The 1974 song that scared Eric clapton to death: “I didn’t think anyone could do that one”
There aren’t many corners of the blues that Eric Clapton didn’t cover at least a little bit throughout his career.
He loved the idea of taking a little bit from every guitarist that he ever heard and developing his own style, and along the way a lot of his blues heroes taught him that the best playing that he could hope to do came when he was completely at one with his instrument. But even when playing some of the greatest tunes of his career, ‘Slowhand’ did at least respect the craft enough to know when he was treading on sacred ground whenever he played.
Then again, there weren’t too many tunes they would have considered too hard to pull off half the time. ‘Killing Floor’ was already one of the most difficult tunes that any blues player could have tried on at the time, but when you get him and Jimi Hendrix going back and forth on the solo to that tune whenever they played live, most audiences knew they were in for something special whenever they traded lines between each other.
But even if Clapton could only go so far with the blues, he got a lot better at appreciating the intricacies as the years went by. It used to be all about playing the most aggressive blues that anyone had ever heard, but even all of his time working with Cream and playing the most complex music imaginable was ever going to replace the power of hearing BB King play the right note and hang on it for ages.
And when he heard some of the best downtempo blues, JJ Cale was the one he gravitated towards the most. Despite not being the most complex songsmith of all time, it was easier for Clapton to see himself in Cale’s shoes half the time, usually being the one that was answering himself every time he sang and making tunes that were as direct as could be when talking about his own struggles.
So when Cale passed away, Clapton was going to be the one to help remind everyone what made him so special. He had already gone the same thing for George Harrison during the Concert for George, but when putting together a who’s who of the greatest players in the industry, Clapton knew better than to try a song like ‘Cajun Moon’ whenever he called out tracks to perform.
There are many tunes that Clapton could have transformed, but he would prefer if he didn’t touch this particular Cale track, saying, “In terms of individual choices, ‘Cajun Moon’ was very daunting to me. I didn’t think anyone could do that one, but I thought I could give it a try. I made up a short list of about 30 songs. Then I went back to Columbus and we just started putting down tracks. Then I realized, having met Don White at the funeral, that I needed to open this up to other people.”
And while Clapton did find the time to include it on the record, the fact that he could pull it off all had to do with getting the little nuances of the track down. The tune has a lot more nimble fretwork than most blues players are used to, and even having played for years on end, it was difficult forClapton to find the same kind of feel because it’s so unique to what Cale did whenever he strapped on his guitar.
It’s not the end of the world if he didn’t end up sounding exactly like him, but the fact that he put his own stamp on it would have been exactly what Cale wanted. Any blues player should at least bring a little piece of themselves to every single performance, and you can tell that Clapton is both playing to make his idol proud but also express all the sorrow that he has now that he isn’t with us anymore.
