Eric Clapton
- Layla(lyrics,pictures)
- Interview with Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton was born on March 30, 1945, in his grandparent's house at 1, The Green, Ripley, Surrey, England. He was the illegitimate son of Patricia Molly Clapton and Edward Fryer, a Canadian soldier stationed in England. After W.W.II Fryer returned to his wife in Canada, Patricia left Eric in the custody of his grandparents, Rose and Jack Clapp. (The surname Clapton is from Rose's first husband, Reginald Cecil Clapton.) Patricia moved to Germany where she eventually married another Canadian soldier, Frank McDonald. Clapton withdrew from the spotlight in the early seventies, wallowing in his addiction and then struggling to conquer it. Following the advice of the Who's Pete Townsend, he underwent a controversial but effective electro-acupuncture treatment and was fully rehabilitated. He rebounded creatively with a role in the film version of Townsend's rock opera, Tommy, and with a string of albums, including the reggae-influenced 461 Ocean Boulevard, which yielded a chart-topping single cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff." Some critics and fans were disappointed by Clapton's post-rehab efforts, feeling that he had abandoned his former guitar-heavy approach in favor of a more laid-back and vocal-conscious one. Just One Night, Clapton's galvanizing 1980 live album, reminded devotees just exactly who their guitar hero was, but unfortunately, this period marked Clapton's critical slide into a serious drinking problem that eventually hospitalized him for a time in 1981. He experienced a creative resurgence after reining in his alcoholism, releasing a string of consistently successful albums--Another Ticket (1981), Money and Cigarettes (1983), Behind the Sun (1985), August (1986), Journeyman (1989)--and turning his personal life around. Though some say Clapton never regained the musical heights of his heroin days, his legend nevertheless continued to grow. That he was a paragon of rock became more than apparent when Polygram released a rich four-CD retrospective of his career, Crossroads, in 1988; the set scored Grammy awards for Best Historical Album and Best Liner Notes. In late 1990, the fates delivered Clapton a terrible blow when guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan and Clapton road crew members Colin Smythe and Nigel Browne--all close friends of Clapton's--were killed in a helicopter crash. A few months later, he was dealt another cruel blow when Conor, his son by Italian model Lori Del Santo, fell forty-nine stories from Del Santo's Manhattan high-rise apartment to his death. Clapton channeled his shattering grief into writing the heart-wrenching 1992 Grammy-winning tribute to his son, "Tears in Heaven." (Clapton received a total of six Grammys that year for the single and for the album Unplugged.) In 1994, he began once again to play traditional blues; the album, From the Cradle, marked a return to raw blues standards, and it hit with critics and fans.
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