HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ERIC CLAPTON, CBE (MARCH 30, 1945) – TIMH

Talk about being born into difficult circumstances and rising above one’s station. Eric Patrick Clapton was born in Ripley, Surrey, England, to an unmarried 16 year-old girl. His father was a Canadian soldier serving in England, who went back home to his wife when the war ended. Eric was raised as the child of his mother’s stepfather and mother, and was told his mother was his sister. Eric didn’t learn the truth about his family until he was 9, and the trauma of it was evident in his behavior and poor school performance. He failed his 11-plus exams (for placement into academically-oriented Grammar v. secondary modern, or trade school) and eventually made his way to art school. He studied stained glass making, but was expelled after one year having spent more time on the guitar than on glass.

In the late 50s, rock and roll and the blues filled England’s radio waves, and Eric loved it. For his 13th birthday, he asked for a guitar, and was given an inexpensive, steel-stringed model that was so hard to play that he quickly gave up. Four years later, he asked his grandparents for help buying a hollow-bodied electric Gibson ES-335 clone for a then-astronomical 100 pounds. Armed with a “real guitar,” Eric started playing all-day, every-day, imitating Freddie King, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy and other blues players he heard on radio and records.

Within three years, Eric was good enough to play locally, and by the following year started playing in London. He landed a job in his first band, The Roosters, in 1963, and when they broke up later that year, joined Casey Jones and the Engineers, a pop-oriented group. That wasn’t to his taste, and in October, 1963, Eric was recruited by The Yardbirds. Over the next year and a half, Eric played on his first records and at his first big concerts. He was also tagged with his “Slowhand” nickname. Eric was tough on guitar strings and regularly broke them on stage. As he replaced and re-tuned his instrument, audiences would begin slow-clapping to show their impatience. When The Yardbirds “For Your Love” became a hit, the band veered away from the blues, and Eric was out of there. He was immediately picked up by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. A few months into that gig, Eric went to Greece with a friend’s band, The Glands. When he came home, he rejoined the Bluesbreakers. That’s when he picked up his second nickname, “God.” The classic Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton was recorded during this time, as was a one-off EP with a studio band that aptly called themselves The Powerhouse: Clapton, John Paul Jones, Steve Winwood and Jack Bruce.

Clapton became world famous when he left Mayall in 1966, and formed Cream, with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. This band of egos (Bruce and Baker had a mutual dislike for one another) would fly apart by 1968, but in the interim recorded Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, and Wheels of Fire, and toured the world to showcase their prodigious talent.

In 1969, Eric formed one of the first “Super Groups” with Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood and Rick Grech. Blind Faith made one album and toured one time before imploding. In recent years, Clapton has expressed regret that Blind Faith didn’t last longer. They were a victim of high expectations (theirs), lack of time to practice and gel, lack of new material (not that the fans noticed – they wanted to hear the old songs the band was tired of playing), and controversy over the album cover. Rumors abounded that the topless young lady was the band’s sex slave, or the illegitimate child of one of them, and even that she had been killed as a sacrifice to the devil. It was all nonsense. She was a well-known London suburbanite who signed a modeling release with her parents’ permission. Regardless, Blind Faith was history by the end of 1969.

Eric took an intentional step back into the shadows, hooking up with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, and playing as a sideman, albeit one who Delaney Bramlett encouraged to write and sing more. Eric played on an album with the band, and later in 1970 released his first solo record. That summer, he formed Derek and the Dominoes, with members of Bramlett’s band. “Layla,” a song about Eric’s unrequited love for George Harrison’s wife, Patti, appears on the group’s only album.

The Dominoes, too, broke up after one US tour, and together with the commercial failure of the Layla album, the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman, and his going-nowhere relationship with Patti, sent Eric into a 3-year, heroin addicted, depression. He was coaxed out of it and into rehab with the help of friends like Pete Townshend of The Who and the famed Rainbow Concerts in 1973. Though Eric had beaten drugs, he was still drinking heavily. Still, things were getting better (he finally landed Patti for one thing) and it showed on Eric’s comeback 461 Ocean Boulevard album.

Since 1974, Clapton has released great solo albums, one after the other, and has toured regularly in support of them – the exception being 1982-83, when Eric’s alcoholism nearly killed him. He finally was hospitalized for treatment and got sober. His productivity since then has been remarkable.

Eric Clapton Solo Studio Discography:

Eric Clapton (1970)
461 Ocean Boulevard (1974)
There's One in Every Crowd (1975)
No Reason to Cry (1976)
Slowhand (1977)
Backless (1978)
Another Ticket (1981)
Money and Cigarettes (1983)
Behind the Sun (1985)
August (1986)
Journeyman (1989)
Rush (1992)
From the Cradle (1994)
Pilgrim (1998)
Riding with the King (with B.B. King) (2000)
Reptile (2001)
Me and Mr. Johnson (2004)
Sessions for Robert J (2004)
Back Home (2005)
The Road to Escondido (with JJ Cale) (2006)
Clapton (2010)
Old Sock (2013)
The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale (2014)
I Still Do (To be released May 20, 2016)

Clapton’s collaborations and guest appearances are too numerous to list. They notably include “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on The Beatles (“White album). His Unplugged album is one of the best sellers in the MTV series. Eric has won 18 Grammys, and is the only artist to be inducted in the rock HOF 3 times – with The Yardbirds, with Cream, and as a solo performer.

Eric married Melia McEnery of Columbus, OH, in 2002. They have 3 children. Eric has a daughter from a previous relationship, and had a son Conor, who tragically died in a fall from a hotel window in 1991, inspiring “Tears In Heaven.”