Pity poor Eric Clapton. In the span of two years, he saw one
\nsupergroup he was involved in (Cream) collapse under its own weight
\nand another supergroup he played in (Blind Faith) crumble under its
\nown pretentiousness. One had to wonder if the third time would be
\nthe charm for the British guitar god.<\/p>\n
With the help of some members of Delaney and Bonnie’s backing
\nband, Clapton finally went the solo route with this 1970
\nself-titled release. And while it helped cement his position as a
\nname to watch in rock music, it didn’t quite show off Clapton’s
\ntrue glory. It is, in fact, shaky, but listenable.<\/p>\n
Part of the problem turns out to be the backing band. When the
\nsound takes on a New Orleans flavor with the horn sections, the
\nsongs tend to hit the wall pretty quickly. A solid instrumental
\nbase on “Slunky” is destroyed with this rhythm section. The focus
\nshould have been on Clapton’s guitar playing, which seems to take a
\nback seat to the rest of the music. In this case, this is a fatal
\nmistake. (Even the help of musicians like Leon Russell hurt the
\noverall case.)<\/p>\n
The three songs that
\nEric Clapton<\/i> is known for still have some moments of glory.
\n“After Midnight” hasn’t aged as well as we’d like to think it has,
\nthough this version still blows away the re-recording Clapton did
\nin the ’80s. “Blues Power” shows off a Clapton vocal that would
\nlater become his trademark, while “Let It Rain” is the true
\nstandout of this album, featuring a sound that Clapton would take
\none step further in Derek And The Dominoes.<\/p>\n
What also stands out on this album is Clapton’s acoustic guitar
\nwork on “Easy Now,” a song which also demonstrates the beauty of
\nhis voice. (The subject matter of the song… well, let’s just say
\nyou should listen very carefully, ’cause this ain’t no cinammon and
\nsugar love song. It’s, aaah, a little stickier.) After hearing this
\nsong, I had to wonder why Clapton decided not to use more acoustic
\nwork on the album.<\/p>\n
Other performances on
\nEric Clapton<\/i> are hit-or-miss. Songs like “Lonesome And A
\nLong Way From Home” and “Told You For The Last Time” show some of
\nthe brilliance Clapton had, while other cuts like “Bottle Of Red
\nWine” and “Bad Boy” tend to waste it. Even Clapton’s attempts to
\ndive into the blues don’t soar like he would have liked them to.
\n(Clapton would get the blues right much later on
\nFrom The Cradle<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
\nEric Clapton<\/i> isn’t a bad album by any definition, but it is
\nadmittedly spotty. Still, it’s a better overall listen than some
\n“classic” albums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5887],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-39220","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\/39220","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=39220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39220"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}