Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton is a Guitariste, Chanteur and Compositeur of Blues and British Rock born the March 30th 1945 in Ripley, close to London (England). In 2003 Rolling Stone classified it 4th better guitarist of all times.
Biography
Youth
Born in Ripley, in the Surrey with the the United Kingdom, Eric Clapton is the natural son of a Canadian soldier and an English young person 16 years. His/her father, party to fight in Europe shortly after his birth, is then gone back to Canada. His/her mother being still too young to deal with him, the Eric young person is entrusted to her grandparents maternal (of which the name, Clapp, is at the origin of the false rumor according to which the true name of the guitarist would be Clapp). It will be later definitively given up by his mother, part in her turn in Canada with the arm of another soldier.
The history of its birth remained a long time a secrecy of family, and the child learns only at age the 9 years that those that he believed his parents it were not, and which his/her alleged big sister was actually her mother. The shock is terrible for Eric.
The childhood of Clapton does not occur without tears - he later confessed to have been a " salt gosse". Not very attentive at the school, it even failed to give up the training of the Guitare - he had received his acoustic first in gift for his 13 years - that he judged too difficult! Post-office employee to gain some under, it integrates the class of Design of the School of Art of Kingston, whose its poor results are worth to him to be quickly returned.
Still adolescent, Eric Clapton draws his musical inspiration - he finally managed to play a little guitar - in the American Blues: Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Toilets, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf and especially Robert Johnson, legendary the bluesman of the the Mississippi. Called by his/her friends " Eric the mod" in reference to its clothing which points out the movement Mods, it starts towards 1962 to attend clubs of musicians like the " Ealing club" of London, in which in particular the Rolling Stones occur. It will even occasionally accompany them like… singer!. Little entrusting at the time towards its talents guitaristic, it declares: “I make some a little; I worked some tricks of blues since one moment; nothing serious.”.
It is however the training by heart of an album of Chuck Berry which finally enables him to integrate in March 1963 its first group: the Roosters . He plays with them until the month of October of the same year, then, when the group dissolves, joined Casey Jones And The Engineers at the same time as Tom McGuiness (the former bass player of Roosters).
But this new association lasts only one month: Clapton, which already acquired a certain reputation as a guitarist, is engaged by the Yardbirds, which will be its first groups truly professional.
1963 - 1965: The Yardbirds
See also: Yardbirds
With the arrival of Clapton, the Yardbirds start with truly taking off. Small group of Rock'n'roll like so much of others, very influenced by the Blues, they do not play any personal composition, being limited to pieces of blues resulting from the catalogs Chess, Checker or Vee-Jay. Succeeding the Rolling Stones like groups resident legendary Crawdaddy Club of Richmond, they become a worship group among young connected English fans of blues. Their first individual, I Wish You Would and has Certain Girl , are relative successes, and they leave even in round in 1963 with the American bluesman Sony Boy Williamson, recording together an album which will leave later at the same time like a disc Yardbirds and Williamson!
Clapton, on its side, creates little by little its personal style: way of playing of course, synthesizing in a revolutionary way the influences of Buddy Guy, Freddie King and B.B. King, but also to get dressed. This strong personality, like its talents of guitarist (however rather little proposed on the first recordings of the group), are worth to him to become the principal soloist about it.
Quickly becoming an important figure of the English scene, it is made a nickname: Slowhand , reference ironic at the speed, extraordinary for the time, which he plays, or Word game on slow fox trot-hand clap (applause expressing the impatience or the dissatisfaction with the public). But in May 1965, the first true success of the group, For Your Love coincides with the departure of the guitarist, badly at ease because of this “commercial” song too.
