Clapton: The Autobiography - The Review

Cafe Society
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All right, after the whole Zep vs. Who thread (see here) it seems that folks are interested in rock threads anchored with a bit of a clear opinion and geek-oriented context. And since I am clearly a big rock geek, and near as I can tell, we don’t have a thread on this book, I thought I would go ahead since I just finished it.

Some context:

  • No, I have not read Pattie Boyd/Harrison/Clapton’s book yet, but will get to it reasonably soon, I am sure - books like that have a way of ending up on my pile, purchased or loaned…

  • I have never been a Clapton worshipper, but have a deep respect for how integral he has been to the evolution of rock guitar. I am a Jeff Beck guy, through and through, and if I had to lean towards another Yardbird, it would be Page before Slowhand. Having said that, Sunshine of Your Love’s lead is one of the (very) small handful of leads I learned note-for-note as a teen that was seminal in my guitar development. Bottom line is that I have a deep understanding of his music and appreciate and love some of his songs, but am not goggle-eyed about Clapton is God…

Okay - the review: As Stephen King, famed author and substance abuser, reported in his review of the book in the NYTimes, the book is basically a “drunkalogue” - a testimony of Clapton’s history of substance abuse and abuse of those around him while under the influence of substances - and his subsequent recovery and attempts to live a better life. It is told in a flat tone that keeps the reader at arm’s length - other than his love for Pattie Boyd and single-sentence references to some guitars, you get the impression that photos of “Clapton: Excited,” “Clapton: Angry,” and “Clapton: Sad” would be exactly the same.

Further, it is clear that once he got huge as a 19-year-old playing with the Yardbirds and then moving on to John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers (where the whole Clapton is God thing got started), he lived an insulated life - even when he hit rock bottom with heroin and then alcohol a few years later, it was all within the context of being “Eric Clapton” - someone was always there to hold a bucket for him to puke in. There is never a sense - even while he is describing his Behind the Music moments - that he is really hitting the skids. Maybe some of that is because we all know how happily the story ends, but you never really get the sense that anyone has ever shaken him out of the feeling that all of this really is His Movie. His description of the death of his son is tragic and heartfelt, but quickly transitions to the success of the Unplugged CD that emerged. He makes one statement - although the CD cost virtually nothing to make, if you want to see the real cost, come stand at the grave of his son - that cuts through, but that is about it.

He is clearly a shy, reclusive personality and unfortunately, that is reflected in the book. The biggest regret is that there is absolutely no geekiness in it at all. As mentioned, there are the briefest of references to his guitars - this from a guy whose guitar choices over the years have caused some of the biggest ripples in the pond. One paragraph discusses the “characteristic sound” he got with the Bluesbreakers with his Les Paul and Marshall combo - one very brief freakin’ paragraph. This would be like Einstein focusing on his life and mentioning that yeah, there was this interesting equation he came up with, or Kato Kaelin writing a book and mentioning that he briefly befriended OJ.

Ultimately, while I couldn’t put it down, it was more because I could easily connect the dots with the stories I knew (as a geek) - I was always waiting for something more that never came. I would put it in the same box as the Seinfeld finale - the highly-anticipated wrapping-up of something we have welcomed into our hearts and homes, only to find that they had their own agenda and didn’t really seem to care about delivering the Big Finish. That is Clapton’s right, and on some levels it did what it was “supposed to do,” - but given the very nature of the art he shared during his career, he needn’t have worried whether a more, oh, crowd-pleasing book would’ve come across as pandering.

One last thought: having read The Police’s Andy Summers’ “One Train Later” a few months ago, there really is no comparison - Summers is brilliant writer who has led a life of self-examination, and who truly was damn near destitute at times as a journeyman player before becoming part of a Supergroup. His ability to convey what it means to stay true to his art through good times and bad, and his relationship to his guitar, is articulate, insightful and inspirational. Unlike Clapton (whom Summers was friends with - and whom Andy tells a few stories about that feed this geek’s need for fascinating guitar trivia) you don’t get the sense that Summers wrote the book insulated with a thick layer of recovered-abuser programming.

Worth reading for Clapton fans or completists who dig the 60’s or guitar gods, but it doesn’t stand on its own as a great book. Someone else will clearly have to come along and write about Clapton to get that picture…

My $.02,

WordMan - and Happy Holidays!

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Interesting review – thanks! (For saving me the trouble of reading the book, if nothing else. :wink: )

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25 Dec well up for this!! (?)l

I’ve though this thought, twice(am pissed). Clapton was always self contained (am-a-blues-man). Jeff Beck is/was the magicianc and Jimmy Page was the busiasman

Clapton’s attitude to his old(exs?) guitars >>>

Nah … I really ampissed I’m not going there.

OK…
sortof, EC doesen’t really seem to botheredrd aboutt what guitar he used
(%^&*$)spelling I’m pissed) early Yardwirds footages see him playing a Tele(!)

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Dude - I am so looking forward to you sobering up and 'splaining what the heck you mean!! :smiley:

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Wow, that was incoherent. Who would’ve thought?

I don’t think I’ll be reading his book but there was a (South Bank?) documentary on Clapton with a long interview by Melvyn Bragg. It was pretty much all about his personal life, maybe touched on his musical influences a little. For the most part he could have been a writer or football-ist. There was definitely no discussion of choice of guitar brand or amp let alone -say- string gauges. I was wondering whether Melvyn would ask a classical player those sort of questions and I think the answer is yes. It’s quite usual to hear classical string players going on about their two hundred year old “axes” why not ask Eric about Blackie? When he switched to Strats (because of Jimi one assumes) why didn’t he also copy Jimi’s habit of tuning down a semitone?

