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Eric Clapton: Life In 12 Bars: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

By Doug Collette

There's no scarcity of anthologies devoted to the span of Eric Clapton's work throughout his career, so there's a danger the soundtrack to Lili Fini Zanuck's documentary, Life in 12 Bars, will immediately seem redundant. Yet this companion piece to the film is perfectly complementary, deceptively discerning collection, even apart from the previously-unreleased items it contains. And while none of those five tracks are all that illuminating on their own terms, each serves the function, as means to the end ...

Eric Clapton: Life In 12 Bars

By Doug Collette

Eric Clapton Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars Eagle Vision 2018 There's a point right near the end of Lili Fini Zanuck's film devoted to Eric Clapton where the archetypal guitar hero makes a solemn statement regarding the profound importance of music in his life. His declaration strikes an unusually resounding chord because it points up, with eye-opening clarity, how much the man's musical endeavors are a secondary theme to his personal travails in Life ...

Eric Clapton: Slowhand at 70-Live at the Royal Albert Hall

By Doug Collette

Eric Clapton Slowhand at 70: Live at the Royal Albert Hall Eagle Vision 2015 Over the course of the last decade, Eric Clapton hasn't made much spectacle of crucial turning points in his life and career( reunion with John Mayall or collaborations with Steve Winwood, J.J. Cale and Jeff Beck), he's just made them happen. In that light, his run of a week at London's Royal Albert Hall, during which he marked his 200th appearance ...

Eric Clapton: Planes Trains and Eric

By Doug Collette

Eric Clapton Planes Trainsand Eric Eagle Vision 2014 Planes Trains and Eric represents a great concept brought to fruition. To follow Eric Clapton on tour and glean insight into the experience(s) on and off the stage is illuminating by definition, especially insofar that this man, the archetypal guitar hero, has the advantage of long-term perspective both wide and deep on the phenomenon of touring in a band. And in a brief interview segment, the main ...

The Power of the Blues: Eric Clapton & Wynton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center

By David Miller

Eric Clapton, Wynton Marsalis, Taj MahalRose HallNew York, NYApril 9, 2011 Let's get something out of the way here. Eric Clapton has nothing left to prove. That much is certain. The man many call “god" has accomplished enough throughout his long and varied career that he is now free to pursue any number of his “passion projects." And good on him for taking the time to play these special shows at Jazz at Lincoln Center ...

Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton at Madison Square Garden

By Doug Collette

Steve Winwood / Eric Clapton Madison Square Garden New York, New York February 28, 2008

Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton's three nights of shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City at the end of February 2008 constitutes flying under the proverbial radar. In the wake of the rumor mill working overtime on further Led Zeppelin touring, and the latest installment of the hype fest for The Police reunion, these two venerable ...

Eric Clapton: Prototype of the Guitar Hero

By Doug Collette

Eric Clapton Disraeli Gears (with Cream) 461 Ocean Blvd. Layla (with Derek & The Dominos) Universal Music Enterprises 2004

With the reformation of Cream looming for later this year, it's well to ponder how Eric Clapton became the archetypal guitar hero of our times. A series of reissues including some of his most significant work illustrate his checkered yet influential past and in so doing give some insight into how ...

Eric Clapton: Me and Mr. Johnson

By C. Michael Bailey

Eric Clapton Me and Mr. Johnson Reprise/Duck In the same way that Louis Armstrong was at center of the genesis of Jazz in the 1920s, so was Eric Clapton at the center of the British Blues invasion of the 1960s. Between 1965 and 1970, in turn, Clapton was a member of the Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and Derek and the Dominoes. And this was all before ...

Eric Clapton: Me and Mr. Johnson

By Doug Collette

Once proclaiming himself a blues purist when he quit the Yardbirds to maintain his loyalty to the genre by joining John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Eric Clapton has morphed over the years into a most careerist musician. Yet the absolutely prosaic quality of so much of that music, including his last live album One More Car, One More Rider , cannot in any way lessen the profound impact Clapton has had on modern blues. Unfortunately, Me & Mr. Johnson does little to ...