Did Eric Clapton steal both George Harrison’s wife and band?
The year is 1970, and Eric Clapton is officially a free agent. His work with The Yardbirds and Cream has made him a god amongst guitar players, but there are only so many places to go when you’re confined to one band for the rest of the time. There came a point where someone like Clapton was going to need to call the shots, and the breeding ground for leading his band came from him turning in session work on other albums.
Because as much as ‘Slowhand’ may have commanded the stage whenever he performed, he never relished in the idea of being a frontman. He let his fingers do most of the talking for him, and even when working opposite Jack Bruce, it wasn’t that hard to see why they didn’t need to banter with the crowd like most other rock and roll frontmen were supposed to. When Clapton started working with Blind Faith, though, there was still something missing from his musical arsenal.
Even if he hadn’t settled on the right band yet, he could always find time to play music with his friends like George Harrison. He had already garnered the distinction of being the first one to infiltrate a Beatles session, but while ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ sounded fantastic, there was always more to what he had to offer than simply burning through blues licks.
So after Harrison began working with Delaney and Bonnie, he asked Clapton to join his rogue’s gallery of musicians for All Things Must Pass. This was going to be his proper introduction to the world, and that meant pulling out all the stops to create the kind of album that would leave all of his former Fabs in the dust. And while Clapton does deliver some great licks on ‘Wah-Wah,’ he was busy paying attention to the other people in Harrison’s camp.
While performing on the record’s jam disc, Clapton started talking about working with Bobby Whitlock and Carl Radle after the session. Even though it wasn’t properly an idea yet, Clapton walked out of the session with the beginnings of Derek and the Dominoes, eventually getting drummer Jim Gordon from those sessions to work on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.
Things were even kept fairly in-house when it came to the publicity shots of the band. Since ‘I Remember Jeep’ was named after Clapton’s dog, he included his furry friend in various profiles of the band, as if to give a little wink to his work with ‘The Quiet One’. Then again, the fact that things were this close should have been triggering some alarm bells for Harrison around that time.
Knowing what ‘Layla’ is about now, it does feel a bit strange seeing Clapton steal parts of Harrison’s band away. He was already crying out in pain about being in love with his friend’s wife, and to see him eventually marry Harrison’s ex-wife and then take members of his band for his own is a little too convenient.
Clapton said of his group: “We were a make-believe band. We were all hiding inside it. Derek and the Dominos – the whole thing. So it couldn’t last. I had to come out and admit that I was being me. I mean, being Derek was a cover for the fact that I was trying to steal someone else’s wife. That was one of the reasons for doing it, so that I could write the song, and even use another name for Pattie. So Derek and Layla – it wasn’t real at all.”
At the same time, Harrison was never going to be all that broken up about what Clapton had done. The best music often comes from being in the right place at the right time, and even if Derek and the Dominoes already helped Harrison paint his masterpiece, why not get to classic albums for the price of one?
