I came across this odd video clip as a sidebar to the monthly e-mail from Rhino.
Good ol’ EC at some mondo, Brit-looking festival in 2007, with the full complement of femme back-up, horns, multiple keybs, etc. all somewhat besmirching the hallowed "White Room", which may be the only great song he still plays, aside from "Layla".
Here’s the link. Look in the lower right corner [just below REM’s "Nightswimming" (!)] for the Clapton version o’ "White Room 2007".
Anyhow, I’m always a bit fascinated by how "G-d" treats his relatively few, long-ago meisterwerks, and although he looks and sings "White Room" like a "soccer dad" herein, i.e. too effin’ slow ["Slow Throat", anyone?] and bellowy, I was startled to find Jack Bruce’s EXTRA HIGH vocal part now being farmed out to a fellow I believe to be Bob Christgau’s and my beloved Seventies Cult Artiste, Andy Fairweather Low, once of late-’60s Brit soul teenthrobs Amen Corner, later of obscure early-’80s roots rockers The Local Boys, with a splendid but legendarily poor-selling & critically-acclaimed solo career in the middle, from about 1974-80.
I suspect AFL has been marooned in Clapton’s road band for many a moon. Steady gig, but still….
Here’s his Consumer Guide resume, and I would highly recommend a 2004 2cd repackage of all three A&M albums that Xgau anoints, if only it hadn’t entered the realm of the "Collector Scum" [a solitary copy available on Amazon Marketplace for $143.92 in VG condition!]: http://www.amazon.com/Wide-Eyed-Legless–M-Recordings/dp/B0002476H4
Instead, this confusingly re-titled, perfectly fine single-disc compilation will have to suffice: http://www.amazon.com/Wide-Eyed-Legless-1974-1997-Fairweather/dp/B0002LQYUM
Consistently unique and excellent material, not quite Richard Thompson or Nick Drake, perhaps, but well worth acquiring for fans of Ronnie Lane, John Prine, Kevin Coyne or Loudon Wainwright III.
And here are the Xgau CG entries themselves:
http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=andy+fairweather
http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=local+boys
To return to Eric + Band for a moment….sadly, this is likely about as good as Clapton can be, post-1975 or so. But at least if this evidence encourages you to pursue some of AFL’s work, karmic justice will have been done!
– Tom Kipp
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Does Clapton open his sets with the newer Layla and close with the older Layla? It’s corny, but symmetrical.
I also give EC credit for bringing Hubert Sumlin to one of his monster tribute fests 8 or 10 years ago. Sumlin was criminally underappreciated even in Chicago in the 70s, as was Wolf, as by then it was Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy who were monopolizing the little recognition which the genre received, on places like WXRT.
It’s interesting how Clapton, unlike God, is beyond criticism. Anybody can complain about God, while nobody can say anything about Clapton.
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Your point is well taken, though my good friend Marc Marshall has a long-running series of FB posts under his “Eff Clapton” rubric that demonstrate the converse.
Not that Marc doesn’t take a fair amount of heat for them, of course, living in Northern Virginia as he does, which can seem like the very center of the “Tulsa Time Zone”. But he rather enjoys the indignant back and forth, however ill-advised on the part of EC’s Great Defenders!
– Tom Kipp
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Clapton’s never apologized for his Enoch Powell stumping. There, I’ve said it.
– Andrew Hamlin
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If push comes to shove I will GLADLY give effing Slowhand credit for bringing Hubert Sumlin to the masses. Of course I would actually think him ENLIGHTENED if he did the same for Willie Johnson who was Howlin Wolf’s first guitarist, and a much more over the top w/distortion player than the technically superior, but ultimately less interesting, Sumlin.
– Marc Marshall
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As for Willie Johnson v. Hubert Sumlin, touché. You have taken us back to Ur, we can go no further…
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I stay well clear of such comparisons, if I can. It’s like arguing which mountain is the more beautiful. Height we can measure (to a point): beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, using the golden rule of one-upsmanship, when given a choice between two musicians, or painters, or writers, etc. always choose the more obscure. So the winner is Willie Johnson. But my pick is Jimmy Spruill, who sat in with Wolf for one weekend in 1959. It’s Jimmy Spruill by a country mile.
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