Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars
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Just stumbled across this new documentary on Showtime. Some unbelievable (color) footage of Cream at the Fillmore West, Blind Faith, etc.
Highly recommend checking it out.... the parts I saw so far are pretty good
"This documentary contextualizes Eric Clapton’s role in contemporary music and cultural history. Told through his own words, it reflects on his traumatic childhood, his difficult struggle with drugs and alcohol, the loss of his son and how he always found his inner strength and healing in music. It features extensive interviews with Clapton himself, along with his family, friends, musical collaborators, contemporaries and heroes – including late music icons B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix and George Harrison."
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Jorma Kaukonen: "When I saw
Jorma Kaukonen: "When I saw Cream for the first time, I thought they were the most incredible performing band I had ever seen in my life. That might still be true. As a guitar player, I wanted to be able to do stuff like that." Seeing Cream inspired the Airplane to delve further into long improvisations. As Jorma says, "It was a growth period. I was starting to use multiple amplifiers. There were different kinds of fuzztones and the wah-wah pedal....you hear a wah-wah and you're thinking Cream."
Marty Balin: "We'd been playing the songs the same way for about a year, and then one night Jorma just took off. He started playing amazingly, just real free. We realized that once everybody knew the arrangement you could just take off like that... Pretty soon we got to a place where the music was playing us, we weren't playing it."
Jack Casady: "Probably the single most important event was when Eric Clapton came over with Cream and played the Fillmore. That and Jimi Hendrix electrified every musician as far as playing in a rock band that would just peel paint off the walls. Everybody got louder and harder and tougher after that." (Of course, the Airplane had already been getting heavier with things like the feedback-drenched Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil before they saw Cream.)
Owsley also went to lots of Cream's shows. Clapton: "He showed up at all our gigs... We did a lot of acid, took a lot of trips.... I don't know how many times we tried to play while using acid, but there were a few... I don't really know how I got through it, because I didn't know if my hands were working, what the guitar was, or even what it was made of..."
Even Jerry Garcia was impressed by the power-trio format: "Me and Jack Casady and Mickey were gonna form a power trio one day... We actually got together one afternoon... We ended up with a tape that was about two and a half hours.... We could kick some ass...but it just sort of petered out."
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/03/cream-and-dead.html
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watched most of it last night
watched most of it last night
can't believe he was that big of a drunk/alchy in the late 70's & 80's-- I thought he quit after the ulcer in 82 - took a few more years.
any Cream footage is great footage.
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Big old clapton fan here.
Big old clapton fan here. Cream was my first rock obsession. Too bad they didnt get along towards the end. But then again, many good tunes/shows are born of strife. I liked the show. I wish they did a little more coverage of the Delaney and Bonnie period but whatevs. Def worth watching.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
Clapton was the only rock
Clapton was the only rock musician Quincy Jones gave any respect to (music wise) in his latest interview.
I saw Clapton's property on Antigua last month. He owns this entire little peninsula on the south end of the island (near a harbour full of gargantuan yachts). His house is the low, long dark colored building on the right at the end of the spit. The buildings on the top of the hill to the left are his rehab center, Crossroads Centre, which he bills as "luxury drug rehab."
Here is a more zoomed in shot of his crib: