The band Eric Clapton thought no one could imitate: “An impossible dream”
Every artist grows up mining through whatever they’ve heard in their record collections. There are only 12 notes to work with, after all, so people usually need that jolt of inspiration from their favourite acts to remind them of why they loved music in the first place. Although Eric Clapton would predictably think of something bluesy to get back in tune with his roots, he was at a loss trying to recreate what he heard from The Band on their first handful of records.
Then again, it’s not like The Band put together 13 different progressive rock movements every time they got into the studio. Most of their music had been descended down from folk and singer-songwriter traditions, but the minute that they threw themselves into songs like ‘The Weight’ and ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’, there was a certain blend between their voices that had some kind of undefinable power.
That kind of chemistry doesn’t happen by accident, though. You have to remember that these were the same musicians who served as Bob Dylan’s backing band under the name The Hawks, and when working with someone as picky as Dylan on the live stage, any of them would have to learn the importance of learning tracks on the fly or waiting for the moment any song switches up.
Although Clapton was still firmly rooted in blues and psychedelic rock when The Band first debuted, it was clear that he was turning a corner as well. Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce would never get along famously, but once Cream called it quits, ‘Slowhand’ was already ready to move into more singer-songwriter territory, using the band as his template.
Throughout his work with Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes, it’s almost like you could see the transformation happening in real time. Clapton was still the same bluesy guitarist he had always been, but the power of the songs had gone up a few notches, whether that be harmonising with Steve Winwood on ‘Can’t Find My Way Home’ or crying out in pain on ‘Layla’.
There were pieces that had the same musical DNA as The Band, but Clapton confessed that he was never going to replicate what they could do, recalling at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “I was very impressed, and for the rest of my career, I tried to imitate what they had. It was an impossible dream, really, because we had come from two different worlds. It was a principle I got from what they did, which was integrity and a standard of craft that didn’t bow down to any commerciality.”
And following that kind of inspiration was what led Clapton to put the Gibson for a while to get in touch with that personal side. Some hard rockers may have felt cheated, but listening to 461 Ocean Boulevard, Clapton was using all the same tools in his arsenal but using them to make a much different beast.
Because The Band were never about long sweeping solos that went on for 15 minutes at a time. They were focused on what makes the inner workings of a great song, and considering how seasoned a songwriter Clapton got during the ‘Tears in Heaven’, he developed his own mastery of the format secondhand.
