The reason why Eric Clapton created an alter-ego in 1970
Eric Clapton decorated a vital moment in rock and roll development, bringing the blues to a whole new level. As one of the most naturally gifted lead guitarists of the 20th century, he’s left a host of killer riffs and memorable songs in his wake. Famously, Clapton rarely shies from his instincts, whether musically, romantically or otherwise. Naturally, this has dunked the artist deep into hot water on a few occasions over the years.
This headstrong, outspoken nature could partly explain how he worked his way through The Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos in the space of just six years before he settled into the relative comfort of a solo career.
Principally, Clapton sought creative liberty as he moved from one group or idea to the next. With the Yardbirds, for instance, he had become weary of the band’s inclination toward chart-orientated pop music. Itching to spread his blue wings, he finally left the band in 1965 to join John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers.
“Playing to me has always been an outlet,” Clapton told Rave magazine in 1965. “With John Mayall, I can play how I like. I’m a very passive person, but I can make chords on a guitar sound vicious and violent. When I do, it’s all the bad things I’ve ever seen coming out. Sometimes I don’t play for days, but when I pick up the guitar, a stream of feelings pour through it”.
Adding: “I’ve got very disillusioned since I entered the commercial side of show business. A lot of cattiness and cruelty goes on. I kick hard at that. Someone has to start saying what they think; if they don’t, it’s a negative way of behaving. You should give and not take all the time. Real musicians give because they want to see music improved. If I hadn’t left the Yardbirds, I wouldn’t have been able to play real blues much longer because I was destroying myself.”
Clapton’s future movements were often attributed to his insatiable appetite for musical freedom, but ultimately, he needed to make space for his ego and hence, sharing creative direction with bandmates never came easily. Before his long stint as a solo entity, Clapton formed his fifth major band, Derek and the Dominos.
Joining Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon, Clapton fronted the short-lived project for just one studio album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. With the members’ shared interest in blues, folk and soul music, Clapton began to write emotionally charged lovesongs aimed at enticing Pattie Boyd from the arms of her boyfriend at the time, George Harison.
The band was initially billed as Eric Clapton and Friends, but after a discussion involving George Harrison and pianist Tony Ashton backstage before their first live performance, they stumbled upon a new name. Allegedly, Ashton came up with the name Del and the Dominos, having nicknamed Clapton Del or Derek since he toured with Delaney & Bonnie a year or so before.
While Clapton wasn’t the instigator of the rather detached name, he enjoyed the anonymity the pseudonym gave him; the name served as an alter ego of sorts as he battled his guilt for wooing Boyd. In 1970, he began furtively courting one of his best friend’s partners and the internal tempest it conjured helped him produce some of his greatest creative material.
“Everybody knew [about Clapton’s obsession with Pattie Boyd],” Whitlock later recalled. “George didn’t give a shit – but Eric didn’t know that.”
Famously, Clapton wrote the band’s defining classic, ‘Layla’, out of desperation, replacing “Pattie” with “Layla”. In 1974, Boyd finally left Harrison on mutual terms; as it transpired, the former Beatle had also engaged in adulterous affairs and maintained a close friendship with Clapton as Boyd changed hands. Harrison and Boyd finalised their divorce in 1977, and the latter married Clapton in 1979.
“We were a make-believe band,” Clapton said of his time with Derek and the Dominos in a 1985 interview (via Rocking My Life Away by Anthony DeCurtis). “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.”
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