"The Eric Clapton Special"
This was the title of a BBC radio presentation broadcast on 20 April 1980 as part of the Rock Hour Special. Available on record as part of the London Wavelength series (O01-AA), it featured the following interview with Eric by Radio I disc jockey, Tommy Vance.
Music: Lay Down Sally (live)
TV: The line up of the musicians you have on this double album (Just One Night) sound to me as if it's one of the happiest line ups you've ever achieved.
EC: Yeah, that's true. It's mainly 'cause they're all local lads I think, and we all seem to think the same way about what we're doing.
TV: Is it the type of line up that you have envisaged getting together for quite some time?
EC: Yeah, I suppose so, but I never really thought that it could really be done because it seemed that all the musicians I liked in England were on the road or working on their own projects, so I always went to look in America for people that were loose and had good reputations, and suddenly it just happened by coincidence that the people I wanted to play with in England were actually all free and we got together and it worked.
TV: Well you certainly sound, with the current line up, to be a very happy man.
EC: Yeah, it's going great, it really is.
TV: And the line up that we're going to see on stage here in the UK during May is also the line up, of course, that's an the album as well.
EC: Not on the live album no. Gary wasn't with us then, Gary joined over Christmas so he's on the album that we're cutting now and that's about half way finished. I should think it should be out in September sometime, but this one - the live album - is just Henry, Dave, Albert, Chris and me. It's funny, 'cause I met Henry and Dave first of all on a session and co we built it from the rhythm section up which is a nice, very unusual, way - 'cause usually you go for lead players, but it was nice to start it like that just a trio and then Chris came into it, then Albert and then Gary at the very end.
TV: Looking at the people that you've worked with over the years, the list is endless. Just to run through a few names: Steve Winwood, Ron Wood, Pete Townshend, Joe Cocker, Delaney and Bonnie, Dr. John, Steven Stills, Freddie King, The Mothers of lnvention, The Plastic Ono Band, Howlin' Wolf - the list goes on and on and on. Just while I'm talking about that, did you play on The Beatles White Album?
EC: Yeah, I played on George's track - I played the lead on that and it was really good 'cause it was one of the only ones they did completely live in the studio with everyone. I think there was one small bit of over dubbing - just an effect or something - but it was really nice to see them all working live together. To be playing along with it was a real thrill you know.
Music: While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
TV: Do you find it more acceptable to be pan of a working unit than being just a front man?
EC: Well, I find it more satisfactory in terms of everyone harmonising with one another. It's never been my idea of a good thing to go into a studio after the event and stick something on when you don't even know who you are helping and who the artist is. I could never be a session man for that reason. So when you're working with people and you can see them, there's eyeball contact - you start and stop together. I think there's much more satisfaction in that.
TV: Whether you like it, and I get the impression that you don't like it, you are seen very much as the front geezer - the front man, aren't you?
EC: Yeah, I don't know why, honestly I don't know why 'cause the people that I usually work with have got just as much talent, if not more, than I have. But that's the way it goes.
TV: Do you find sometimes - or have you found sometimes that the pressure of being a Superstar, for want of another term, that the pressures get you down?
EC: Yeah, very much so at times. I found it sort of hypercritical for me to actually go out there with this label and do something which I regard as fairly average and have it overlorded, as it were - too much praise for not enough given - but you come to terms with that after a while and you can actually laugh at it and think well - if they want to take it, let them have it like that, you know. But it does tend to make you work harder - there's no doubt of that.
TV: You're considered to be one the great masters of the guitar. Do you think you've mastered your instrument?
EC: No, not in the least. I just play 'round the edges of it most of the time - get away with what I can.
Music: If I Don't Be There by Morning (live).
TV: You must think Eric, that you've reached somewhere on the ladder of mastering your instrument. I mean you indicated earlier that you didn't think you had.
EC: Well, I know I can't play it as well as a lot of my contemporaries and that's what you go by isn't it? I mean in terms of learning and dexterity I'm far behind lots of other players. But I do have a certain tone which I know can be recognised. If that's mastering your instrument, then I've mastered it but I don't think that's all there is to it. I think one should always be striving to do a little bit better than you're already doing.
