“I would have retired”: The one album Eric Clapton thought he never topped
It’s impossible to expect your favourite artist to behave exactly the same way they did in their prime every time they step up to the microphone. Age is always confining to many of the greatest artists in the world, but that doesn’t mean that they still can’t find some magic within themselves that may have been too naive to pick up on when they were woodshedding their talent back in the day. And despite turning into the hardened bluesman that he always wanted to be, even Eric Clapton admitted that there are only so many times that he’s able to pump out classics.
While most people would have preferred that he would have kept his mouth shut when putting out tunes like ‘This Has Gotta Stop’, that shouldn’t diminish the fantastic work that he did when he was in his prime. Not everything may have been original, but hearing him interpret the same old bluesmen that he idolised was what made him a saviour of the genre for many fans who thought that people like Robert Johnson might get forgotten.
Even when working with Cream, Clapton was never going to cower to playing jazz the same way that Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were doing. He was a blues musician through and through, and while that did mean soloing over some complex changes, he had the ability to make the guitar cry even when he didn’t seem fully in control of his instrument like on the solo to ‘Crossroads’.
But the biggest appeal of the blues isn’t necessarily about any of the music. After all, the biggest bluesmen of all time got to where they were because of the pure pain they had in their soul, and while Clapton could emulate that heartache perfectly fine, it wasn’t until he hit upon Layla with Derek and the Dominoes that he truly started to understand what his idols meant by that.
He had already fallen in love with Patti Boyd while she was still married to George Harrison, and every piece of this album could be thought of as an individual love letter to her, whether that’s him interpolating Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing’ or turning the title track into one of the emotional musical passages that rock and roll has ever seen. And considering the band he was working with like Bobby Whitlock and Duane Allman, Clapton knew this was an opportunity that could only happen once.
Despite having another career awaiting him in his solo work, Clapton thought that there was no sense in trying to repeat what he did here, saying, “I don’t think I ever topped Layla. When you’re in your 20s, you’ve got something you lose. If I was a sportsman I would have retired by now. You’ve just got a certain amount of dynamism that you lose when turn 30.” That’s not to say he didn’t have other sides of himself to reveal.
Layla may have been pure romantic infatuation, but a song like ‘Tears in Heaven’ is when that kind of heartache comes full circle. Having a fallout with a lover would be one thing, but losing a child hits a raw nerve that no one can really quantify, which makes his ode to his son incredibly heartbreaking before anyone even hears a note of the song.
Even if Clapton is correct in saying that Layla would never be topped, that’s still an impressive legacy for him to leave behind. He already had ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ under his belt, but nothing is going to stick with someone more than hearing someone cry out in romantic anguish.
