Clapton (14 page)

We played in front of this vast crowd on a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and I wasn’t really there. I had zoned out. Maybe I was wrong, and that Ginger had not picked up, but I felt that whatever we had achieved up till that point in terms of bonding, rehearsing, and playing had been a complete waste of time. I remember thinking, “If this is the first gig, where the hell will we go from here?” The audience may have loved it and the atmosphere was great, but I really didn’t want to be there. It wasn’t helped by the fact that we were completely underpowered. We didn’t have enough amplification for playing outdoors in the park, and we sounded small and tinny. I came off the stage shaking like a leaf and feeling that I’d let people down. My blaming mechanism laid the fault at Ginger’s feet, setting up a resentment that just grew and grew.

Stigwood didn’t give us time to think. We went straight out on the road for a tour of Scandinavia to settle the band in, and it was a tactic that worked. Ginger came back from the edge, and we began for the first time to sound pretty good. We got some of our power back, playing smaller venues, and the band started to forge ahead. On our return home, we went into the studio to finish the album with Jimmy.

One day I got a call from Bob Seidemann, whom I had met in San Francisco. Bob, a brilliant photographer, was slightly eccentric and a very funny man. We had spent a lot of great times together in the days of the Pheasantry. He looked like something out of a drawing by Robert Crumb, who was also a friend of his. He was very tall with long frizzy hair, which stood out behind him, a great big face and nose, and long, thin legs.

Bob told me that he had an idea for an album cover for us. He wouldn’t say what it was, just that he was going to put it together and then show us. When he finally presented it, I remember thinking that it was rather sweet. It was a photograph of a young, barely pubescent girl with curly red hair, photographed from the waist up, naked, and holding in her hands a silver, very modernistic airplane, designed by my friend the jeweler Micko Milligan. Behind her was a landscape of a green hill, like the Berkshire Downs, and a blue sky with white clouds scudding across it. I immediately loved it because I thought it captured the definition of the name of our band really well—the juxtaposition of innocence, in the shape of the girl, and experience, science, and the future represented by the airplane.

I told Bob that we should not spoil the image by putting the name of the band on the front cover, so he came up with the idea of writing it on the wrapper instead. When the wrapper came off, it left a virgin photograph. But the cover caused a huge outcry. People said the representation of the young girl was pornographic, and in the States record dealers threatened to boycott it. Since we were about to embark on a major tour there, we had no alternative but to replace it with a shot of us standing in the front room at Hurtwood.

It was quite clear from the opening night at Madison Square Garden in New York on July 12, 1969, that Blind Faith was not going to have to work hard to pull in the crowds. There were too many Cream and Traffic fans around for that, and the truth is we didn’t really know or care which we were. Looking back, I realize that from the start I knew that this was not what I really wanted to do, but I was lazy. Instead of putting more time and effort into making the band into what I thought it ought to be, I opted instead for the laid-back approach, which was just to look for something else that already had an identity.

I completely ducked the responsibility of being a group member and settled for the role of just being the guitar player. This frustrated many people who felt that I should play a more dominant role, not least of all Steve, who became more and more annoyed by the fact that I would not step forward and do more vocal work. The Blind Faith tour made us all very rich, pushing the album straight to the top of the American charts, but it ended with the disintegration of the band. This was entirely my fault and due to one thing. As I became more and more disenchanted with what we were doing, I was falling increasingly under the spell of our support group, Delaney & Bonnie.

Sometime early in the summer, my friend Alan Pariser had sent me an acetate of a band he was managing, consisting of a husband and wife, Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, who both came from the South and sang under the name Delaney & Bonnie. They had the distinction of being the first white group ever to be signed by Stax, the Tennessee-based record company founded by Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton that had pioneered the sound of Memphis and Southern soul music. I immediately loved the album
The Original Delaney & Bonnie: Accept No Substitute
, which was hardcore R&B, and very soulful, with great guitar playing and a fantastic horn section. When I told Alan how I felt about them, he asked if he could put them on the bill with us when we toured America.

