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10 "CROSSROADS"
SOLOISTS: ERIC CLAPTON
CREAM Wheels of Fire (Polydor, 1968)
The songs of the lengendary bluesman Robert Johnson, says Eric Clapton, "Cover all my desires musically." While Clapton has covered several Johnson tunes, none
has been more celebrated than "Crossroads , Cream's radical reworking of "Cross Road Blues." Interestingly, Clapton is less impressed by his achievement than his
fans.
"It's so funny, this," Clapton says. "I've always had that held up as like, 'This is one of the great landmarks of guitar playing.' But most of that solo is on the wrong
beat. Instead of playing on the two and the four, I'm playing on the one and the three and thinking, 'That's the off beat.' No wonder people think it's so good
because it's fucking wrong;' he laughs.
"Crossroads" was recorded at a 1968 Cream concert held at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom. If Clapton made history with his solo, then history almost
wasn't made, thanks to drummer Ginger Baker's tardy and rather dramatic appearance. Recalls Tom Dowd, who engineered the recording and ran the mobile
recording unit that night: "The group was supposed to go on, but we didn't have Ginger and couldn't figure out where the heck he was. We were worried, and
[concert promoter] Bill Graham and others said, 'God, I hope he's okay. Maybe we should call the police.' Then I look out from our vantage point upstairs and see
a Corvette speeding towards us, with a couple of police cars a block behind it. That was Ginger arriving. I have no idea what happened, but he pulled up to the
stage entrance, abandoned the car, ran up on stage and the band started playing."
And what they played is what you hear; contrary to a persistent, widely disseminated rumor, the solo on "Crossroads" was not edited down.
"It's not edited, and I've got an audience tape from the same show which verifies that," says Bill Levenson, who produced the Cream box set, Those Were the Days
(Polydor). "That was a typical performance of the song. I've listened to a lot of tapes, and all of the 'Crossroads' that I've heard come in at four minutes and change.
They never seemed to expand it beyond that."
14 "LAYLA"
SOLOISTS: ERIC CLAPTON AND DUANE ALLMAN
DEREK AND THE DOMINOS Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (Polydor, 1970)
Seven minutes of pure, quivering passion, "Layla" was Eric Clapton's magnificent scream of unrequited love for Patti Boyd, wife of his best friend George Harrison.
"He grabbed one of my chicks," said Clapton of Harrison, "and so I thought I'd get even with him one day, on a petty level, and it grew from that. She was trying to
attract his attention and so she used me, and I fell madly in love with her."
Clapton poured all of himself into the intense, majestic "Layla," which he named after a classical Persian love poem, "The Story of Layla and the Majnun." The song
began as a ballad but quickly became a rocker, with Duane Allman reportedly coming up with the explosive opening riff, which altered the tune. With Allman's
majestic slide guitar egging him on, Clapton unleashed some of the most focused, emotive playing of his career.
"The song and the whole album is definitely equal parts Eric and Duane," says producer Tom Dowd, who introduced the two guitar titans, then sat back and watched
them soar together. [For the full story on the making of the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, see "The Producers," page 193 of this issue.-GW Ed.]
"There had to be some sort of telepathy going on, because I've never seen spontaneous inspiration happen at that rate and level.
One of them would play something, and the other reacted instantaneously. Never once did either of them have to say, 'Could you play that again, please?' It was
like two hands in a glove. And they got tremendously off on playing with each other."
Nowhere was the interplay between Clapton and Allman more sublime than on "Layla," which, says Dowd, features six tracks of overlapping guitar: "There's an Eric
rhythm part; three tracks of Eric playing harmony with himself on the main riff; one of Duane playing that beautiful bottleneck; and one of Duane and Eric locked up,
playing countermelodies."
The tension of the main song finds release in a surging, majestic coda, which was recorded three weeks after the first part and masterfully spliced together by Dowd.
The section begins with drummer Jim Gordon's piano part, echoed at various times by Clapton on the acoustic. Allman takes over with a celestial slide solo, beneath
which Clapton plays a subtle countermelody. As the song fades out after a blissful climax, Allman has the last word, playing his signature "bird call" lick.
42 "WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS"
SOLOIST- ERIC CLAPTON
THE BEATLES The Beatles (Capitol, 1968)
"When we actually started recording this, it was just me playing the acoustic guitar and singing it, and nobody was interested," recalls the song's author, George
Harrison. "Well, Ringo probably was, but John and Paul weren't. When I went home that night, I was really disappointed because I thought, 'Well, this is really
quite a good song; it's not as if it's crap!' And the next day I happened to drive back into London with Eric [Clapton], and I suddenly said, 'Why don't you come
play on this track?' And he said, 'Oh, I couldn't do that; the others wouldn't like it...'But I finally said, 'Well, damn, it's my song, and I'd like you to come down.' So
he did, and everybody was good as gold because he was there. I sang it with the acoustic guitar with Paul on piano, and Eric and Ringo. Later, Paul overdubbed
bass. Then we listened back to it and Eric said, 'Ah, there's a problem, though; it's not Beatlesy enough.' So we put the song through the ADT [automatic double
tracker] to wobble it a bit."
53 "COCAINE"
SOLOIST-ERIC CLAPTON
ERIC CLAPTON Slowhand (Polydor, 1977)
90 "LET IT RAIN"
SOLOIST-ERIC CLAPTON
ERIC CLAPTON Eric Clapton (Polydor, 1970)
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