Indeed, at that time, Clapton is still an authentic fanatic of blues, which regards as a treason to play another thing that large recoveries bluesmen. Moreover, the words of For Your Love are the work of the author of varieties Graham Gouldman, known for its work with groups for teenagers such as Herman' S Hermits or The Hollies . Recommending the young person Jimmy Page to his/her colleagues, Clapton thus leaves to join the Bluesbreakers John Mayall, that no one cannot suspect of treason towards the blues…
1965 - 1966: John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers
See also: Bluesbreakers
Party to rest with Oxford at Ben Micrometer caliper (the former guitarist of Roosters), Clapton does not remain inactive very a long time after its departure of the Yardbirds: as of March 1965, John Mayall proposes to him to join the Bluesbreakers. At the time, the group is already a reference of British R&B, Clapton thus accepts the proposal. Exchanging his Fender Telecaster against a Gibson the Paul Standard for a more authentic and powerful sound, Clapton plays with passion, and assoit his reputation of instrumentalist wonder. What does not prevent it from sometimes missing the serious one, going until missing certain engagements… Lassé by the routine by the concerts in the night clubs, it gives up in August 1965 Bluesbreakers to join a composite group supposed to traverse the world: The Nipples .
The intention first of this group of “musicians travellers” was to traverse the world in a bus on two floors, while playing a little everywhere. An epopee which is completed quickly in Greece, from where they return without a penny after having had a road accident and to be themselves almost made kidnap with Athens. Clapton thus takes again as of October 1965 its place within Bluesbreakers…
Its escapade with The Glands started by no means the reputation of Clapton, which becomes little by little a true idol, and gains a new nickname: on the palisades and in the subway of London the inscription “Clapton is God flowers” ( Clapton is God ). A new statute difficult to assume for the young guitarist, who hesitates in his declarations between the conviction that it has “capacities” and their denial.
In March 1966, Clapton, Mayall and Bluesbreakers record the album “John Mayall' S Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton”. Regarded still today as a monument of the British Blues Boom, the disc is a great success, but its title, ambiguous, satisfies neither the members of the Bluesbreakers, nor Clapton which finds that its name “is seen less than that of John Mayall”. When the album leaves, Clapton already left the group. It indeed has just formed with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker a “Supergroupe” which will become soon Cream.
1966 - 1968: Cream
See also: Cream
Formed by three musicians already very famous - Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce - Cream is the first " Supergroupe ", and one of the first " power-trios " famous. It is also for Clapton the occasion to develop its technique of song and its talents of guitarist and author of songs. Waited like a group of Blues pure and hard, the group is however directed as of its first album towards a pop music inspired as much by the Psychédélisme than by the blues. A fertile ground from which Clapton creates a style of guitar more experimental than ever: the concerts of the group are the occasion of very long improvisations to a delirious volume for the time, where Clapton, which must ensure at the same time the rhythmic one and the solos, is forced to exceed itself.
The more so as in spite of the enthusiastic declarations of the press and their close relations, environment is not always with the good shape between the members of Cream: their association is based more on one sometimes brutal competition than on a real emulation. Later, Henry Shapiro will express the situation clearly: “Cream died the day when they ceased making sparks between them”.
In 1967, the popularity of Clapton is somewhat started by the arrival in London of Jimi Hendrix, of which blazing style competition it his. Come in England, of his own consent, to meet Clapton, the black guitarist quickly becomes a new god, including for Clapton itself, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. But Clapton continues to be indicated by all the surveys of the magazines like the " better guitarist of the monde" , and the success of Hendrix does not prevent Cream from selling nearly 15 million discs throughout the world!
After three albums, the group is however victim of the enmity which reigns between its three members, but also of the hesitations of Clapton. This last is indeed very affected by a negative criticism of a concert of Cream read in the magazine Rolling Stone , like by its discovery of the album Music From Bing Pink of the American group The Band, which makes him think that the Rock-and-roll is taking a new direction. So much so that it will try, in vain, to join the group!
The last album of Cream, Goodbye , posthumous disc live, thus appears in 1968. It contains, inter alia, the song Badge , the first collaboration of Clapton with his friend George Harrison, very famous guitarist of the Beatles. Clapton will play then the solo of While My Guitar Gently Weeps , song of Harrison being reproduced on the " album blanc", becoming thus the first - and only - musician external with the group to be played of the Guitar on a disc of Beatles. When in January 1969, Harrison briefly left the group right in the middle of the recording of Let It Be , John Lennon even proposes that Clapton replaces it!
