Eric Clapton Have You Ever Loved a Woman

Clapton's career successes in the 1970s were in stark contrast to his personal life, which was troubled by romantic longings and drug and alcohol addiction. In addition to his (temporarily) unrequited and intense attraction to Pattie Boyd, he withdrew from recording and touring to isolation in his Surrey, England residence. There he nursed his heroin addiction, resulting in a career hiatus interrupted only by the Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971 (where he passed out on stage, was revived, and continued the show). In January 1973, The Who's Pete Townshend organised a comeback concert for Clapton at London's Rainbow Theatre aptly titled the "Rainbow Concert" to help Clapton kick his addiction. Clapton would return the favour by playing 'The Preacher' in Ken Russell's film version of The Who's Tommy in 1975; his appearance in the film (performing "Eyesight to the Blind") is notable as he is clearly wearing a fake beard in some shots, the result of deciding to shave off his real beard after the initial takes in an attempt to force the director to remove his earlier scene from the movie and leave the set.

In 1974, now partnered with Pattie (they would not actually marry until 1979) and no longer using heroin (although starting to drink heavily), Clapton put together a more low-key touring band that included Radle, Miami guitarist George Terry, keyboardist Dick Sims, drummer Jamie Oldaker and vocalists Yvonne Elliman and Marcy Levy (better known as Marcella Detroit of 1980s pop duo Shakespears Sister). With this band Clapton recorded 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), an album with an emphasis on more compact songs and fewer guitar solos; the cover-version of "I Shot The Sheriff" was Clapton's first #1 hit and was important in bringing reggae and the music of Bob Marley to a wider audience. The 1975 album There's One in Every Crowd continued the trend of 461. The album's original title The World's Greatest Guitar Player (There's One In Every Crowd) was changed before pressing, as it was felt its ironic intention would be misunderstood. The band toured the world and subsequently released the 1975 live LP, E.C. Was Here. Clapton continued to release albums and toured regularly. Highlights of the era include No Reason to Cry, whose collaborators included Bob Dylan and The Band, and Slowhand, which featured "Wonderful Tonight", another song inspired by Pattie Boyd, and a second J.J. Cale cover, "Cocaine".

During an August 1976 concert in Birmingham, Clapton provoked a controversy that has continued to follow him when he made pointed remarks from the stage in support of British politician Enoch Powell's efforts to restrict immigration to the UK.

Clapton performing live at the Eishalle theater of Wetzikon, Switzerland,19 June1977

1980s
In 1981, Clapton was invited by producer Martin Lewis to appear at the Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. Clapton accepted the invitation and teamed up with Jeff Beck to perform a series of duets—reportedly their first-ever billed stage collaboration. Three of the performances were released on the album of the show and one of the songs was featured in the film of the show. The performances heralded a return to form and prominence for Clapton in the new decade. Many factors had influenced Clapton's comeback, including his "deepening commitment to Christianity", to which he had converted prior to his heroin addiction.

In 1984, he performed on Pink Floyd member Roger Waters' solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking and went on tour with Waters following the release of the album. Since then Waters and Clapton have had a close relationship. In 2005 they performed together for the Tsunami Relief Fund. In 2006 they performed at the Highclere Castle, in aid of the Countryside Alliance, playing two set pieces of "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb". As Clapton recovered from his addictions, his album output continued in the 1980s, including two produced with Phil Collins, 1985's Behind the Sun, which produced the hits "Forever Man" and "She's Waiting", and 1986's August.