For me, going on after Delaney & Bonnie was really, really tough because I thought they were miles better than us. Their band had all these great Southern musicians, who put out a really strong sound and performed with absolute confidence. The rhythm section consisted of Carl Radle on bass, Bobby Whitlock on keyboards, and Jim Keltner on drums; the horn section had Bobby Keys on sax and Jim Price on trumpet; and Rita Coolidge joined Bonnie on vocals. They turned out to be big fans of mine, and of Steve’s, and they started to court us, and it wasn’t long before I dropped all my responsibilities as part of Blind Faith and started to hang out with them.

Their approach to music was infectious. They would pull out their guitars on the bus and play songs all day as they traveled, while we were much more insular and tended to keep to ourselves. I took to traveling with them and playing with them, which I think quite upset Steve, who must have thought I’d become a bit of a traitor. The truth, which I found hard to tell him, was that I was lost in Blind Faith. I was the man in the hallway who has come out of one door, only to find it has closed behind him while another one is opening. Through that door were Delaney & Bonnie, and I was irresistibly drawn toward it, even though I knew it would destroy the band that we had put so much blind faith into.

I
f Delaney & Bonnie had never played on the same bill as us, it is possible that Blind Faith might have survived and regrouped at the end of the tour, and tried to figure out what was wrong and move forward. Maybe. But the temptation Delaney put in my way was irresistible. He confronted me with the same issue that Steve had, which was that I had to develop, and not just as a guitarist. Steve had said, when I wanted him to sing my song “In the Presence of the Lord,” “Well, you wrote it, so you ought to sing it.” I had insisted that he should, and while we were recording it I kept interrupting him and suggesting that he sing it in such and such a way, until he finally said, “Please don’t tell me how to sing it. If you want it sung that way, sing it yourself!” He was quite aggressive about it, and I was a little taken aback and decided to just let him get on with it. Looking back, I know he was right. I had written that song upon moving into Hurtwood Edge, and it was a very personal statement, not necessarily a religious one, but more of a statement of fact: “I have finally found a place to live, just like I never could before.” I should have at least given it a go, but I don’t think I could have ever enjoyed my version as much as I do his.

Delaney shared Steve’s opinion, but took a slightly different tack. Raised in Mississippi, he was a very charismatic character, with long hair and a beard, and he had successfully cultivated the persona of a Southern Baptist preacher, delivering a fire-and-brimstone message. It could have been off-putting, if it wasn’t for the fact that when he sang, he was totally right, and absolutely inspiring. I completely believed in him. We went out one night to see Sha Na Na, and when we got back to my hotel, we dropped some acid and started to play our guitars. At some point, Delaney looked deep into my eyes and said, “You know, you really have to start singing, and you ought to be leading your own band. God has given you this gift, and if you don’t use it he will take it away.” I was stunned by the certainty of his statement, and it really struck home with me. The acid probably gave it a bit of depth, too. I thought to myself, “He may have a point here. I’d better start doing something about this.” Other than my early fantasies of what Cream could have been, this was the first time I ever really considered the idea of a solo career.

The last Blind Faith concert took place in Honolulu on August 24, and I then returned to England and Hurtwood. I had barely settled in, however, when one Saturday morning, September 13, the phone rang. It was John Lennon. “What are you doing tonight?” he asked me.

“Nothing,” I replied.

“Well, do you want to do a gig with the Plastic Ono Band in Toronto?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I answered, because part of the thing in those days was doing stuff like that, hopping on a plane on the spur of the moment without giving it a second thought. “Great!” he said. “Meet me as soon as you can get there in the BOAC first-class lounge at the London airport. I’ll explain everything then.”

I drove to the airport, where I found John and Yoko with Klaus Voorman, the bass player of the band, and the drummer Alan White. John was going through his white suit phase and had long hair and a beard. He told us that we were going to play at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival and that we could rehearse on the plane. We carried our semi-acoustic electric guitars on board and settled into the first-class cabin among a number of other passengers, including the man who owned the Schick razor company. He was sitting in the same row of seats as us and tried to humor us by saying we could all make good use of his razors to shave our beards and mustaches.

