lucrative career as a freelance studio musician, so Page in turn recommended Clapton's successor, Jeff Beck.

While Beck and Page played together in the Yardbirds, the trio of Beck, Page, and Clapton were never in the group together. However, the trio did appear on the 12-date benefit tour for Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis, as well as on the album Guitar Boogie, but not all on the same tracks.

The Bluesbreakers  [ top ]

Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in April 1965.  His passionate playing in nightclubs, and on the immensely influential album, Blues Breakers, established Clapton's name worldwide as a blues guitarist.  With his 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar and Marshall amplifier, Clapton's playing by then had inspired a well-publicized graffiti that deified him with the famous slogan "Clapton is God".

The phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington Underground station in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a now-famous photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall. Clapton is well reported to have been embarrassed by the slogan, saying in The South Bank Show profile of him made in 1987, "I never accepted that I was the greatest guitar player in the world. I always wanted to be the greatest guitar player in the world, but that's an ideal, and I accept it as an ideal."  The phrase began to appear in other areas of Islington throughout the mid-60s.

Cream   [ top ]

Clapton left the Bluesbreakers in July 1966 (to be replaced by Peter Green) and then formed Cream, one of the earliest supergroups.   Cream was also one of the earliest "power trios", with Jack Bruce on bass (also of Manfred Mann, the Bluesbreakers and the Graham Bond Organization) and Ginger Baker on drums (another member of the GBO).

Before the formation of Cream, Clapton was all but unknown in the United States; he left The Yardbirds before "For Your Love" hit the American Top Ten, and had yet to perform there.  During his time with Cream, Clapton began to develop as a singer and songwriter, as well as guitarist, though Bruce took most of the lead vocals and wrote the majority of the material with lyricist Pete Brown.

Cream's first gig was an unofficial performance at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester on 29 July 1966 before their full debut two nights later at the National Jazz and Blues Festival in Windsor.  Cream established an enduring legend on the high-volume blues jamming and extended solos of their live shows, while their studio work was focused on shorter versions of the same songs.

In early 1967, Clapton's status as Britain's top guitarist was rivaled by the emergence of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix attended a performance of the newly formed Cream at the Central London Polytechnic on 1 October 1966, during which Hendrix sat in on a shattering double-timed version of "Killing Floor".

Top UK stars including Clapton, Pete Townshend, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles avidly attended Hendrix's early club performances.  Hendrix's arrival had an immediate and major effect on the next phase of Clapton's career, although Clapton continued to be recognised in UK music polls as the premier guitarist.

It was with Cream that Clapton first visited the USA.  They went to New York in March 1967 for a nine show stand at the RKO Theater. They returned to New York to record Disraeli Gears from 11 May - 15 May 1967.

Cream's repertoire varied from soulful pop ("I Feel Free") to lengthy blues-based instrumental jams ("Spoonful") and featured Clapton's searing guitar lines, Bruce's soaring vocals and prominent, fluid bass playing, and Baker's powerful, polyrhythmic jazz-influenced drumming.

In a mere twenty-eight months Cream had immense commercial success, selling millions of records and playing to standing-room only crowds throughout the U.S. and Europe. They redefined the instrumentalist's role in rock and were one of the first bands to emphasise musical virtuosity, skill and flash.

Their U.S. hit singles include "Sunshine of Your Love" (#5, 1968), "White Room" (#6, 1968) and "Crossroads" (#28, 1969) - a live version of Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues."

Although Cream was hailed as one of the greatest groups of its day, and the adulation of Clapton as a guitar hero reached new heights, the band was destined to be short-lived.  The legendary infighting between Bruce and Baker and growing tensions among all three members eventually led to Cream's demise.

Another significant factor was a strongly critical Rolling Stone review of a concert of the group's second headlining U.S. tour, which affected Clapton profoundly.  

By this time he had also fallen deeply under the spell of the music of The Band after they had released the album Music from Big Pink and began to believe that rock music was heading in a new direction. He was so infatuated with them that he even asked to join them, but was turned down.

