Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton CBE (born 30 March 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music.[2] He ranked second in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"[3] and fourth in Gibson's "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time".[4] In 2023, Rolling Stone named Clapton the 35th best guitarist of all time.[5] He was also named number five in Time magazine's list of "The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players" in 2009.[6]
This article is about the musician. For his album, see Eric Clapton (album).
Eric Clapton
After playing in a number of different local bands, Clapton joined the Yardbirds from 1963 to 1965, and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers from 1965 to 1966. After leaving Mayall, he formed the power trio Cream with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop".[7] After four successful albums, Cream broke up in November 1968. Clapton then formed the blues rock band Blind Faith with Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech, recording one album and performing on one tour before they broke up. Clapton then toured with Delaney & Bonnie and recorded his first solo album in 1970, before forming Derek and the Dominos with Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon. Like Blind Faith, the band only lasted one album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, which includes "Layla", one of Clapton's signature songs.
Clapton continued to record a number of successful solo albums and songs over the next several decades, including a 1974 cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" (which helped reggae reach a mass market),[8] the country-infused Slowhand album (1977) and the pop rock of 1986's August. Following the death of his son Conor in 1991, Clapton's grief was expressed in the song "Tears in Heaven", which appeared on his Unplugged album. In 1996 he had another top-40 hit with the R&B crossover "Change the World". In 1998, he released the Grammy award-winning "My Father's Eyes". Since 1999, he has recorded a number of traditional blues and blues rock albums and hosted the periodic Crossroads Guitar Festival. His most recent studio album is Happy Xmas (2018).
Clapton has received 18 Grammy Awards as well as the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.[9][10] In 2004, he was awarded a CBE for services to music.[11] He has received four Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and of Cream. In his solo career, he has sold more than 280 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time.[12] In 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for those recovering from substance abuse.[13]
Early life
Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, England, to 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton (1929–1999) and Edward Walter Fryer (1920–1985), a 25-year-old soldier from Montreal, Quebec.[14] Fryer was drafted to war before Clapton's birth and then returned to Canada. Clapton grew up believing that his grandmother, Rose, and her second husband, Jack Clapp, Patricia's stepfather, were his parents, and that his mother was actually his older sister. The similarity in surnames gave rise to the erroneous belief that Clapton's real surname is Clapp (Reginald Cecil Clapton was the name of Rose's first husband, Eric Clapton's maternal grandfather).[15] Years later, his mother married another Canadian soldier and moved to Germany,[16] leaving Eric with his grandparents in Surrey.[17]
Clapton received an acoustic Hoyer guitar, made in Germany, for his thirteenth birthday, but the inexpensive steel-stringed instrument was difficult to play and he briefly lost interest.[17] Two years later he picked it up again and started playing consistently.[17] He was influenced by blues music from an early age, and practised long hours learning the chords of blues music by playing along to the records.[18] He preserved his practice sessions using his portable Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder, listening to them over and over until he was satisfied.[18][19]
In 1961, after leaving Hollyfield School in Surbiton, he studied at the Kingston College of Art but was expelled at the end of the academic year because his focus had remained on music rather than art. His guitar playing was sufficiently advanced that, by the age of 16, he was getting noticed.[19] Around this time, he began busking around Kingston, Richmond, and the West End.[20]
In 1962, he started performing as a duo with fellow blues enthusiast Dave Brock in pubs around Surrey.[19] When he was 17, he joined his first band, an early British R&B group, the Roosters, whose other guitarist was Tom McGuinness. He stayed with them from January until August 1963.[13] In October of that year, he performed a seven-gig stint with Casey Jones & the Engineers.[13]