TV: Of all the recorded material you've been involved in - and that's a really extensive amount - what to you is the most gratifying? What do you ever play at home or maybe even hear on the radio and think "yeah, I gave it all I had at that moment in time"?
EC: The first thing that hit me when then you asked me that was a recording I did with King Curtis. Not necessarily because I gave all I had but the memory of it is always vivid - just the spontaneity of the recording, it was so quick. I think he was recording with Delaney doing sessions in LA and they were fed up with doing what they were doing - they'd been doing something for hours and hours and it was getting nowhere, so he said let's just do something else and he sang the line he wanted played.
I played it with him and we did it in about 10 minutes and it was great - it was perfect you know. And it was called - what was it called - Teasin', and it's still one of my favourite performances - it's nothing spectacular about it, it's just very sweet.
Music: Teasin'
TV: Way back in the 60's and in the very early stages of your career - prior to Cream, the supergroup of all time in the minds of just about all rock fans around the world - which were your most gratifying periods then? Was it with Mayall?
EC: Yeah, doubtless with Mayall, 'cause we worked hard - we worked about seven nights a week, sometimes two shows a night in different place and my chops were probably better than they have ever been. That was really the peak I think and that's why I think I felt a lot of disappointment when I was with Cream was because I was doing something that wasn't quite the same and I was unfamiliar with the territory.
You know it was - that's what we invented - a new fusion of music. none of it was familiar - I mean Ginger didn't know anything about Rock' n' Roll for instance. Jack was into a form of very free Jazz and I was straight into the Blues - the three of us had to communicate somehow and put a melting pot together. That's how that happened, but I think pre that Mayall had to be the one where I really felt most at home.
Music: Have You Heard?
TV: In many ways what you've done since the time you were with Mayall to me is very similar to what Mayall did.
EC: Yeah, you mean like run a band and let musicians walk through it, kind of thing?
TV: Yeah, and find talent and use talent - I don't mean use it in a derogatory sense but blend with it.
EC: Yeah, I think that's perfectly acceptable. It's a funny role to be cast in though 'cause poor old John - everyone takes the mickey out of him behind his back, but when you look at it he's actually run an incredibly great school for musicians. I mean most of the people that have gone through his school have turned out pretty well. I mean he's a good father figure. He always - he never made it - sort of, he never gave me terms like you can't leave this band once you get good - you're staying with it. It was always like once you've got your own feet get on your way. I think that's a good way to be.
TV: But you intimate there that it's a difficult thing to do - a difficult way to be.
EC: Well, I don't think I could fulfil that role the way he did yet. I mean when I joined him I was about 20 and he was about 35 - which is what I am now - but he had a hell of a lot of responsibilities on his hands. I mean he used to take care of everything - the bookings, everything. I prefer to just take it easy a little bit more than that.
TV: During the early 70's, you went through a very tough and a very fraught and a very well documented period of your life. Just in easy reflection, what are your feelings about that period of your life now?
EC: I think it was a very necessary part of my life to go through. I mean I took it as it came, fought it and came out again - that's what I had to do. I don't know why but it seemed like it was something that was completely unavoidable and I remember speaking to friends about it even when I was going into that part of my life and saying "well look - can't you see I'm gonna have to do this? I've got to go through the darkness to see the light" - or whichever way you want to put it.
And they couldn't see it that way - they just said "No, don't do it, stay straight, keep in the public eye" and all this and I just said "No - I'm sorry, I've gotta do this" and I did it all and I found when I came out the other side that I actually hadn't lost anything at all -I'd probably learned something. But I wouldn't go through it again.
TV: There's a very definite mellowing I think in what you're doing musically when you came out the other side.
EC: Yeah, I think I probably grew up just a little bit.
TV: Have you ever found that your personal stability has gone, say, in tandem with your most creative period?
