The artist Paul McCartney considered too good to retire: “It would be a pity”
Every rock star in the game for a few years always has that one word lingering in the back of their mind: retirement. Although many would gladly be playing music until they keel over onstage, there are just as many who wonder whether the time would be right to hang things up while still in their prime before time slows them down on its own. Paul McCartney knew that he still had enough gas left in the tank for decades, but in terms of virtuosic playing, he thought Eric Clapton was far too accomplished a guitarist to bow out gracefully.
But when Clapton first emerged on the scene, he and Macca seemed to be on opposite sides of the British Invasion. The Beatles had busted down the door for artists to come through and infiltrate American shores, but The Yardbirds were much more attuned to American blues than the traditional pop music that the rest of their contemporaries were spitting out.
And it’s not like Clapton didn’t do his homework on the blues, either. Many of the blues troubadours hadn’t made their way to the British Isles, but chances are that Clapton did, in fact, track down those uncovered records by artists like Big Bill Broonzy or Robert Johnson when it came time to wooshed his own classic licks.
Even after creating the greatest supergroup of the era with Cream, though, Clapton seemed content to leave blues as only a small sample of his writing. Now that singer-songwriters were dominating the scene, records like 461 Ocean Boulevard took his music and turned it inside out, leading to tunes that were far more focused on the personal side of his playing rather than just jamming for hours at a time.
After he reached his dad-rock phase in the 1990s with tunes like ‘Tears in Heaven’, though, Clapton seriously considered throwing in the towel once he reached the 2010s. With a solid collection of blues licks and even a Cream reunion under his belt, he seemed like it was probably a good time to stop at a position of strength while he still had the world’s ear.
But McCartney knew that there was no way that Clapton could ever put down his guitar on a whim, telling Rolling Stone, “The margin has been stretched these days. The Stones go out now, and I go to their show and I think, ‘It doesn’t matter that they’re old gits. They can play great.’ And I talk to young kids who say exactly the same thing: ‘They play good.’ I think that’s the deciding factor. It would be a pity if Eric retires, because, shit, he really plays good!”
It’s not like Clapton couldn’t still deliver when the time called for it. During the various Cream reunion shows, he was still just as electric live as he had always been, and considering his unusual session work on Ed Sheeran albums, he still knows how to put tasteful licks in between even the most simplistic pop song.
Even though most artists might be well beyond their hitmaking days, that doesn’t mean their touring lives should be over. Clapton’s magic hadn’t gone away, but discounting some of the truly awful tunes he has put out lately, like ‘This Has Gotta Stop’, he can still pick up the guitar and make it speak in a way few others could.
