What is this – comeback album week at The Daily Vault?
\nYesterday, we looked at Aerosmith’s return from the dead (
\nDone With Mirrors<\/i>).Today’s subject is Eric Clapton’s
\n461 Ocean Boulevard<\/i> — his first studio album after kicking
\na nasty heroin habit.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t that Clapton’s career was dead; he had scored major
\nhits with his 1970 solo debut and as a part of Derek And The
\nDominoes. But his battle with drugs caused him to shut himself out
\nfrom the rest of the world. He was dragged back into reality by
\nPete Townshend — who would fight his own battle with drug
\naddiction and win — in January 1973; the Rainbow Concert was
\nClapton’s first step in his “comeback.”<\/p>\n
So,
\n461 Ocean Boulevard<\/i> symbolized Clapton’s victory over drugs,
\nas well as his return to the music scene. And from the opening
\nnotes of “Motherless Children,” you can hear that Clapton is back
\nwith a vengeance — if just a tad unsteady. “Motherless Children”
\nfeatures a slide solo that flashes back to Clapton’s work with
\nDerek And The Dominoes and the slide work of the late Duane Allman,
\nand has a vocal performance that makes one wonder how Clapton ever
\nquestioned his ability as a singer.<\/p>\n
The standout here is Clapton’s cover of Bob Marley’s “I Shot The
\nSheriff,” a cover that not only scored Clapton a number one hit,
\nbut also opened the eyes of many people to Marley’s music. While it
\ndoes not hide Clapton’s rock roots, it also does not betray the
\nreggae flavor of the tune’s original genre.<\/p>\n
But Clapton’s choices of cover songs is a bit spotty, as heard
\non his version of “Willie And The Hand Jive,” a song that I admit
\nto never liking in the first place. This version features Clapton
\nin the laid-back troubador style that would become his persona for
\nmuch of his career — a persona which just does not fit this track.
\nMaybe it would have been better had he cut loose a bit with this
\none and let it be more ragged.<\/p>\n
Most of
\n461 Ocean Boulevard<\/i> is delivered in the same laid-back
\nstyle. Sometimes it works (“Better Make It Through The Night,” “Let
\nIt Grow”), other times it doesn’t (“Mainline Florida”). In a way,
\nthis album was an experiment for Clapton – a chance to rediscover
\nhis place in the musical scene he had withdrawn from. As a result,
\nthere are times that this album is very much hit-or-miss,but it
\nstill, for the most part, succeeds.<\/p>\n
Clapton had many more demons he would face in his life — a
\nbattle with alcoholism, the tragic death of his son — and each
\ntime, he would rebound that much higher.
\n461 Ocean Boulevard<\/i> is a hesitant effort, but one that does
\nnot shadow the genius that Clapton is, and is worth listening to,
\nflaws and all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5887],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-35819","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-eric-clapton","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35819"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35819"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}