1969: Blind Faith
After the separation of Cream, Clapton founds new a Supergroupe, Blind Faith, with the ex-organist and singer of Traffic Steve Winwood, to which is added the ex-Cream Ginger Baker. The frenzy which at the fans the creation of this new group starts still exceeds that caused by the formation of Cream. Blind Faith appears for the first time in public in front of a crowd of 100.000 people with Hyde Park, the 7 June 1969. But the musicians, in particular Clapton, seem tended, and much among the public are disappointed. The group leaves then for an American round to closed counters, then records its single album éponyme. The disc is carried out so quickly that its face 2 comprises only two songs, including one Improvisation 15 minutes!
Never really with the height of waitings of Clapton like public, Blind Faith east dissolves after less than one year of existence, and Clapton, decided to remain a little more in the shade, seeks musicians to carry out his dream, to play a music closer to that of the Band.
1969 - 1970: Delaney, Bonnie And Friends, Clapton in solo
During the experiment Blind Faith, Eric Clapton became acquainted with Delaney and Bonnie, a couple of “simple, natural, free and at all conceited” musicians, who take simply pleasure to play: all opposite of the “Supergroupe S” of which it if is tired. He thus decides to join them, and accompanies them like simple guitarist for a European round. During this voyage, Clapton opens with very diverse musical influences: South American music, slow ballades, songs, love songs, topics Country, which it will exploit thereafter.
But the period “Delaney, Bonnie and Friends” is of short duration: in September 1969, Clapton entered a little more the very restricted circle of the Beatles while taking part in a concert given by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Delaney and Bonnie does not accept it, and separation intervenes in 1970.
Then begin a period of a few months during which Clapton, private of group, does not remain about it therefore inactive: encouraged to sing by Delaney, it records in 1970 its first album solo, sobrement entitled Eric Clapton , with some friends musicians of which Leon Russel and Stephen Stills. The album gains a certain business success, going up until the 18th place of the American charts. He also plays on several discs of friends, like celebrates it All Things Must Pass of George Harrison (even if, for contractual reasons, its name will not appear on the small pocket before several decades) or the first album of Plastic Ono Band of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Clapton uses then a Fender Stratocaster called Blackie which will remain its guitar preferred during 15 years, until Fender creates a model of the name of Clapton.
1970: Derek and the Dominos
At the end of 1970, Clapton discharges the rhythm section of Delaney & Bonnie (the clavierist Bobby Whitlock, the bass player Carl Radle and the beater Jim Gordon) and forms a new group, Derek and the Dominos. Tired of its statute of star adulated, it indeed wants to be run in a group of which he would be only one member among others. The group enters quickly in studio to record its first album, now considered by much as the chief of work of Clapton.
The meetings have started only for a few days when it meets the guitarist Duane Allman with a concert of its group, Allman Brothers Band. The two musicians, who know each other only reputation, play meetings impromptue together. In spite of his nondesire of celebrity by creating this group, Eric had a world success thanks to the piece " Layla" who is recorded, and will leave well later, on the edition birthday 3 CD of the album Layla , and fall immediately in love, each one on his side, the play of the other. Allman is thus invited to become the fifth Domino, and the album of the group becomes mainly the work of the two guitarists, with which the sentences intermingle, is imitated and emulated unceasingly.
The other essential aspect of this album, heading Layla and other assorted coils songs , is in the song titrates, Layla , which will be two years later, a large tube everywhere in the world. The history of this piece begins in March 1964, when George Harrison meets the young mannequin Pattie Boyd on the turning of has Hardware Day' S Night , the first film of the Beatles. It is the love at first sight, and they end up becoming engaged. Clapton, became acquainted with the couple to him during the be 1967; George and quickly became to him large friends, but their friendship is not limited to common musical tastes: very quickly, Clapton falls in its turn in love with Pattie. Not divided at the time, this passion will become the topic of Layla , a suggested first name with Clapton by the reading of a Persan book, The Story off Leïla and Majnun of the poet Nizami, who tells the impassioned love of a man for a married woman.
