Page 39 - Classic Rock (February 2020)
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ZZ Top Eric Clapton With
Derek & The Dominos
1970 was a strange, in-betweener embraced a new, more mellifluous it gained considerably more traction than Layla
year. The 1960s and psychedelia style of performance, he’d also could manage. Live Cream reached No.4 in the UK,
were over and The Beatles were on actively renounced his guitar-god and is now regarded as a classic display of the band
their last legs. T.Rex and the glam status, begun with John Mayall and at an early peak of their powers, playing extended,
revolution were just around the corner (Ride redoubled with Cream. “By the time we went to take-no-hostages versions of songs from their first
A White Swan came out in October 1970 but America, we’d play half-hour solos in the middle album, Fresh Cream, including N.S.U., Sleepy Time
didn’t peak in the chart until the following year). of anything,” Clapton recalled. “We’d do it in any Time and Rollin’ And Tumblin’. The intensity and
Rock was in a good place. Led Zeppelin were song. We got into a lot of self-indulgence and a lot sheer bravado of the playing is insane, making the
rampant, topping the album charts in both of easily-pleased people went along with that.” album an early marker in a hard-core style of
the UK and US twice (with II and III); Free were, Be that as it may, when Polydor Records released improvisational rock performance that has truly
for sure, All Right Now; and Deep Purple’s In Rock Live Cream – a collection of old performances never been bettered.
had finally given Richie Blackmore’s boys recorded in San Francisco in 1968 – in April 1970 But you could see Clapton’s point. Cream had
a substantial hit after three previous albums that already taken that line of attack about as far as it
had all failed to chart. could go. Others would follow – notably the
The Allman
As one of the pioneers of the genre, Clapton American four-piece Mountain, whose 1970 debut
Brothers Band
should have been sitting pretty. Instead he had Climbing! was indeed climbing the US chart. But for
made himself unmarketable. Battered by the Clapton, it was time to reinvent himself – a trick
split-up of Blind Faith the year before that Bowie would later take to another level.
– a ‘supergroup’ that had been undone, as Both Layla and The Man Who Sold The World were
Clapton saw it, by hype and hubris – he had albums that would shape the course of rock over
insisted from the outset that this new band the decade that was just dawning – and far beyond.
should be billed as anonymously as possible. Clapton and Bowie were outliers who, in their
Hence Derek & The Dominos, different ways, were both ahead of the curve in
with Clapton’s name strictly 1970. The industry was still figuring out how to
kept out of all sleeve artwork market them. And rock audiences had yet to
and promotional materials. So retune their ears to the different approaches that
successful was the ruse that, for both were applying to a broader genre that was
a time, people simply didn’t still under construction. For all the brilliance of
GETTY x3 know that Layla was by Clapton. their work that has been revealed over time, 1970
just wasn’t their moment.
Not only had Clapton
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