He didn’t get very far since, as soon as we were airborne, we were concentrating on running through the numbers for the show, songs like “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” “Yer Blues,” “Dizzy Miss Lizzie,” and “Blue Suede Shoes.” We just played sitting in our seats. No one complained, which, looking back on it, was not surprising since John was one of the biggest stars in the world, and the other passengers were probably just astonished to be in the same space with him. Curiously enough, I don’t recall Yoko getting involved at all. She just sat quietly in the background.

When we arrived in Toronto it was raining, and we were standing around waiting for the luggage when a huge limo rolled up, and John and Yoko jumped into it and drove away, leaving the rest of us standing there without a clue as to what to do next. “Well, that’s nice,” I thought. In the end we got in the van with the luggage, which I deemed a bit sad, as I felt we deserved a little more respect than that.

When we arrived we found that we were all staying together in this very grand house belonging to Cyrus Eaton, one of the richest men in Canada, and that a press conference had been called. Loads of journalists turned up, but John and Yoko steadfastly refused to come out to talk to them. So I spoke to them instead, and they were very complimentary, saying how eloquent I was for a musician. I bathed in that glory for a while, and then we all went to the show.

We found out that we were going on between Chuck Berry and Little Richard, and John was terrified, overwhelmed I think by the fact that he was going onstage with all his heroes. Backstage, John and I did so much blow that he threw up, and I had to lie down for a while. Luckily we had Terry Doran with us, who was John’s personal assistant, and he made sure that John was fit to go onstage.

The Plastic Ono Band went on at midnight and played a tough hard-core set of standard rock ’n’ roll numbers. Considering that we had never played together before we rehearsed on the plane, I thought we sounded good. At the end John told us to take off our guitars, turn them up, and lean them against the amplifiers. He did the same thing, and the amps and the guitars just started howling in feedback while we either stood to one side or got off the stage. Yoko started to sing along with this, a song she had written called “Oh John.” It sounded pretty strange to me, more like howling than singing, but that was her thing. John thought it was all pretty funny, and that’s what closed our set. Then we all piled into four cars that had been organized by Cyrus Eaton’s son and drove back to spend what was left of the night at the sprawling estate. The following afternoon we flew back to England. My payment for the gig consisted of a few of John’s drawings, which over time I have unfortunately lost.

However much I was enjoying guesting with my friends, I couldn’t wait to get back together with Delaney, who had asked me to tour with him and Bonnie under the name Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. I set up a rehearsal room on the top floor at Hurtwood, and the band came to live there for a few weeks prior to touring, first in Germany, and then England and Scandinavia, for both legs of which we were joined by George Harrison, who was keen to record Delaney & Bonnie for the Beatles’ Apple label.

It was an incredibly happy experience for me to play with a group of musicians who were out there for the sheer joy of playing rather than to make money, which they were hard-pressed to do anyway because there were so many of them in the group. A great feeling of love surrounded us onstage when we played. Unfortunately, the occasional ugly scene was triggered by the fact that some audiences expected more from me. They had seen the tour posters announcing “Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, featuring Eric Clapton” and wanted to hear more than the couple of songs I would sing during the show. When I refused to respond to their demands, because I saw myself as no more than a sideman in the band, they often became a little feisty and would start heckling, which could be quite nasty.

None of this happened on the American leg of the tour, where the Bramletts had a strong following. When we’d finished, I went to stay with them at their home in Sherman Oaks, California, which they shared with Delaney’s mother. It was a tiny house, so small they almost had to sleep in the same bed. All around there lived a community of great musicians, all from the South, and Delaney and Bonnie were right there at the center of it.

It was unbelievable to me that I went from a fairly small though creative framework back in England with Blind Faith to suddenly living in LA and hanging out with all these incredible musicians. Delaney turned me on to so many things. He played me the music of J. J. Cale, which was to become an enormous influence. I met and played with King Curtis on his single “Teasin’,” an experience I wanted to go on forever. I hung out with the Crickets and Stephen Stills, and Leon Russell, who had his own recording studio in North Hollywood.