Personal life
Relationships
Clapton's partner from the late 1960s to 1974 was Alice Ormsby-Gore, a British aristocrat. They were together for three years and were both addicted to heroin.[188][189] He briefly dated funk singer Betty Davis.[190][191]
Clapton became friends with George Harrison in the late 1960s and they began writing and recording music together. Clapton fell in love with Pattie Boyd who was married to Harrison at this time.[192] Harrison and Boyd divorced in 1977 and she married Clapton on 27 March 1979, in Tucson, Arizona.[193] Their marriage was marred by his infidelities and domestic violence. During a 1999 interview with The Sunday Times, Clapton admitted to raping and abusing her while they were married and he was a "full-blown" alcoholic who felt entitled to sex.[194] In 1984, while recording Behind the Sun, Clapton began a relationship with Yvonne Kelly, the manager of AIR Studios Montserrat. Although both were married to other partners at the time, they had a daughter named Ruth Kelly Clapton in January 1985. Ruth's existence was kept from the public until the media realised she was his child in 1991.[195][196]
Clapton and Boyd tried unsuccessfully to have children, even trying in vitro fertilisation in 1984, but were faced instead with miscarriages.[197] He had an affair with Italian model Lory Del Santo, who gave birth to their son, Conor, on 21 August 1986. Clapton and Boyd later divorced in 1989 after she was "utterly devastated" by his confession to impregnating Del Santo during this affair. Conor died on 20 March 1991 at the age of four after falling out of an open bedroom window on the 53rd floor of a Manhattan apartment building.[198]
In 1998, Clapton, then 53, met 22-year-old administrative assistant Melia McEnery in Columbus, Ohio, at a party given for him after a performance. He quietly dated her for a year, and went public with the relationship in 1999. They married on 1 January 2002 at St Mary Magdalene church in Clapton's birthplace, Ripley. They have three daughters, Julie Rose (born 13 June 2001), Ella May (born 14 January 2003), and Sophie Belle (born 1 February 2005).[199]
Political opinions
"Keep Britain White"
On 5 August 1976, Clapton spoke out against increasing immigration during a concert in Birmingham.[200] Visibly intoxicated on stage, Clapton voiced his support for the right-wing British politician Enoch Powell.[201][202][203] He addressed the audience as follows:
Assets and philanthropy
Wealth and assets
In 2009, Surrey Life Magazine ranked Clapton as number 17 in their list of richest Surrey residents, estimating his fortune at £120 million in assets. This was a combination of income, property, a £9 million yacht, Va Bene (previously owned by Bernie Ecclestone), his back music catalogue, his touring income, and his holding company Marshbrook Ltd, which had earned him £110 million since 1989.[227] In 2003, he purchased a 50% share of gentleman's outfitters Cordings Piccadilly.[228] At the time, owner Noll Uloth was trying to save the shop from closure and contacted Clapton, his "best client"; within five minutes, Clapton replied with "I can't let this happen".[228]
Clapton's music in film and TV
Clapton's music has appeared in dozens of movies and television shows as far back as 1973's Mean Streets, which included the Derek and the Dominos song "I Looked Away" and a performance of "Steppin' Out" by Cream. Other appearances in media include in the Miami Vice series ("Wonderful Tonight", "Knock on Wood", "She's Waiting", and "Layla"), Back to the Future ("Heaven Is One Step Away"), The Color of Money ("It's in the Way That You Use It"), Lethal Weapon 2 ("Knockin' On Heaven's Door"), Goodfellas ("Layla" and "Sunshine of Your Love"),[257] Freaks and Geeks episode "I'm With the Band" ("Sunshine of Your Love", "White Room" and "Crossroads"), Friends episodes "The One with the Proposal, Part 2" ("Wonderful Tonight") and "The One Where Rachel Has A Baby" ("River of Tears"), School Of Rock ("Sunshine Of Your Love)", Men in Black III ("Strange Brew"), Captain Phillips ("Wonderful Tonight"), August: Osage County ("Lay Down Sally"), Good Girls Revolt episode "The Year-Ender" ("White Room)", Rick and Morty episode "The Vat of Acid Episode" ("It's in the Way That You Use It") and Joker ("White Room").[258]
Both Opel and Vauxhall used the guitar riff from "Layla" in their advertising campaigns throughout 1987–95. In addition to his music appearing in media, Clapton has contributed to several movies by writing or co-writing the musical scores or contributing original songs. These movies include Lethal Weapon (co-written with Michael Kamen),[259] Communion, Rush, Phenomenon ("Change the World"), and Lethal Weapon 3 (co-wrote and co-performed "It's Probably Me" with Sting and "Runaway Train" with Elton John).[260]