The continuation of the career of the group is however definitely less brilliant: devastated by the news of died of Jimi Hendrix, Clapton starts to seriously increase its consumption of Drogue S and alcohol. The reserved mitigated reception with Layla… does not arrange anything. Worse still, Duane Allman dies brutally of an accident of Moto the October 29th 1971, right before the beginning of the American round of Derek and the Dominos. Broken down, Clapton passes all the round in a permanent fog of Drogue. It will however come out an album from it live good astonishment, In Concert . That will not prevent the group from disaggregating during the recording of its second album, the egos of the musicians being exacerbated by drugs.
The following years, a true curse will seem to continue the old Dominos: the bass player dark Carl Radle in the alcohol and the drug, which will end up killing it in 1981, while the beater Jim Gordon kills his mother with blows of hammer at the time of a crisis of schizophrenia. Condemned to 14 years of prison, it was placed later in an institution for mentally ills, where it saw always today.
1971 - 1973: black years
At the beginning of the the Seventies, the life of Clapton becomes at the very least chaotic: fine tragedy of Derek and the Dominos, group which had however started under best the auspices, and its unhappy love affair for Patty Boyd plunge the musician in depresses. It ceases recording and appearing publicly, and is withdrawn in its residence of the Surrey. More serious, it makes the same tragic error as many musicians of its time, by seeking consolation and lapse of memory in the Héroïne. Begin a terrible period of dependence to this Drogue which will mark it with life: during three years, Clapton does not record, and its retirement only on some rare occasions like the concert for the Bangladesh organized by George Harrison in August 1971 leaves. The public can then have an outline of the state of decay of its health: Clapton disappears on scene, and must be reanimated before continuing to play.It is another musician who will help it to leave this infernal spiral: Pete Townshend, guitarist of the Who and friend of Clapton founds a singular Supergroupe (2 ex-members of Blind Faith, 2 ex- Traffic, more Ron Wood, Townshend him even and some others) and pushes Eric to take of it the head for two concerts in Rainbow Theater of London in January 1973. Clapton appears decreased there, its play damaged by its three years of dependence, but it is quite alive, and Townshend achieves its goal: he to show that it can be still left there. The concert produces the discounted effect: Clapton follows then a detoxification therapy, and manages to surmount its addiction with heroin. But its personal problems are not finished: if he managed to get rid of his problem of Drogue, he falls down still regularly in the Alcoolisme, in spite of successes discographic which are connected.
1974 - 1991: Clapton in solo
Released of the Heroin, having started a connection with Patty Boyd-Harrison (which will end up marrying it in 1979), Clapton assembles in 1974 a group to record a new album solo, 461 Ocean Boulevard . Inspired by its voyage in Jamaica the previous year, during which it had met the young person and still unknown Bob Marley, the disc includes/understands few solos of guitar, preferring to stress the quality of the songs. It gains a very great success and, thanks to the resumption of I Shot the Sheriff , lance at the same time the international career of Marley and the vagueness of the Reggae in Occident.
The following years see Clapton continuing to leave the albums, which are located musicalement in the line of 461… rather than of Derek and the Dominos: few solos and the better written songs. Clapton wants to exceed its reputation of " larger guitarist of the monde" (the original and ironic title of the album There' S one in every crowd of 1975) to become an author of songs recognized. But this new tendency is not always included/understood by the public, and the albums gain unequal successes, more successful, of the opinion of the media like public, being Slowhand , which contains the tubes Wonderful Tonight (a love song inspired by Patty Boyd) and Cocaine (a resumption of the white bluesman J.J. Fix)
But the troubles of Clapton are not finished for as much: the musician continues to drink much more than of reason, and in 1976, starts a violent polemic while holding of the remarks with tendency Raciste at the time of a concert with Birmingham. Regarding the United Kingdom as " too much plein" , it invites the public to vote for the politician of Extrême right-hand side Enoch Powell, in order to prevent that the country does not become a " colony noire". These remarks, which echo those of artists like David Bowie or Siouxsie Sioux at the same time, cause an general outcry, and are undoubtedly for much in the creation of the English movement Rock Against Racism. At the time refusing to reconsider its declarations, and affirming (in an interview with Q Magazine ) not to see contradiction between them and its love for the negro music, Clapton will end up allotting them in its passably alcoholic state at the time of the facts. " When I said that, I was completely drunk. And like all drunk people, I told anything. Which credit can one carry to the remarks of a soak? Me what astonishes me more, it is not what I could say, but it is to have been able to play then! ". In addition, from many facts go against the thesis of a Eric Clapton singer of racism: in addition to the preeminent black inspirations in its music, it divided the scene with very many recoveries with black artists (Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Robert CRAY, and several members of its own group of scene), and had a connection with the black top model Naomi Campbell.
