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Eric Clapton Biography
Eric Patrick Clapp was born in Surrey, England on March 30, 1945. He was raised by his grandparents when his mother could not face bringing up an illegitimate child at the age of 16.
For his 14th birthday, Eric received an acoustic guitar. That is when he started to copy the great blues guitarists of his time note for note.
His first band was The Roosters. He played with them for 8 months until he and Tom McGuiness left to join Casey Jones and the Engineers.
In 1963, he was approached by the YardBirds who needed a replacement for their guitarist Tony Topham. He left the band after 18 months when their musical differences interfered. He went on to join the Bluesbreakers, one of Britain's top blues bands of the time. He recorded one record with them, which went on to become a classic. Clapton then went on to make numerous session appearances.
Clapton's rise to fame came in 1966 when he joined Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker to form Cream. Together, they became on of the most influential rock bands of all time. He also played the lead solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps (The Beatles White Album). Cream stayed together for 2 years before Clapton left to join Blind Faith with Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, and Rick Grech. The group was unable to stay together, although they did do an American tour before parting ways.
Clapton then joined Delaney And Bonnie in 1970. 3 months after recording Delaney And Bonnie on Tour, he left to create Eric Clapton. From there, the band altered to form Derek and The Dominos. Together with Duane Allman, they recorded perhaps on of his most famous songs: Layla. This song was directed at George Harrison's wife, Patti, with whom Clapton had become smitten. Harrison, unaware of Clapton's feelings, invited him to play at his historic Bangla Desh Concert in August of 1971.
In August of 1974, Clapton began to record again, and released 461 Ocean Boulevard. The album was a huge success, going to number 1 in the US, and number 3 in the UK. He also succeeded in winning the heart of Patti Harrison, and they eventually married in 1979.
The eighties proved to be successful for Clapton as well. All his albums sold in vast quantities, and were well received by his public. The albums that sold particularly well were Another Ticket and Money and Cigarettes. In 1985, He and Patti separated, and he went into rehab again, this time to overcome the alcohol addiction that had replaced his heroin addiction. The next year, Italian actress Lori Del Santo gave birth to Clapton's son, Conor.
Clapton continued to tour and record. The album 24 Nights was made up of his concert series at the Royal Albert hall in London. He spent the better part of 2 years on the road until August of 1990 when his manager, and 2 members of his road crew were killed in the same helicopter crash that claimed the life of Stevie Ray Vaughan.
On March 20, 1991, Clapton's only son, Conor was killed after falling over 50 stories through a window in his Mother's Manhattan apartment. A maintenance person had left it open by mistake. Conor was 4 1/2 years old.
After a time of seclusion, Clapton began to work again. He wrote the music for Rush, a film about drug addiction. In March of 1992, he taped a segment for MTV's Unplugged series, which peaked at number 2. That year, he was nominated for 9 Grammy awards, of which he won 6. One of the awards was for Best Pop Vocal Performance-male, for Tears In Heaven which was written for his son.
In 1993, he teamed up with former Cream members to perform 3 songs at the group's Rock & Roll hall of fame induction. In 1994 Clapton released From the Cradle which topped the charts and sold double platinum. It became the best-selling traditional blues album in recording history. In 1995, Clapton was honored with an MBE (Member of the British Empire)
Eric Clapton has had a tumultuous life to date. He has battled addictions, witnessed personal tragedy, and lost close friends to death and prison (drummer Jim Gordon of Derek and the Dominoes was imprisoned after convicted of murdering his mother in 1984). But he has always let his music keep him strong, always holding on to his true love- The Blues. You can bet we haven't seen the last of Eric Clapton.