“An understanding of it all”: the singer Eric Clapton said captured America
There wasn’t a single piece of American music that Eric Clapton couldn’t fall in love with.
The whole reason he had a guitar in his hand in the first place was because of the blues, but as he matured into a much more eclectic musician, it was a lot easier for him to appreciate all stripes of American music when he started hearing what the singer-songwriters of the world could do. But even when working with the greatest bluesmen that anyone could have ever asked for, ‘Slowhand’ felt that there were a few musicians who encapsulated the country much better than he could have ever imagined.
Then again, Clapton’s view of America was always being informed by the kinds of musicians who had been making music long before he was born. Robert Johnson had been shaping the blues for years before legends like Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy started to perform, and when listening through some of Clapton’s records, you could tell that he was playing with the intention of impressing all of his heroes when he began jamming with John Mayall.
But none of his idols was looking for people who were copying their style. They wanted Clapton to make something that sounded much more unique to him, and when he began working with Derek and the Dominos, he finally had an outlet for the kind of music that he wanted to make. All of his bandmates were from America and had been born and raised on the kind of music that he loved, so it wasn’t that hard for him to translate a lot of his ideas whenever he showed them the licks to tunes like ‘Bell Bottom Blues’.
The band was never meant to last for very long, but when you hear what Clapton would end up doing in the 1970s, you could hear his own voice a lot clearer. He wasn’t exactly taking care of himself as he should have back then, but since he was listening to records by The Band and internalising that sense of Americana, you could hear him mellow out just a little bit when making songs like ‘Wonderful Tonight’ and ‘Lay Down Sally’.
Robbie Robertson and Bob Dylan may have been great catalysts for what he wanted to do, but Clapton was a lot more reverent towards JJ Cale by this point. Cale wasn’t the most high-profile blues musician in the world by the time Clapton discovered him, but when looking through his body of work, Clapton felt that his friend had some of the greatest pieces of American music that anyone could have asked for.
Whether it was the blues, folk music, or even a dash of country, Clapton felt that all of the values that he looked for were what Cale lived every single day, saying, “I wanted to go in the other direction and try to find a way to make it minimal, but still have a great deal of substance. That was the essence of J.J.’s music to me, apart from the fact that he summed up so many of the different essences of American music: rock and jazz and folk, blues. He just seemed to have an understanding of it all.”
And while the guitar taking a back seat may have been disheartening for some fans, Clapton didn’t need to be playing a million notes per second to wow people anymore. His touch was as important as anything else, and while the days of Cream were certainly exciting for the time, it was a lot easier for him to play what he felt than worrying about competing with the other speed freaks like Gary Moore.
Because when you look at what Cale did on his best songs, it was never about being too flashy whenever he played. The role of any great musician is to tell a story with the music they’re making, and a lot of the greatest tunes don’t need to have a thousand different sections or a mind-bending guitar solo to touch people’s hearts.
