“I’m not gonna ruin the whole thing”: The musician Eric Clapton couldn’t keep up with
Any rock and roll song needs to have a little bit more going for it than a catchy tune. It certainly helps to have the kind of music that can get people singing along when it comes on the radio, but there has to be something going on underneath the surface that gets people to stick around and play the song over again whenever they have the chance. And while Eric Clapton is more accustomed to making the deepest blues music ever conceived, he knew that there were some people he could never keep up with properly.
When listening to his work throughout his career, though, there’s hardly any time when Clapton felt like he was struggling onstage. Even at the worst moments of his substance abuse, there were always those moments onstage where everything would click, and he would play everything as if it was second nature to him whenever he took a solo.
Then again, Clapton didn’t want to stay in that rut forever. The joy of being in a band like Cream was him working off of two other fellow virtuosos, and since he didn’t have that anymore, the least he could do was surround himself with unique players who knew how to make different sounds than what he was used to. Sometimes it would be a rootsy rock affair, and other times it would go in a slightly reggae direction like ‘I Shot The Sheriff’.
Compared to all the other albums in his catalogue, though, Slowhand hits a magical sweet spot for him. There are pieces of the album that may have been a bit soft for people used to the God-like genius, but hearing him kick back singing a tune like ‘Cocaine’ was a lot more rewarding than having to hear him shred a solo for the hell of it.
But for Clapton, no song has to stay the same whenever he brings it to the stage. It’s his job to interpret everything he does based on how he’s feeling at the moment, and whenever he played the blues, it was always about him channelling what he could on the spot. That means some songs get a bit more elastic, but that didn’t mean Clapton didn’t run into his fair share of stumbling blocks when Greg Philliganes started playing keyboards for him.
“I gave Greg the last solo of the song. And he went into these standard progressions, which I can’t, you know, a better guitar player than me, a jazz player maybe, may have been able to pick up the chords. But I just stopped.”
Eric Clapton
Philliganes had already been a legend behind the scenes, but when they took ‘Cocaine’ to new heights live, Clapton remembered having to stop during the song whenever the keyboardist threw in something new, saying, “They went into a bit last night, in ‘Cocaine’, when I gave Greg the last solo of the song. And he went into these standard progressions, which I can’t, you know, a better guitar player than me, a jazz player maybe, may have been able to pick up the chords. But I just stopped. I don’t know where they are, and I’m not gonna, you know, hit the wrong ones can ruin the whole thing.”
Then again, it’s not like Clapton couldn’t lay down a thick groove when he wanted to. After all, the blues is the universal musical language in many respects, but when looking at the kind of records that he made, it was clear that Clapton’s wheelhouse was actually knowing where the chords were going to end up rather than taking a shot in the dark and hoping for the best.
It might not feel good for any musician to hang back like that and let the other band members take the lead, but it takes a certain degree of humility for Clapton to relinquish musical duties for a few songs. He has earned the right to grandstand with a guitar strapped on, but he knew that the best way to become a great player is by listening to the people around him rather than flying off the handle.
