Known as “Slowhand,” Eric Clapton is one of the most influential musicians in blues rock and roll history. He is famous for hit songs like Layla (1970), I Shot the Sheriff (1974), and Wonderful Tonight (1977). At 14, he started playing the guitar and idolized blues musicians like B.B King and Buddy Guy.
Eric Clapton is British and was born on March 30, 1945, in Ripley, Surrey, England. His biological father, Edward Fryer, was a World War II pilot from Canada who was stationed in England. Eric’s mother, Patricia, had him when she was a teenager.
Let’s take a quick look at this legendary guitarist’s life and music.
The Roosters
At 17, the soon-to-be Grammy Award winner joined his first band, The Roosters. Young Clapton was asked to join the band after auditioning at the Prince of Wales Pub in New Malden, England, in 1963.
The band was composed of Terry Brennan (vocals), Eric Clapton (guitar), Robin Mason (Drums), Tom McGuiness (guitar), and Ben Palmer (piano). The group played together for about six months before parting ways in August 1963.
Let’s take a quick look at this legendary guitarist’s life and music.
The Roosters
At 17, the soon-to-be Grammy Award winner joined his first band, The Roosters. Young Clapton was asked to join the band after auditioning at the Prince of Wales Pub in New Malden, England, in 1963.
The band was composed of Terry Brennan (vocals), Eric Clapton (guitar), Robin Mason (Drums), Tom McGuiness (guitar), and Ben Palmer (piano). The group played together for about six months before parting ways in August 1963.
Love for the Blues
With his heart focused on music, Eric Clapton dropped out of the Kingston College of Art and started playing with local bands from 1963 to 1965. He was a member of The Yardbirds, a blues rock band but left shortly after their first UK Top Ten hit, For Your Love.
To focus more on blues, Eric Clapton played with the blues rock band John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. Together, they released the single Lonely Years (1966) with the b-side Bernard Jenkins. Their studio album Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton proved to be commercially successful, with Rolling Stone ranking it on the list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.
Cream
After his brief stint with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers in 1966, he earned a reputation as a proficient blues guitarist and then joined the British rock band Cream. The group was composed of bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker.
They called their band “Cream” as they considered themselves the “cream of the crop” when it came to blues and jazz. The band first performed together at a jazz and blues festival in Surrey. Their first single, Wrapping Paper, was number 34 in the UK Top 40 and I Feel Free reached number 11 on the singles chart. Their debut studio album Fresh Cream — released on December 9, 1966 — would climb higher, peaking at number 6 on the UK Albums Chart.
By this time, Eric Clapton had been dubbed the UK’s top guitarist and rivaled by American acid rock musician, Jimi Hendrix. The band visited the United States on their first tour in 1967 at the RKO Theater in New York.
Cream’s second record, Disraeli Gears, would be one of their finest accomplishments, reaching global commercial success and selling millions of records both in the US and Europe.
Included in Cream’s Top 10 songs are Born Under a Bad Sign (1968), Spoonful (1966), the very groovy Strange Brew (1967), and Crossroads (1968), which Robert Johnson originally sang in 1936. John Mayer would later cover this song in his album Battle Studies (2009).
Several reports claimed that Bruce and Baker often quarreled, leading to their eventual disbandment in 1968 while the members were in their 20s.
Flying Solo and Superstar Collaborations
Slowhand collaborated with other musicians like Frank Zappa during the 60s and 70s, and did guitar solos for The Beatles and The Dirty Mac, a supergroup that John Lennon founded in 1968. The Dirty Mac was composed of Eric himself, along with Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell.
The Cream star’s dream of performing with his idol B.B. King came true at Cafe Au Go-Go, New York in 1967. During this time, Eric Clapton was 22 and B.B. King was 42.
In 1999, the two recorded blues classics and contemporary tunes to make Riding with the King, released in 2000. The record sold over 2 million copies in the United States and won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.
King died in 2015 and in an interview with Rolling Stone, Clapton called his friend a “beacon,” and said no other musician could play in the pure way the iconic bluesman did. He thanked King for being his inspiration and for showing him kindness. Eric encouraged those who didn’t know King’s music to check out B.B. King Live at the Regal, which he said had a prolific influence on himself as a young musician.
Royal Honors
Being one of the most significant musicians of the 20th century, Eric Clapton is a living testament to the beautiful and colorful British music. To recognize this role, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s New Year’s Honors List for his “contribution to British Life.”
Billboard wrote that he also was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2004 at Buckingham Palace.
2022 Tour
The singer has been on a European Tour since May 2022, but shows in Zurich, Milan, and Bologna had to be postponed due to him testing positive for COVID-19. The shows are rescheduled for October 2022, right after his concert tours in the United States.
Despite many tragedies in his life, the legendary British guitarist still makes music to this day. Indeed, no other artist plays with purity, passion, and deep feelings with each guitar strum like Eric Clapton.