Eric Clapton Biography, Videos & Pictures
Eric Clapton Facts
| Name: Eric Clapton | Guitars: Fender |
| Born: March 30, 1945 | Amplifiers: Vox |
| Origin: Surrey, England | |
| Bands: The Roosters, Casey Jones & The Engineers, The Yardbirds, Bluesbreakers, The Glands, Cream, Derek and the Dominos | |
| Links: Official Website, Facebook, Myspace | |
Eric Clapton was born on March 30, 1945, in Surrey, England. His mother, Patricia Molly Clapton was only 17 at the time of his birth. His father, Edward Fryer was a Canadian soldier who was sent to war before young Eric was born. After the war, Edward returned to Canada. Because of his mother’s young age, Eric’s grandmother Rose and her second husband Jack raised the boy as their own. For a large part of his life, Clapton believed that Rose and Jack were his parents and that Patricia was his sister. Eventually his birth mother married another Canadian soldier and moved to Canada.
Clapton left school in 1961 and began studying at the Kingston College of Art but was kicked out at the end of the academic year because his focus was more on music than his studies. For a while after, Clapton busked around Kingston and London. At the age of seventeen he joined his first band, The Roosters. The Roosters were an early British R&B group. Clapton played with the Roosters for the better part of 1963 before moving on for a short stint with Casey Jones & The Engineers.
For the next year and a half or so, Clapton played with the blues rock band The Yardbirds. Inspired by bluesmen like Buddy Guy, Freddie King, and B.B. King, Clapton found a unique sound that earned him a reputation in the British music scene. American blues albums were hard to come by in England at that time, and Clapton was the first exposure that some people had to the sound. The Yardbirds earned themselves a cult following when they replaced the Rolling Stones as the resident band at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, England. The band did a tour of England with Sonny Boy Williamson II, an American bluesman. Clapton left the band in March of 1965, after recording “For Your Love” with the band, but before it became their first major hit. The song is part of the reason that Clapton left the song. “For Your Love” was written by pop songwriter Graham Gouldman; Clapton, a dedicated bluesman was upset by the new pop oriented direction of the band.
Clapton earned his nickname, Slowhand, while with The Yardbirds. It was given to him by Giorgio Gomelsky. In those days, if Clapton broke a string on stage, he would stay on the stage to change it. While he was changing the string, the audience would slowly clap their hands. Giorgio saw the contrast of the audience’s slow handclap and Clapton’s fast playing and created the name Slowhand as a play on words.
For a few months after leaving The Yardbirds, Clapton played with John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers. He left John Mayall to go to Greece with a band named The Glands, on which his old friend Bill Palmer played piano. Upon returning to England, Clapton rejoined the Bluesbreakers. In a similar situation to that with The Yardbirds, Clapton left John Mayall’s band for good after recording the highly successful album “Blues Breakers”, but before the album was released. His work on the album established him as one of the best guitar players not only in England, but in the world.
Eric next formed the band Cream, a power trio, featuring Jack Bruce on bass and Ginger Baker on drums. The band played their first full set at the National Jazz and Blues Festival in Windsor. Cream’s high volume playing and extended soloing established their Legend. Clapton made his first trip to the States with Cream, to play a few shows at the RKO Theater in New York in 1967. Later that year they returned to New York to record the album “Disraeli Gears”. Within 28 months Cream had become a hugh commercial success, selling millions of records. Despite hits such as “White Room” and “Crossroads”, the bands infighting, particularly between Bruce and Baker, led to its premature end.
Eric’s growing reputation as a superstar led him to form Derek and the Dominos, to show that he could also play as part of an ensemble. Most of the material on the band’s album, “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” was inpired by Clapton’s feelings when his attempts at wooing George Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, failed. Also on the album was a version of the Hendrix song “Little Wing” in tribute to Jimi. A week after recording their version of “Little Wing”, Clapton purchased a left handed Fender Stratocaster to as a gift to Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix died the next day before Clapton was able to give him his gift. Despite the mega hit single “Layla”, and the inspired dual guitars of Duane Allman and Eric Clapton, the album received only mediocre reviews. The band dissolved after Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident and tensions rose between Clapton and vocalist Bobby Whitlock.
Clapton would go on to have an enormously successful solo career, but the first few years after the breakup of the Dominos were a rough patch in the guitarists life. Still hung up on Pattie Boyd, Clapton developed a heroin addiction. Pete Townshend from The Who, helped Eric kick his addiction and a few years later he would finally win the love of Pattie, who had divorced George Harrison.
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