August, a polished release that was suffused with Collins's trademark drum and horn sound, became Clapton's biggest seller in the UK to date and matched his highest chart position, number 3. The album's first track, the hit "It's In The Way That You Use It", was also featured in the Tom Cruise-Paul Newman movie The Color of Money. The horn-peppered "Run" echoed Collins' "Sussudio" and rest of the producer's Genesis/solo output, while "Tearing Us Apart" (with Tina Turner) and the bitter "Miss You" echoed Clapton's angry sound. This rebound kicked off Clapton's two-year period of touring with Collins and their August collaborates, bassist Nathan East and keyboard player/songwriter Greg Phillinganes. While on tour for August, 2 concert videos were recorded of the four-man band, Eric Clapton Live from Montreux and Eric Clapton and Friends. Despite his own earlier battles with alcoholism, Clapton remade "After Midnight" as a single and a promotional track for the Michelob beer brand, which had also marketed earlier songs by Collins and Steve Winwood. Clapton won a British Academy Television Award for his collaboration with Michael Kamen on the score for the 1985 BBC television thriller serial Edge of Darkness. In 1989, Clapton released Journeyman, an album which covered a wide range of styles including blues, jazz, soul and pop. Collaborators included George Harrison, Phil Collins, Daryl Hall, Chaka Khan, Mick Jones, David Sanborn and Robert Cray.

Personal life
In 1984, while still married to Pattie Boyd, Clapton began a year-long relationship with Yvonne Kelly. The two had a daughter, Ruth, in January 1985. Clapton and Kelly did not make any public announcement about the birth of their daughter, and she was not publicly revealed as his child until 1991. Boyd criticized Clapton because he had not revealed the child's existence.

Hurricane Hugo hit Montserrat in 1989 and this resulted in the closure of Sir George Martin and John Burgess's recording studio AIR Montserrat, where Kelly was Managing Director. Kelly and Ruth moved back to England, and the myth of Eric's secret daughter began as a result of newspaper articles published at the time. Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1988 following his affair with Italian model Lori Del Santo, who gave birth to their son Conor on August 21, 1986. Boyd herself was never able to conceive children, despite attempts at in vitro fertilization. Their divorce was granted on grounds of "infidelity and unreasonable behaviour."

The early 1990s saw tragedy enter Clapton's life again. On 27 August 1990, fellow guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who was touring with Clapton, and two members of their road crew were killed in a helicopter crash between concerts. Then, on 20 March 1991, Conor, who was four years of age, died when he fell from the 53rd-story window of his mother's friend's New York City apartment, landing on the roof of an adjacent four-story building. Clapton's grief was expressed in the song "Tears in Heaven", which was co-written by Will Jennings. He received a total of six Grammys that year for the single "Tears in Heaven" and the Unplugged album.

Clapton married for the second time on January 1, 2002 to Melia McEnery from Columbus, Ohio. The couple have three children: daughter Julie Rose (born June 13, 2001), daughter Ella May (born January 14, 2003) and daughter Sophie (born February 1, 2005).

1990s and 2000s
In October 1992, Clapton was among the dozens of artists performing at the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert. Recorded at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the live two-disk CD captured a show full of celebrities performing classic Dylan songs, before ending with a few performances from Bob Dylan himself. Despite the presence of 10 other guitarists on stage, including George Harrison, Neil Young, Roger McGuinn, Steve Cropper, Tom Petty, and Dylan, Clapton played the lead on a nearly 7-minute version of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", one of Clapton's early hit singles, as part of the finale.

While Unplugged featured Clapton playing acoustic guitar, his 1994 album From the Cradle contained new versions of old blues standards highlighted by his electric guitar playing.[25] Clapton's 1996 recording of the Wayne Kirkpatrick/Gordon Kennedy/Tommy Sims tune "Change the World" (featured in the soundtrack of the movie Phenomenon) won a Grammy award for song of the year in 1997, the same year he recorded Retail Therapy (an album of electronic music with Simon Climie under the pseudonym TDF). The following year, Clapton released the album Pilgrim, the first record featuring brand new material for almost a decade. Clapton finished the twentieth century with collaborations with Carlos Santana and B. B. King.