EC: Ah, that's a pretty heavy question. I think - no, I think one usually sacrifices to the other. When the music is really going strong my personal life seems to fall to pieces. I mean, when you do get both of them working well in parallel you usually turn out some pretty "hum drum" stuff - you know, which may be sort of acceptable to you in terms of - well, I'm working, I'm making money and everything's going smoothly, but to other people that listen to your music it just sounds like run of the mill stuff. I think you need a kind of seed of irritation to make you go out there and really work hard - otherwise you've got nothing to take your mind. It's like playing music is something to purge yourself with in a way - so you do need an irritant I think.
Music: Worried Life Blues (live).
TV: Eric, what's the importance of music to you personally?
EC: I think it has to be the element of surprise, in that you can surprise yourself or that someone else can surprise you. That you can actually communicate with someone thousands of miles away that you have never met - and although you can't get to know them, they can get to know you just by listening to the music you make, and therefore you're actually covering the whole of the world in a sound that conveys your own personality. I got a letter from a middle aged nurse who said that she never liked Rock'n'Roll, but one day got hold of a record of mine and now she's got all my records - records I've never heard of bootlegs and things like this and she described my personality as if she'd known me like my mother knows me - and it was a shock you know - really 'cause she knew me inside out yet I'd never met this woman. That's the element of surprise, 'cause I'd forgotten that you could still do that - you know, listen to a record and say "well, I know who that is".
TV: What do you think then is the importance of music socially.
EC: I think it's the fabric that we live by - it's the escapist thing again. If it gets too bogged down in the reality of our lives then it becomes a drudge along with the rest of it. It's like you don't want to look in the mirror and see an ugly reflection of yourself, you want to see something a little more pleasant than actually you know you are to be - so music should always be an uplifting thing for the community - something that they can actually relax to, not something that makes them aggressive or reminds them too much of their own personal grief or anything like that.
TV: Do you have a fear of being stereotyped?
EC: No, no, I just thought well, bugger them, they're not going to get me like that. But the trouble is the music comes out the same every time - you can't fight that. You can change your looks, you can change everything, you can change the format, the kind of songs you do, but once you do that thing that people know you best for, they recognise you so that's that - and that's your own self doing the stereotyping, there's no-one else.
TV: I get the impression - I mean you're 35 now, you're 50% through your life
EC: Oh, thanks a lot (laughs).
TV: .... those three score years and ten and all that, but you'd like to be at the end of your career like a B.B. King - who I'm not suggesting for a moment is at the end of his career.
EC: Um - no, I don't think I could ever be like that - that's really - that's something else the way he's kept it up, and he's still got further to go - there's no doubt. I see myself actually sort of slipping further back and just, you know, not standing out the-front the way he does - I mean he's running a 12 piece band or something.
TV: Would you ultimately like to be that type of figure - I mean he's a man that has enormous respect.
EC: Yeah - I'd like to be able to earn that respect without having to work so hard ((laughs).
Music: All Our Past Times (live).
TV: Did you ever have a desire to do anything else?
EC: No, I'm not any good at anything else really and if I was to try something else I'd try painting and drawing and various kinds of hobbies. I find I lose touch of the music again you know it's
TV: I would suggest that a lot of people have an image of you, say, at home continually with a guitar in your hand.
EC: Well that's quite close to the truth - in fact if I'm not listening to music I'm playing it or I'm around someone who can play it or just sing, you know, a lot of sing-songs down my way - just singing old standards, it's very satisfying. I don't like to be too far away from music at any time.
TV: What about current trends?
EC: Oh I love it, it's great, very alive.
TV: Do you like it possibly because it reminds you of the early stages of your career?
EC: No, it doesn't remind me of the early stages of my career at all, it reminds me of early stages of other people's careers - groups I used to go and see when I was the same age and yeah, that's great. It's just like going back to the Marquee or somewhere, you know The Ram Jam or something like that.
Music: After Midnight (live)
TV: Going through all the records that I have of yours - I think I've got every one of them - you remain incredibly true to your original style and your original love -irrespective of whatever trends have been kicking around the world at any given moment of time. You've never gotten away from what I would say was The Blues.
EC: Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's the core of my musical existence. Whatever I've framed it with you can put it in any kind of setting - that lead style of playing the guitar is something I'll never escape and it's something I don't want to get away from anyway. But it's great because it is so versatile you can put It in any setting and it's still the same, and it still works, so I'm happy with that - you know it's very lucky for me that the guitar turned out to be the right instrument for the right time.