Delaney persuaded me to cut a solo album with him as producer, and we started work on it at Amigo Studio. I had written only one song, “Let It Rain,” but Delaney had a few, or we would be on the way to the studio in the morning and Delaney would say, “What about a song about a bottle of red wine?” and he would start singing, “Get up and get your man a bottle of red wine…” It would just flow out of him, and by the time we got to the studio, the song would be finished. I remember thinking to myself, “How does he do it? He just opens his mouth and out comes a song.” We’d go straight into the studio and record it live. Then I would put a couple of vocal tracks down, with Delaney coaching me, and then it would be time for the girls and the horns. Rita and Bonnie would be given their part and they’d sing it, Jim and Bobby would put some riffs on, and that was the whole thing wrapped up. It was fantastic and I was in my element, recording my own album with the best band in the land. Delaney had brought out something in me that I didn’t know I had.

My solo career really began there. I knew I had it in me really, but I had stuffed it down to the point that I had stopped believing in myself. I’ll never be able to repay Delaney for his belief in me. He saw something I had stopped looking for in myself. Making that record was one of the most important steps I would ever take, and it was a truly memorable experience. I remember going in one day when we didn’t have a song planned, and Leon came up to me and said, “I’ve got a line for you,” and thinking aloud, he said, “You’re a blues musician, but people don’t know that you can also rock ’n’ roll, so we can say…”

I bet you didn’t think I knew how to rock ’n’ roll.

Oh, I got the boogie-woogie right down in my very soul.

There ain’t no need for me to be a wallflower,

’Cos now I’m living on blues power.

Just like that, no effort, and that was the birth of the song “Blues Power,” one of my favorite songs on the album.

However much I may have been enjoying living in LA, and hanging out with all these great musicians, I was also suffering from occasional bouts of homesickness. Alice used to come out to see me, and although she got on really well with Delaney, she wasn’t really comfortable hanging out with the band, and it was quite clear that she wanted me to go home. I think she was threatened by the gypsy in me, which she saw emerging as I was hanging out with Delaney. I had a restlessness in me, which I still have, and however much I loved my roots of Ripley and Hurtwood, the road always beckoned. The idea of traveling and making music with a band of musicians in different places never stopped motivating me. At that moment, however, with the album completed, I was ready to go home.

My relationship with Alice, always something of an on/off affair, was at that time headed for the rocks, mostly because of my continuing obsession with Pattie. However hard I tried, I just could not get her out of my mind. Even though I didn’t consider that I really had any chance of ever being with her, I still thought of all my other affairs with women as being merely temporary. I was totally distracted by the idea that I could never love another woman as much as I loved Pattie.

In fact, in order to get closer to her, I had even taken up with her sister. The circumstances that led to this were curious and had happened a few months before, when Delaney & Bonnie played the Liverpool Empire, with George playing guitar. Pattie had showed up, accompanied by her younger sister Paula. After the show, when we were all back at the hotel, George, who was motivated just as much by the flesh as he was by the spirit, had taken me aside and suggested that I should spend the night with Pattie so that he could sleep with Paula. The suggestion didn’t shock me, because the prevailing morality of the time was that you just went for whatever you could get, but at the last moment, he lost his nerve and nothing happened. The end result was not the one George wanted, as I ended up spending the night with Paula instead of him.

When I got back to Hurtwood, in the spring of 1970, Alice and I had a bust-up and she went off to Glin, her Welsh family home, a manor house outside Harlech. This side of her life, the aristocratic social part, was something I never wanted to get involved in. I didn’t get it and I didn’t enjoy it. I’d go up to stay at the house, and the whole place would be full of people who just seemed to sit around all day smoking dope. I had a very strong work ethic at the time and didn’t particularly enjoy spending time with what appeared to be a bunch of freeloaders. In Alice’s absence, Paula, a surrogate Pattie, moved into Hurtwood, where I was almost immediately involved in setting up another band. It was a stopgap relationship, and I think we both knew that, but she reminded me a lot of Pattie, and for the moment I had no qualms about that.