In 1996 Clapton had a relationship with singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow. They remain friends, and Clapton appeared as a guest on Sheryl Crow's Central Park Concert when the duo performed a Cream hit single "White Room". Later, Clapton and Crow performed an alternate version of "Tulsa Time" with other guitar legends at the Crossroads Guitar Festival in June 2007. In 1999 Clapton, then 54, met 23-year-old store clerk Melia McEnery in Los Angeles while working on an album with B. B. King. They married in 2002 at St Mary Magdalen church in Clapton's birthplace, Ripley, Surrey, and as of 2005 have three daughters, Julie Rose (June 13, 2001), Ella May (January 14, 2003), and Sophie Belle (February 1, 2005). He wrote the song "Three Little Girls", featured on his 2006 album The Road to Escondido, about the contentment he has found in his home life with his wife and daughters.

Following the release of the 2001 record Reptile, Eric performed "Layla" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Party at the Palace in 2002. On November 29th of that year the Concert for George was held at the Royal Albert Hall, a tribute to George Harrison who had died a year earlier of cancer. Clapton was a performer, and also the musical director. The concert featured Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Ravi Shankar, and others. In 2004, Clapton released two albums packed full of covers by legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, Me and Mr. Johnson and Sessions for Robert J. The same year Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Clapton #53 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".


Eric Clapton at Tsunami Relief Cardiff.On 22 January 2005, Clapton performed in the Tsunami Relief Concert held at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, in aid of the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. In May 2005, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker reunited as Cream for a series of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Concert recordings were released on CD and DVD. Later, Cream performed in New York at Madison Square Garden. Back Home, Clapton's first album of new original material in nearly five years, was released on Reprise Records on 30 August. In 2006 he invited Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhall II to join his band for his 2006-2007 world tour. Trucks is the third member of The Allman Brothers Band to support Clapton, the second being pianist/keyboardist Chuck Leavell who appeared on the MTV Unplugged album and the 24 Nights performances at the Royal Albert Hall theatre of London (RAH) in 1990 and 1991, as well as Clapton's 1992 U.S. tour.

On 20 May, 2006, Clapton performed with Queen drummer Roger Taylor and former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters at the Highclere Castle, in support of the Countryside Alliance. On 13 August 2006, Clapton made a guest appearance at the Bob Dylan concert in Columbus, Ohio, playing guitar on three songs in Jimmie Vaughan's opening act. A collaboration with guitarist J. J. Cale, titled The Road to Escondido, was released on 7 November 2006, featuring Derek Trucks and Billy Preston. The 14-track CD was produced and recorded by the duo in August 2005 in California. The chemistry between Trucks and Clapton convinced him to invite The Derek Trucks Band to open for Clapton's set on his 2007 Crossroads Tour, with Trucks remaining on set afterward, performing with Clapton's band throughout his performances.

The rights to Clapton's official memoirs, written by Christopher Simon Sykes and published in 2007, were sold at the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair for USD $4 million.


Eric Clapton playing live in Hyde Park, London on 28 June 2008According to Rolling Stone Magazine, Clapton is currently working on an album with Robbie Robertson. Robertson performed with Clapton at the Crossroads Guitar Festival, where they played their version of the Bo Diddley song "Who Do You Love". On 28 January 2008 Eric Clapton was announced as the headliner for the Saturday night of Hard Rock Calling 2008 in London's Hyde Park (previously Hyde Park Calling) with support from Sheryl Crow & John Mayer. On February 26, 2008, it was reported that North Korean officials had invited Clapton to play a concert in the communist state. According to reports, Clapton's management received the invitation and passed it on to the singer, who has agreed in principle and suggested it take place sometime in 2009. Clapton's management, however, have so far refused to confirm if this is the case. If Clapton accepts the invitation, he will be the first western rock star to play there.

Clapton's 2008 Summer Tour began on the 3rd of May at the Ford Amphitheatre,Tampa Bay, Florida, and then moved to Canada, Ireland, England, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Poland, Germany and Monaco.