TV: What about the writing side of your life - do you find it easy to write.
EC: Sometimes yeah - sometimes it just flows, other days it doesn't.
TV: Are there certain things that you actually like to write about?
EC: Yeah - well - love is obvious, romance. I'm a very romantic man at heart you see - it's always the way it comes out. If an incident takes place in my life that includes my emotions towards someone that I love, that's what I write about straight away rather than anything topical - what I see on the street of anything like that - and I think it's very closely linked with playing blues guitar as well, because what ever started me doing that is also the same thing that makes me write the things I write.
TV: Could you tell us a little bit about the Derek and the Dominos episode in your life which was, think, a great episode.
EC: Yeah, it was great. Actually, I wish it had gone on a little bit longer. I think we all just burnt ourselves out we worked very hard and tried to get too much into too little a space. But touring was great with them - it was a four piece, I mean, and we made it sound like a huge orchestra. You know, it was - it was a great experience for me. And it was the first time I'd led a band too, and I had a great deal of respect from the other musicians and they pushed me further than I would have gone naturally. Yeah, good times.
Music: Have You Ever Loved a Woman
TV: Of all the time that's available to you in a year, how much of that year, or any given year, would you feel happy about spending on the road?
EC: I suppose about nine months would be about the limit.
TV: That's a long time isn't it?
EC: No, not if you break it up, you know, carefully - couple of weeks off in between. I've been off now since December and I don't know what I'm doing with myself. You know I just suddenly realised the other day we're gonna start work again and I haven't actually played with the band for about four months, and I think to myself "well", you know, "what have you been doing", and what we've been doing in actual fact is we've been recording a new album. But it was not the same as being on stage - you don't work up a sweat in the studio at all.
TV: Would you care to project how long this current line-up will be happy to stay together?
EC: Well, I suppose that depends on our wives (laughs).
TV: Lovely answer (laughing).
EC: Oh, it's true!
TV: I mean with you having to go to Japan for a few months - I mean what does the missus think about that?
EC: Well, she gets on with her own life. I mean I'm lucky, she's a very patient woman but, er, you can only do it for so long before they start getting rattled about it.
TV: On the new album that's gonna come out in September, is there a lot of new material because the live album is essentially old favourites.
EC: Yeah, yeah - oh, it's all new stuff yeah, and with Gary writing too it's got a very different flavour - incredibly different flavour.
TV: But still one you're happy with.
EC: Yeah, you see - well he reminds me a lot of Stevie in the way he sings and plays and writes especially, and I've always wanted to work with someone who worked like that - a keyboard man who would sing and write and it's perfect really, perfect. It takes a lot of the light off me - he can take some of the set and I can just play for a little while.
TV: Eric, I think just about everybody in the world would like to know, who's your favourite Guitarist?
EC: Of all time?
TV: Of all time.
EC: Johnny Guitar Watson.
TV: Great guitarist.
EC: Yeah.
TV: Still makes really great records.
EC: Yeah, great singer too - in fact he sings like he plays.
Music: Early In The Morning - Johnny Guitar Watson.
TV: What about influences.
EC: Oh, more than you can name. I suppose - well mainly - B.B. King, Freddie King, Albert Collins. Aside from that I think - Jeff Beck. I suppose that's about it really - no it's not really it but, I mean, that's the first names that come to mind straight away.
TV: Do you still learn from other guitarists? I mean, do you still sit at home, listen to latest releases and stuff like that, dig into your collection....
EC: No, I tend to let them get on with it actually, 'cause some of what people are doing these days is actually beyond my reach and if I tried to attempt what they're doing I'd have to start playing a whole different style of guitar. So I just, you know, applaud it in my mind's eye and think "well, just let them get on with that" 'cause I never liked the idea of actually sort of trying to imitate someone else too much - I mean it's alright to learn by when you're first starting out but then pretty soon you're gonna shake that off and get on with your own thing.
TV: You say that there are certain things happening with regard to the guitar now that you hear that are beyond your reach.
EC: Yeah.