At the end of the Years 1970, the Alcoolisme of Clapton becomes critical, and it must be hospitalized, then to follow a cure to Antigua (it will install there later a detoxification center entirely financed by him, the Crossroad Center ). As for the majority of the other legendary musicians of the the Sixties, the the Eighties are not the best period of Clapton: the few discs which it carries out must yield with the mode of the synthetizers and the boxes at rate/rhythm. What does not prevent August , left in 1986 and produced by Phil Collins, to be one of its greater successes. It leaves then for a round two years to the sides Hakes and gains rewards for its work (of which the British Academy Television Award for… the B.O of the series Edge off Darkness , diffused by BBC in 1985). The album Journeyman , recorded in 1989 with the assistance of sizes like George Harrison, confirms with the eyes of the public the artistic rebirth of Clapton.
But, once again, the guitarist hardly has time to benefit from his success. In 1985, it meets Yvonne Khan Kelly, with which it have a little girl, Ruth. This connection, then that with the Italian mannequin Lory Del Santo, which gives him in 1986 a son, Conor, lead to its divorce of Pattie Boyd in 1988.
Then, two major tragedies affect Clapton during the beginning of the Années 1990. First of all, death, the August 27th 1990, of the Guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, then in round with Clapton. Vaughan is with two members of its team in a helicopter which is crushed at the time of a way between two concerts. Clapton is all the more shocked that it was initially to belong to the flight, before leaving its place to Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Worse still, the March 20th 1991, his/her Conor son, four years old, dies brutally of the continuations of a fall of the 53e stage, by the window of the apartment of Clapton. Broken down, this one will tell its emotions in the song Tears in Heaven .
1992 at our days: The revival of Slowhand
In 1991, Eric Clapton pushes his old friend, the ex Beatle George Harrison, to take again the road. They start with a round with the Japan where Eric and George take again the old standards of this last. A European round is envisaged but fallen through. A recording in public is however available: Live In Japan .
But the true great return of Clapton on the music scene is done in 1992 with the album Unplugged , where it begins again in public and acoustics of the standards of Blues and its own songs. Album, which contains in particular a version of Layla which will become a tube, gains an immense success. The guitarist confirms this return to his first musical loves in 1994 with the album From The Cradle , entirely made up of resumptions of old man (even very old) pieces of Blues. Clapton shows there its control out of the commun run of all the styles of Blues to the electric guitar, and the disc is the greatest business success of the year 1994.
The following years, Clapton shares its time between collaborations with Carlos Santana and B.B. King, which gain an immense success, and albums of Electronic music ( Retail Therapy in 1997, then Pilgrim in 1998), which unchain much less enthusiasm. Leaving regularly the new albums followed by rounds, the guitarist even seems to have found a certain happiness marital and domestic at Melia McEnery, which he married in 2002.
In 2002, Clapton organizes and directs the Concert for George to the Royal Albert Hall of London, in homage to its close friend George Harrison, died of a Cancer of the pancreas one year earlier. The concert joins together in particular Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Ravi Shankar.
In 2005, Eric Clapton reforms Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker for a series in concerts which are held the 2,3,5 and 6 May with the Royal Albert Hall of London. The concerts are recorded and are the subject of a publication in the form of DVD and CD at the end of the same year. Among the albums left by Clapton these last years, one notices inter alia Me & Mr. Johnson (2004), disc of resumptions of the bluesman Robert Johnson, which is since always the greatest influence of the guitarist, and his recent collaboration (November 2006) with the legend of the white Blues J.J. Fix, The Road to Escondido .
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