Eric Clapton and his band live in 2007In 2007, Clapton learned more about his father, a Canadian soldier who left the UK after the war. Although Clapton's grandparents eventually told him the truth about his parentage, he only knew that his father's name was Edward Fryer. This was a source of disquiet for Clapton, as witnessed by his 1998 song "My Father's Eyes". A Montreal journalist named Michael Woloschuk researched Canadian Armed Forces service records and tracked down members of Fryer's family, finally piecing together the story. He learned that Clapton's father was Edward Walter Fryer, born 21 March 1920, in Montreal and died 15 May 1985 in Newmarket, Ontario. Fryer was a musician (piano and saxophone) and a lifelong drifter, who was married several times, had several children and apparently never knew that he was the father of Eric Clapton. Clapton thanked Woloschuk in an encounter at Macdonald Cartier Airport, in Ottawa, Canada.

In February 2008, Clapton performed with his long-time friend Steve Winwood at Madison Square Garden and guested on his recorded single "Dirty City" on Winwood's album Nine Lives. The two former Blind Faith bandmates met again for a series of 14 concerts throughout the United States in June 2009. In September 2008, Clapton performed at a private charity fundraiser for The Countryside Alliance at Floridita in Soho, London, that included such guests as the London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Clapton performing with The Allman Brothers Band at the Beacon TheaterMarch, 2009 found Clapton performing with The Allman Brothers Band (amongst other notable guests), celebrating their 40th year, in tribute to the late Duane Allman on their annual run at the Beacon Theater, with Butch Trucks commenting that "this performance wasn't the typical Allman Brothers experience, given the number and differences of the guests who were invited to perform. "Eric Clapton taught us!", Trucks said. Songs like "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", were punctuated with others, such as "The Weight", with Levon Helm; Johnny Winter sitting in on Hendrix's "Red House" and of course, "Layla".

Clapton will be one of the performers at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary concert in Madison Square Garden to be held on October 29 and October 30, 2009. His appearance is scheduled for the October 30 date with other Hall of Fame inductees including U2, Van Morrison and Jeff Beck.

Clapton has performed songs by myriad artists, most notably Robert Johnson. Other artists Clapton has covered include Bob Marley, JJ Cale, Bo Diddley and Bob Dylan. He cites Freddie King, B. B. King, Albert King, Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin and primarily Robert Johnson as major influences of his guitar playing. In his book, Discovering Robert Johnson (which he co-authored with several other writers), Clapton called Johnson "...the most important blues musician who ever lived. He was true, absolutely, to his own vision, and as deep as I have gotten into the music over the last 30 years, I have never found anything more deeply soulful than Robert Johnson. His music remains the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice, really. ... it seemed to echo something I had always felt.|Eric Clapton|Discovering Robert Johnson In 1974, Clapton persuaded Freddie King to sign with RSO, Clapton's record label at the time. He has recorded more than six of J. J. Cale's originals and has put out an album with him. Other artists with whom Clapton has made collaborations include Frank Zappa, B. B. King, George Harrison, Santana, Ringo Starr, Roger Waters, John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band. Clapton also collaborated with singer/songwriter John Mayer on his 2006 album release, Continuum. Mayer cites Clapton in his liner notes Eric Clapton knows I steal from him and is still cool with it. Clapton and Mayer wrote several songs together which have yet to be released. Clapton's influence inspired Mayer to write "I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You)" which loosely holds characteristics of Clapton's musical and fashion style.[citation needed] A popular misconception is that his Slowhand nickname is from his style of guitar playing, either because of his speed or a as joke on the fact that he played slowly. This name was created by The Yardbirds' manager because whenever Clapton broke a string he would disappear backstage whilst the audience would perform a 'Slow-hand' clap until he returned on stage

Some guitarists that Clapton has influenced are: Eddie Van Halen, John Mayer, Alex Lifeson and Duane Allman. source: wikipedia