TV: But with the greatest of respect I don't believe that because I mean if you can't reach it - even if only in the privacy of your own front room - then nobody can.
EC: WeII, it's very kind of you - it's a great compliment - but I do sincerely mean that. There are people playing a form of guitar - there's one guy who plays with Queen who can do things that I mean, I would have dreamed of doing, you know, when I'm say with Cream, those constructed solos - and then hell construct and solo and then just split off from it and do something totally spontaneous - and all in the space of, say, 8 bars and it just blows my mind when I hear something like that.
TV: What about going say back into a record collection or going into on old record library.
EC: Yeah.
TV: Do you ever get any sort of inspiration in that fashion - like, I mean, when I knew I was gonna come and talk to you today,....
EC: Yeah.
TV: ....I got up at 6 o'clock this morning, went 'round my record library....
EC: Yeah.
TV: ....and I started getting things out like a Jimmy Witherspoon album.
EC: Yeah.
TV: I don't know why - I just suddenly thought "I must listen to that - that's blues".
EC: Well, you see, I go through phases where I just listen - I get stuck into a complete era and I can sit and listen on my own to, you know, records from, say, the 20's or the 30's over and over again to the point where everything else just sounds like nonsense - modern music sounds ridiculous because you got, say, one person like Jimmy Witherspoon or someone like James P. Johnson or Slim Gaylord or Robert Johnson or just one person who's doing all the things on his own - singing and writing and playing and covering the whole area - and you think "well, what do you need a band for in the first place?" - I mean, why can't you just sit down and do that, you know, and then it comes out you've got to go to work, so you can't do that because you've got a band, so you remember who you are and what you're doing and that's that.
Music: Setting Me Up (live)
TV: What do you think's gonna happen to music?
EC: I think it will just stay the way it always has been - the opiate of the people.
TV: Now who coined that phrase?
EC: Ah, Frank Zappa probably
TV: Laughs.
EC: I don't know whether he believes it or not - or whether he even said it - but for the most part I think that's what it is and that's what it'll always be. It's something that - it's like food - can't live without it
TV: What's your feeling, say, when you go to concerts and people start screaming for old Cream numbers?
EC: Ah, I get a bit irritated 1 suppose, inside, but you can't let that bother you because they obviously sincerely do like that particular song although you yourself might think "well, I've done better things since then" - it's going through the motions to a certain extent.
TV: But relating back to what you said earlier about uplifting people - pleasing people....
EC: Yeah, yeah, - well that's what comes first you see - that is it. It's quite good sometimes playing to a totally ignorant audience who doesn't even know who you are because then you can play anything you like and still they'll enjoy it. It's the educated audiences that are the ones - the bastards - they're the hardest ones to please.
TV: Do you ever think that you would be prepared - or indeed happy to - sort of do, if you like, Cream revival?
EC: Who with?
TV: With Cream (laughing).
EC: (Laughs) Ah - takes a large slug of Brandy - no!
TV: (Laughs) And says no!
EC: No. No, I don't think us lads - we get on very well but - um - it tends - it tends to break loose whenever we're together - I mean even just socioally, if the three of us get together it always ends in pandemonium.
Music: Blues Power (live)
TV: Quite a number of people have recorded live albums at the Budokan...
EC: Yeah.
TV: ... and quite a number of those albums been very very successful - I'm darn sure yours is going to be. Why the Budokan?
EC: Oh, I don't know - um, this was my managers idea.
TV: Mr. Forrester.
EC: Mr. Forrester yeah, 'cause I didn't wont to do it because I was quite aware of the fact that it could be an over done thing, you know, but he kept pushing and pushing so we did it and it turns out that, I suppose, the greatest factor for the success of the record made there, is the sound of the place is so perfect, and their equipment is faultless - they really do know what they're doing and how to get - how to record sound - and the audience is great - you can't actually put a foot wrong, you know - only in your own terms. I mean, they just love you being there so everything is there, all you've got to do is put on a fairly good show and it records perfectly and the audience love it and you came away with a really great album. But I'm not a fan of live albums, you see, as a rule - I don't think they're as good as studio albums.
TV: Why's that?
