For the prosecution: Mojo Flucke, Ph.D.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution will prove that Eric Clapton has committed numerous crimes against rock, namely:
• Making music way more derivative than legally permissible for a rock god
• Exploiting fans by releasing milquetoast pap
• Squandering monstrous talent
Clapton is not God, contrary to the Islington graffito proclaiming it during his tenure in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. He is, however, an excellent blues mimic, taking compositions like Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads,” William Bell and Booker T. Jones’ “Born Under a Bad Sign,” and for Mayall, Freddie King’s “Hideaway.” He can derive like few others on earth, in a musical milieu where creatively covering other compositions is the best way to connect with the audience.
Yet great blues musicians contribute at least one or two original compositions–or the definitive interpretation of someone else’s song–to the canon of blues standards. B.B. King has “The Thrill Is Gone” and “Every Day I Have the Blues.” Junior Wells, “Messin’ With the Kid.” John Lee Hooker, “Boogie Chillen’,” “Boom Boom” and “One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer.”
Clapton’s got nothing. “Layla” is known for its innovative coda written by Domino Jim Gordon and a legendary main riff written and co-performed by Duane Allman. “Sunshine of Your Love” was co-written by all three members of Cream. Its undisputedly legendary guitar solo opens not with an original Clapton-improvised phrase, but the melody from “Blue Moon.”
Left to his own devices, Clapton churns out total dreck. There’s a lot to choose from; I’ll keep it brief by offering the “greatest whiffs” from three different decades: (more…)
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Every day for two weeks, I had heard the song rise from what must have been a pair of seriously powered speakers, floating out over the hills of Hollywood like some sweetly-scented audio pollen. The music had to be screaming from those distant monitors because Billy’s guitar scuttled the birds in the trees and the vocals came down from the heavens like the very voice of God himself — if the Lord had spoken in a southern dialect and had a preoccupation with modified racecars. Precisely at 11 A.M., ZZ Top’s “Manic Mechanic” was spit out into the ether, signaling to the inhabitants of Laurel Canyon that it was time to start the day — and what better way to greet it than with those tres little hombres from Texas? Today, in another hour, I’d be doing just that, driving to Beverly Hills to meet up with Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard. And as the world’s greatest alarm clock woke up every other late sleeper in the gently sloping foothills, the song’s third verse took on even more serendipitous significance: