All-Star Guitar Festival Lineup Includes Santana, B.B. King, Joe Walsh, ZZ Top
Eric Clapton and his buddies sure know how to put on a show. Witness the new, all-star Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival, recorded last summer at Dallas’ famed Cotton Bowl and premiering Wednesday, December 1 at 9 p.m. (ET) on Thirteen/WNET New York’s GREAT PERFORMANCES on PBS (check local listings). As blues master B.B. King exclaims half-way through the telecast, “Is it hot up here or what?”
Weather alone was not the subject of King’s remark. To the screaming accompaniment of some 40,000 fans, who braved the 90-degree temperature, the heat onstage was equally palpable. More than two dozen of the greatest guitar players in rock ‘n’ roll and modern blues, including Robert Cray, Vince Gill, Buddy Guy, John Mayer, Carlos Santana, James Taylor, Jimmie Vaughan, Joe Walsh, and ZZ Top, turned it on, then up. It was the highlight of a weekend that should live in Texas music history,” announced The Houston Chronicle.
“All I did was make a list of people I dreamed of playing with, I wrote to them, and they showed up,” says Clapton, who was last seen on GREAT PERFORMANCES in March’s Concert for George.
Broadcast in high definition, Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival is executive-produced by David Horn, GREAT PERFORMANCES series producer, and John Beug, Warner Strategic Marketing senior vice president - home video; Ron de Moraes directs. Also offering stellar moments are Doyle Bramhall II, J.J. Cale, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Robert Randolph, Hubert Sumlin, Dan Tyminski, and Booker T. & The MGs.
Musical highlights include classics like “After Midnight” and “Layla,” as well as recent hits like John Mayer’s “City Love.”
The concert, a benefit for Clapton’s Crossroads Centre Foundation, marked the conclusion of a three-day Crossroads Guitar Festival, June 4 to 6, at Fair Park in Dallas. In addition to music, the event featured exhibits by leading guitar manufacturers and guitar clinics.
Crossroads Centre, in Antigua, was founded by Eric Clapton in 1997 to provide treatment and education to chemically dependent persons. Now an independently run entity, it also aids those with other compulsive-addictive behaviors, their families and significant others. “A lot of my heroes worked hard and died drunk,” Clapton says.
An expanded version of Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival is available on WSM/Reprise home video.
GREAT PERFORMANCES is funded by the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, public television viewers, and PBS. Major corporate support is provided by Ernst & Young LLP, a global leader in professional services. Special funding for this telecast was provided by SBC.
Visit GREAT PERFORMANCES ONLINE at thirteen.org and pbs.org for additional information and this and other GREAT PERFORMANCES programs. The colorful Web companion contains a wide variety of images, in-depth information about the programs, and activities for teachers including lesson plans, tips and resources.
Jac Venza is executive producer of GREAT PERFORMANCES.