EC: WeII, I think they take too much poetic licence a lot of the time, you know, things - stage is stage for me and if you do, say, stretch out a solo or put too many verses in a song it''s ok because whoever's there at the time, it's just that night and they go away and that's great but on record it sometimes doesn't pass the analyses.
Music: Ramblin' On My Mind (live)
TV: I once went to see you on the stage at the Rainbow and, er you sort of left the stage.
EC: Ah yeah, that's another good story. Was this, um - was this about two years ago?
TV: About that.
EC: Yeah, well we'd just done two shows at the Hammersmith Odeon. It was the end of a tour and my manager...
TV: Mr. Forrester.
EC: .... Mr. Forrester (laughs) decided that the London crowd hadn't got quite enough yet, so he stuck another one on at the Rainbow and I suddenly started to feel a little bit strange towards the end of the set - and it got worse and worse and I thought "well, if I don't walk off now I'm gonna fall over" - and I actually realised that this was gonna happen. I was gonna actually collapse - you know, faint. So I walked off stage and he took me outside and got me some fresh air and he's going - this is my manager. Mr. Forrester - he's going "you don't have to go back on boy, you don't have to go back on, don't worry about it, we'll get- don't worry about it if you're not feeling right, don't go back on". So I'm going "alright, alright, o.k., I'll just have a sit down - just a sit down". So I'm sitting down in the dressing room and Townshend comes in right, and he comes up to me and he says "you call this show business - is this what you call show business?" So I've got my manager on one side saying you don't have to do it and Townshend on the other, and he - what happened in the end - he come on stage with me and played and I virtually mimed to him playing and sang, and he got me back on there 'cause in the long run he was right, I mean, he was right - but I did need a kick up the arse to get back on, you know.
Music: Cocaine (live)
TV: You've done quite a number of amazing tours in your career, not the least being that jaunt around Europe on....
EC: On a train.
TV: ..... on a train, which is an amazing way to travel.
EC: Yeah, it was very good that. It's a good thing, 'cause like me and Ronnie Lane wanted to spend all our time in the sleeper on the train - you know, we'd go into a station and we'd - we'd opt for staying on the train. The Americans immediately wanted to find room service 'cause you can't get room service on a train can you? We had this beautiful train, lovely sleepers and everything and they're all going "where's the nearest hotel?" you know, and whining and everything. So they'd get all their bugs and trundle off through the yard - check into a hotel for the night - double the cost of everything. But it was good all the same.
TV: And then there was the time you did the bull ring in Ibiza.
EC: Yeah.
TV: (Laughing) It was a great idea, it really put that island on the map.
EC: (Laughing) Yeah, that was quite classic that. When you walked into the dressing room there, there was this sort of operating table in there, you know, with sort of blood gutters down each side of it for the matadors - you know, when they're getting patched up - it was all a bit grim actually. And it wasn't like - I thought it was gonna be a lovely old wooden building, you know, like a sort of rodeo place - and it turned out to be a sort of concrete monstrosity. It's like a big concrete soup bowl stuck in the middle of nowhere. Terrible sound, horrible people.
TV: Wild idea.
EC: Well, there you are - my manager. Mr. Forrester.
TV: (Laughs) And you're gonna play Guildford again.
EC: Yeah. Yeah.
TV: That's very much a - a sort of - er, it's part of you isn't it?
EC: Yeah, it's also....
TV: Eric Clapton playing Guildford is - if you don't play Guildford I don't think you'd be a happy man on a tour.
EC: No, I wouldn't - I don't think I would. There's lots of other people who wouldn't be very happy either - my Grandmother and my Mother and all the rest of them - I'd get jip. But it's a good circuit now, that place is - | mean, every week there's a good group there. The Pretenders and Genesis were both there in the last month at Guildford and I was recording over in West Horsley - no, Leatherhead, sorry - so by the time I got finished the show was over and I really wanted to see both of them too, 'cause the relatives went and they said they were both great shows.
TV: You missed out
EC: Yeah.
TV: Eric Clapton - thanks for the music.
EC: Pleasure.
TV: Thanks for your time.
EC: Pleasure.
Music: Further On Up The Road (Live)