There are little (geeky) details that could explain why a bunch of Londoners managed to be ahead of the game. One I have read is that they effectively created their own lighter gauge string sets by shifting them all across (use A for bottom E etc.) and using a banjo string for the top E. Bingo - you can now bend strings all over the place, and play more controlled vibrato.

Gotta go now, back later maybe.

Happy winterval thingie.

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I’m a bit more of a Clapton fan than WordMan. I began playing guitar in 1964 because of the Beatles, but I wasn’t inspired or motivated to pursue lead guitar until I heard Fresh Cream. Like WordMan, I was particularly intrigued by Sunshine of Your Love, and the rest of Disraeli Gears. Clapton has been one of my favorite guitar players for many years.

When I read the autobiography a month ago, I had a feeling that WordMan would be disappointed in the lack of detail about guitars and other gear. I think that Small Clanger, despite his inebriation at the time, had the right idea in his post on Christmas. Clapton is just not a gear-head. I doubt that he knows or cares much about the body wood, circuitry, pickup technology or fret wire size on the guitars he has used over the years. His comment in the book Clapton’s Guitar, about the first Wayne Henderson guitar he played, is revealing. He referred to the finger board as “incredibly flat”, then wondered if that might be his imagination. A real gear-geek would have more likely asked what the radius was, or even suggested that it was a 16 or 20 inch radius. I get the impression that Clapton loves guitars, collects them to an extent, and has some strong likes and dislikes, but that he’s not into the geeky details of the instruments he likes.

I also think that he views himself as a singer/guitarist, not as the guitar-god some of us might view him as. His body of work is a mainly a collection of songs, not of guitar solos, and to millions of his fans, he is a singer who plays guitar and writes songs.

I think that Clapton and his editor may have made a conscious decision to avoid a lot of technical detail in the book. While the details of what components were chosen to build Blackie and why would interest a small subset of likely readers, such arcana would bore most Clapton fans.

I was actually surprised by the amount of personal emotion that EC revealed in the book. His feelings about his parents and grandparents and his illegitimacy and his long anguish over his feelings about Patty and George were discussed pretty well, in my opinion, particularly for someone as private as Clapton appears to be.

The most impressive thing about the book, for me, was that it appears to have been truly written by the man himself. I watched a long interview with Clapton on Larry King, and the words and voice in the book are the same as what came out of his mouth on the King show. For better or for worse, I think that he spilled his guts to the extent that he could in this book, without a ghostwriter. I enjoyed it. Now I need to read the Andy Summers book.

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All great points and a great counterpoint to my comments, **Crotalus ** - thanks for adding. I do agree with your portrayal of Clapton as more of a singer/songwriter/player vs. a pure guitarist in his own mind (although he spends about as little time on the power of his songs as he does on guitar trivia) and I agree with your feeling that he wrote it himself and did reveal a lot about his upbringing in doing so. I stand by my impression that the writing was flat - the connections he makes between his childhood traumas and his later behavior comes across as the result of years of therapy and AA meetings. Nothing wrong with that of course - but it impacts the tone of the book.

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I got this yesterday from my parents–though I somehow put the Large Print edition on my Amazon list. I’ll add my thoughts when I get there in the stack.

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Heh. The large-print edition of Clapton’s autobiography.

twicks, who, though utterly reliant on reading glasses, hasn’t yet resorted to “large print.” :stuck_out_tongue:

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Does he say anything about Robert Johnson?

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Yes. He discusses the emotional impact that Johnson’s singing and playing had on him, and the affinity he felt for delta blues from the first listen. He doesn’t go much beyond what I’ve read before in interviews.

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IIRC (it’s been several months since I read it, and have since given the book to a friend), he does quite a bit more than mention Robert Johnson. He refers to him rather often and (once again, IIRC) gives the impression that RJ is the guitarist that had the most impact on him and his playing, and that in a sense he had been more or less trying to channel RJ in his (Clapton’s) playing for most of his career. It appeared to me that Johnson is the guitarist for whom Clapton has had the most respect - a respect perhaps even bordering on awe.

I agree with the assessment that Clapton probably left out (or had edited out) detailed information regarding the technical aspects of his playing and his instruments due to what was almost certainly regarded as lack of interest on the part of the majority of his reading public. I would imagine most of the purchasers of this book are much more interested in his offstage life and would understand little about the technical details of his playing (and equipment), and that such information would likely bore them silly, out of a lack of understanding if nothing else.

Regarding the question as to whether his indeed wrote the book himself, I understand from what I’ve read here and there that the book was originally to have been ghostwritten but Clapton was dissatisfied with the direction of it (he is said to have felt it blamed his difficulties too much on others) and so he scrapped the ghostwritten version and wrote the book himself. He also mentions in the book having done quite a bit of work on it by computer while on tour in Japan. In a recent thread on this subject, one of the posters commented that Clapton has a reputation as a bookworm, and that since most writers are also avid readers it isn’t surprising that he would be able to “string a sentence together”.

Hope this helps.

And thanks also to Wordman. I admire your knowledge on these subjects and your skill in expressing it. It’s always interesting to hear what you have to say in these threads.