Cream's farewell album, Goodbye, featured live performances recorded live at The Forum, Los Angeles, 19 October 1968, and it was released shortly after Cream disbanded in 1968; it also featured the studio single "Badge", co-written by Clapton and George Harrison, whom he had met and become friends with after the Beatles had shared a bill with the Clapton-era Yardbirds at the London Palladium.

The close friendship between Clapton and Harrison resulted in Clapton's playing on Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from the Beatles' White Album. By all accounts the presence of an outsider, especially of Clapton's caliber, had the effect of bringing peace to the disharmonious Beatles.

In the same year of release as the White Album, Harrison released his solo debut Wonderwall Music that became the first of many Harrison solo records to feature Clapton on guitar, who would go largely unaccredited due to contractual restraints.

The pair would often play live together as each other's guests. A year after Harrison's death in 2001, Clapton helped organise the tribute concert, for which he was musical director.

Since their 1968 breakup, Cream briefly reunited in 1993 to perform at the ceremony inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  A full-scale reunion of the legendary trio took place in May 2005, with Clapton, Bruce and Baker playing 4 sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall (the scene of their 1968 farewell shows) and 3 more at New York's Madison Square Garden that October.  Recordings from the London shows were released on CD and DVD in September 2005.

Blind Faith     [ top ]

A desultory spell in a second supergroup, the short-lived Blind Faith (1969), which was composed of Cream drummer Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood of Traffic and Ric Grech of Family, resulted in one LP and one arena-circuit tour. The supergroup debuted before 100,000 fans in London's Hyde Park on 7 June 1969, performed several dates in Scandinavia, then began a sold-out American tour in July before its one and only album had been released.

The LP Blind Faith was recorded in such haste that side two consisted of just two songs, one of them a 15 minute jam entitled "Do What You Like".  The album's jacket image of a topless pubescent girl was deemed controversial in the U.S. and was replaced by a photograph of the band. Blind Faith dissolved after less than seven months together.

While Winwood returned to Traffic, by now Clapton was tired of both the spotlight and the hype that had surrounded Cream and Blind Faith. He wanted to make music that more closely resembled that of The Band.

Delany & Bonnie and Friends

Clapton decided to step into the background for a time, touring as a sideman with the American group Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, who had been the support act for Blind Faith's U.S. tour. He also played two dates that fall with The Plastic Ono Band.

Clapton became close friends with Delaney Bramlett (Bonnie Bramlett, left), who encouraged him in his singing and writing, which would show determined growth in his next effort.

Using the Bramletts' backing group and an all-star cast of session players (including Leon Russell and Stephen Stills), he recorded his first solo album during two brief tour hiatuses, fittingly named Eric Clapton, which included the Bramlett composition, "Bottle Of Red Wine" and "Let It Rain". It also yielded an unexpected U.S. #18 hit, J. J. Cale's "After Midnight".

Clapton went from the stage with Delaney and Bonnie to the studio with the Dominos to record George Harrison's All Things Must Pass in spring 1970. During this busy period, Clapton also recorded with Stephen Stills, Dr John, Leon Russell, Plastic Ono Band, Howlin' Wolf, The Bonzo Dog Band, King Curtis, Ashton Gardner & Dyke, Martha Veléz, Billy Preston and Ringo Starr.

Derek and the Dominos     [ top ]

Taking over Delaney & Bonnie's rhythm section -- Bobby Whitlock (keyboards, vocals), Carl Radle (bass) and Jim Gordon (drums) -- Clapton formed a new band which was similarly intended to counteract the 'star' cult that had grown up around him and display Clapton as an equal member of a fully-fledged group.  The band was unnamed early on simply called "Eric Clapton and Friends" with its final name, Derek and the Dominos, an accident, by all accounts.

Whitlock claims the previous performer, Tony Ashton of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke mispronounced their provisional name of "Eric and the Dynamos" as Derek and the Dominos. While in Clapton's biography a different story emerges claiming Ashton told Clapton to call the band "Del and the Dominos", Del being his nickname for Clapton. Del and Eric were combined and the final name became "Derek and the Dominos."

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