Eric Clapton’s favourite Muddy Waters song
Your mileage on Eric Clapton might vary these days. The legendary blues rocker certainly has a hell of a resumé behind his 60-year career in the music industry. If you don’t like Cream, or Blind Faith, or some of Clapton’s early solo work, then there’s just nothing I can do for you – that’s just good music.
But, as old rich guys tend to be, Clapton has said and done quite a few stupid things over the years. From racist outbursts to bad takes on everything from Brexit to Covid-19, Clapton is in that curmudgeonly end-phase of a legendary career where he’s putting his own legacy in jeopardy if he decides not to just keep his mouth shut.
No matter how you feel about the guitarist, Clapton is still probably one of the first names that come up when talking about blues rock. Clapton is a true devotee of the form, even leaving The Yardbirds when he felt like his preferred blues style was being put to the side in order to play pop music. Clapton studied some of the greatest, including Robert Johnson and Elmore James, but it was Muddy Waters who made one of the biggest impacts.
As a major concert draw throughout his life as a singer, Clapton has occasionally reached out to Waters to perform on stage with him. Even when they’re not collaborating directly, Waters and Clapton tended to float around each other’s orbit, like when both performed during The Band’s legendary final concert, The Last Waltz.
When Clapton appeared on the BBC programme Desert Island Discs back in 1989, he was tasked with choosing just eight songs to take with him. Some obvious choices followed, including cuts from Robert Johnson and Freddie King, along with some curveballs from Stevie Wonder and Prince. But when it came to Waters, Clapton chose a stone-cold classic, ‘Feel Like Going Home’.
Check out ‘Feel Like Going Home’ down below.
