The one band Eric Clapton always should have joined: “I love those guys”
Anyone around the early 1970s wouldn’t have thought twice if they were asked to jam with Eric Clapton.
Even though Jimi Hendrix slowly became the king of all things guitar when he plugged in for the first time, ‘Slowhand’ was the one who was adding the slightest bit of taste to the blues whenever he worked on a new record. He was responsible for bringing that 12-bar structure to the rock and roll generation, but he felt that there were some opportunities that he missed along the way while annihilating every single concert he played.
Because as much as Clapton was one of the finest guitar players in the world, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t make a few bad decisions as well. There are many records from the 1970s onward that he had blocked out of his memory because of how much he was drinking during that time, and even he could probably tell you the kind of state he was in when making every single one of those records.
But, really, what else was he supposed to do as a solo artist? He had already been in some of the greatest rock and roll bands at the time, like Blind Faith and Cream, and when Derek and the Dominos fell apart after only one album, Clapton knew that he was at least going to find some refuge in making his own music. The drinking didn’t stop him from coming up with beautiful tunes like ‘Wonderful Tonight’, but that also meant him committing himself a little bit too much to his own craft.
There were plenty of people lining up to work with him, but Clapton was far too laser-focused on what he wanted his band to be half the time. He liked the idea of making a statement every single time he made a record, but when The Rolling Stones had lost Brian Jones, the idea of Clapton joining the group didn’t exactly sound like the worst idea when the opportunity presented itself.
Him joining The Beatles after George Harrison stormed out was always going to be considered a joke, but it’s not like The Stones were all that different from what he was doing. He knew the blues inside and out the same way that Keith Richards did, and even though they ended up making a perfect choice by bringing in Mick Taylor, Clapton did end up wondering why he never managed to give them a straight answer.
He was clearly good enough to come up with a handful of great tunes with them, but Clapton remembered that turning them down was one of the most boneheaded decisions he could have made, saying, “That was right when I was trying to put Blind Faith together. I should have done it in a way because I really love those guys. It’s lovely to be part of a band [like that].” And as much as people like the idea of supergroups, there are a few caveats that would have come with that.
We could have had Clapton on hand to perform some of his eventual solo tunes on some Stones records, but that would have also meant that Taylor would have never had a chance to cut some of his solos. And since Clapton and Taylor were both more fluid players whenever they got onstage, the fact that it was more about finding the right notes was what made Keith Richards feel a bit more of a disconnect between him and Taylor after one too many records playing together.
The idea might have worked for a collaborative album to some degree, but what Clapton was doing wasn’t all about finding the perfect band to be in all the time. He liked the idea of having players to bounce off of, but when it comes to his style of playing, he was far too singular to be tied down to any one group for the rest of his life.
